Comparing SA8000:2014 and SA8000:2026
On January 1, 2026, SAI published the SA8000:2026 Standard for Decent Work, replacing the previous version. This post explains the key changes in the SA8000:2026 Standard.
During the first quarter of 2026, SAI is updating supporting documents for the SA8000 Certification Program, including assessment tools and certification thresholds. We will share more information about the changes to the Certification Program once those supporting documents are available.
What certified organizations should know: SA8000:2026 is now available and certified organizations are required to transition to maintain their certificates (see the transition timeline). This post covers significant changes to the criteria. More information will be published on our website soon about changes to the Certification Program.
What has stayed the same?
The intent of SA8000 is to provide a practical and auditable standard to advance the rights of workers around the world. This intent has remained the same since its first publication and continued to guide SAI’s work in this most recent revision.
While it may appear that the criteria are entirely different in SA8000:2026, the expectations for organizations have not significantly changed. The human rights that the Standard seeks to protect remain the same, and organizations must still develop and implement a robust management system to ensure decent work. Organizations that meet the SA8000:2014 criteria are likely already meeting most, if not all, SA8000:2026 criteria. All organizations must carefully review the new criteria and many will need to update some aspects of their system. However, most organizations will be able to maintain their certification or alignment with minimal disruption.
What certified organizations should know: Organizations that fully meet SA8000:2014 criteria likely already meet most SA8000:2026 criteria, especially in the Decent Work section. Thoroughly review the requirements against your organization’s management systems to check for needed updates.
Why revise the Standard?
If the expectations for organizations have not significantly changed, what has? Standard revisions are not about moving the goalposts. Rather, they focus on integrating learnings and experience to better address challenges and meet their mission. In this SA8000 revision, SAI’s goal was to modernize and evolve the SA8000 Standard, increase transparency, and drive more tangible impacts, to ensure that SA8000 will continue to serve as a leading benchmark for ethical workplaces at all levels of the value chain. Our main objectives included:
- Global Vision: Guide public, civil society, and private sector actors of all types, and at all levels of global value chains, in their efforts to promote, protect, and advocate for workers’ rights.
- Positive Framing and Comprehensive Approach: Describe a positive vision for the future of decent work, to be upheld by governments and businesses, emphasizing performance and practical implementation.
- Progressive Scoring: Enable a scoring methodology for evaluation that will allow organizations to understand their current performance and maturity and how they can improve.
- Refining and Clarifying Management Systems: Add more clarity and structure, ensure the requirements are sufficiently flexible, and align with other international management system standards.
- Clarifying Organizational Responsibility: Align with UN Guiding Principles for Business and Human Rights (UNGP) frameworks for organizational responsibility to respect human rights.
- Addressing Emerging Challenges and Opportunities: Evolve the Standard in response to changing ways of working and risks.
More detail on the objectives is available on our SA8000 Revision FAQ page.
What’s new in 2026?
1. Foundational Criteria
Foundational Criteria establish the overarching expectations for organizations applying the SA8000 Standard. They set the baseline requirements that any organization is expected to comply with as a prerequisite for fulfilling other criteria in the Standard. The purpose of the Foundational Criteria is to clearly express cross-cutting requirements, such as compliance with laws and regulations and respect for the Standard’s principles. In doing so, they help resolve some of the confusion regarding the Standard’s relationship to legal requirements and make it possible to directly assess whether organizations are meeting the intent of the Standard.
What certified organizations should know: Foundational Criteria clarify core expectations of the Standard and will be included in SA8000:2026 audits.
2. Principles
SA8000:2026 introduces principles, in addition to criteria, in both the Management Systems and Decent Work sections. Principles in both sections are meant to guide interpretation and understanding of the criteria; they do not establish requirements for individual organizations.
Management System Principles are the qualities of an effective management system for decent work. They are cross-cutting ideals that guide the development and implementation of criteria in the management system section and the organization’s approach to ensuring decent work in general.
Decent Work Principles are the fundamental human rights that organizations must respect, and which governments have a duty to protect. It is important to distinguish between the principles and criteria in this section—principles are not requirements for organizations and cannot be assessed. Instead, they serve to provide context for understanding the intent and purpose behind the requirements (i.e., criteria).
What certified organizations should know: Principles are not requirements and cannot be audited. However, it is important to review and internalize them as a guide for implementation and understanding.
3. Management Systems Structure and Clarity
SA8000:2014 introduced the Social Fingerprint management system structure, which established requirements for specific management system processes. However, for many organizations, these requirements were not applicable or not clear enough to support effective implementation.
SA8000:2026 fully reorganizes and revamps management system requirements into an intuitive step-by-step process that better aligns with other international management system frameworks, such as ISO Annex SL and the OECD Due Diligence Guidance. In doing so, we have also expanded the Management Systems criteria, again to better align with other international standards, and to aid organizations in understanding the full expectations.
The Management Systems section is also placed first, before Decent Work Principles and Criteria, to emphasize the foundational nature of management systems for achieving decent work outcomes. The management system is not a sidenote or a subordinate element of SA8000, it is integral to protecting human rights of workers.
Management Systems
| 2014 | 2026 |
|---|---|
| 9.1 Policies, Procedures and Records | M1: Leadership Commitment, Involvement and Integration M4: Policy Commitment and Coherence M6: Objectives, Planning and Resources |
| 9.2 Social Performance Team | M1: Leadership Commitment, Involvement and Integration M2: Worker Involvement and Integration |
| 9.3 Identification and Assessment of Risks | M5: Context, Impacts and Risks |
| 9.4 Monitoring | M9: Monitoring and Grievance Mechanisms |
| 9.5 Internal Involvement and Communication | M7: Awareness and Implementation |
| 9.6 Complaint Management and Resolution | M9: Monitoring and Grievance Mechanisms |
| 9.7 External Verification and Stakeholder Engagement | M3: Stakeholder Involvement and Integration M8: Integrity and Transparency |
| 9.8 Corrective and Preventative Actions | M6: Objectives, Planning and Resources M7: Awareness and Implementation M10: Strategic Analysis, Review and Continual Improvement |
| 9.9 Training and Capacity Building | M7: Awareness and Implementation |
| 9.10 Management of Suppliers and Contractors | All |
Management System structure in SA8000:2026.
What certified organizations should know: Management system criteria have been expanded. While organizations may have many elements already in place, review this section in detail to confirm your organization meets all requirements.
4. Decent Work Structure and Criteria
The Decent Work section has been reorganized and re-titled to emphasize the positive outcomes the Standard aims to achieve, rather than the negative impacts to be avoided. This focus is not only cosmetic; when we focus on what NOT to do, it can be hard to understand what organizations should be aiming for instead. Reframing the clauses in terms of the intended outcomes serves as a reminder to organizations that their responsibility is not simply to comply with requirements, but to build systems that respect the broad spectrum of workers’ rights.
The most significant new addition in this section is the Privacy clause. This clause has been introduced in response to increasing risks to workers’ privacy posed by technology, though it also encompasses more traditional risks to privacy as well.
The reorganization also resulted in some 2014 criteria being relocated to new clauses and in two clauses being combined. See the table below for details.
Decent Work
| 2014 | 2026 |
|---|---|
| 1. Child Labour | D1: Protection of Children and Young Workers |
| 2. Forced or Compulsory Labour | D3: Free and Fair Recruitment, Employment, and Termination |
| 3. Health and Safety | D6: Health and Safety |
| 4. Freedom of Association & Right to Collective Bargaining | D2: Freedom of Association and the Right to Collective Bargaining |
| 5. Discrimination | D5: Freedom from Discrimination |
| 6. Disciplinary Practices | D3: Free and Fair Recruitment, Employment, and Termination |
| 7. Working Hours | D4: Decent Hours, Wages and Benefits |
| 8. Remuneration | D4: Decent Hours, Wages and Benefits |
| D7: Privacy (new!) |
Decent Work Elements in the SA8000:2026 Standard.
What certified organizations should know: Most of the decent work requirements are consistent with the previous Standard, though organizations may need to strengthen certain processes to fulfill the new, positive framing. The exception is the introduction of privacy criteria (D7)—organizations will likely need to dedicate resources to ensure their collection and use of workers’ data are aligned.
5. Outcomes-based criteria
In some areas SA8000:2014 prescribed organizational processes without being specific about the desired outcomes. This limited the Standard’s flexibility, making it less applicable for certain organizations, such as very small ones. SA8000:2026 avoids, to the extent possible, prescribing how organizations must meet criteria, instead describing the outcomes that must be achieved.
For example, SA8000:2014 stated that the organization should not use labor-only contracting and other indirect employment schemes, due to the high risks these types of arrangements typically introduce. SA8000:2026 does not prohibit any specific employment models, instead describing the characteristics of decent work that must be met, regardless of the employment model used. For example, use of alternative employment models must be measured and evidence-based; aligned with the Standard; supportive of workers’ right to a decent standard of living, safe and healthy; and transparent, predictable, and convenient to personnel (Criterion D4.13).
What certified organizations should know: In most cases, these changes should not affect organizations that fully conform with the intent and requirements of SA8000:2014. But be sure to review carefully to ensure your organization can demonstrate that it meets the re-framed criteria.
6. Clarification of risk-based approach and responsibility
Previous versions of the Standard focused on an organization’s responsibility to its own personnel, with separate requirements for supply chain due diligence. While the intention was always that organizations should apply a risk-based approach (focusing on the greatest risks to workers, whether those are in the supply chain or their own operations), this was not clear from the previous structure.
SA8000:2026 makes explicit that the scope of an organization’s management system must encompass all personnel whose rights it may impact through its operations or business relationships (not just those employed by the organization), and efforts must follow a risk-based approach—prioritizing the most severe and likeliest risks. The requirements for value chain due diligence are embedded throughout the management system, rather than segregated in a separate section.
SA8000:2026 also explicitly integrates the UNGP framework for identifying an organization’s relative responsibility for addressing risks that it either causes, contributes to, or is directly linked to. These updates improve the Standard’s applicability to organizations at all levels of the value chain and increase alignment with human rights due diligence frameworks.
What certified organizations should know: Organizations with extensive value chain risks may need to shift resources to align with the clarified risk-based approach. All organizations should update their risk assessment according to the new criteria and be ready to demonstrate how they identify, prioritize, and manage risk (both internal and external).
Learn More
Training on SA8000:2026 is now available! Explore our offerings:
- SA8000 Introduction and Basic Auditor Training – Our flagship auditor training is already updated for SA8000:2026. Find a training near you.
- SA8000 Auditor Upgrade Training – Already completed the SA8000 Basic Auditor Training on the previous Standard? Take the online upgrade course to keep your certificate up to date.
- Getting Started with SA8000:2026 and Due Diligence (+ Guided Self-Assessment) – For companies interested in understanding SA8000 requirements and due diligence expectations broadly. This online course includes a guided self-assessment so you can assess how your company aligns with international standards of decent work.
- What certified organizations should know: All certified organizations must complete this training and self-assessment by December 31, 2026. More information.
The first draft of the SA8000:2026 Indicator Library is also available. This is a living, non-normative document to support understanding and interpretation of Standard requirements. Learn more and access the indicators now.
