On 1 January 2026 the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC) merged to form Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated, generally referred to as Global ACI. IAF ceased to operate as a separate organisation on that date.
If you hold an accredited certificate, the practical answer is that nothing about its validity changes. The longer answer is worth understanding, because your documentation probably still refers to a body that no longer exists.
What merged, and why
IAF operated the multilateral recognition arrangement covering management systems certification, product certification, personnel certification and related schemes. ILAC operated the mutual recognition arrangement covering testing and calibration laboratories and inspection bodies.
The two organisations had overlapping membership, parallel structures and adjacent scopes. The merger consolidates them into a single organisation administering a single arrangement.
The arrangements
The former IAF MLA and ILAC MRA are now administered as the Global ACI Multilateral Recognition Arrangement. Existing accredited certifications and accredited results remain recognised without interruption — there is no re-application, no regrant, and no gap.
In practice this means a certificate issued under an accreditation body that was an IAF MLA signatory continues to be recognised internationally under the Global ACI MRA.
What you should actually do
Three things, none of them urgent and all of them worth doing before someone notices for you:
- Update your own references. Marketing material, tender responses, supplier questionnaires and internal documentation that cite “IAF MLA” are now out of date. Anyone assessing you carefully in a regulated procurement will notice, and it costs nothing to be current.
- Check regional references too. Material citing the regional groupings — APAC, IAAC, EA — alongside IAF should be reviewed, as regional structures are being aligned under the merged organisation.
- Confirm your accreditation body’s status. Signatory status carried across the merger, but scope is per accreditation body and per standard, and it is published. Checking it is a two-minute task.
The more useful habit
Whatever your certificate says, the thing worth doing periodically is confirming that the conformity assessment body which issued it still holds accreditation for the standard and scope on the certificate. That information is published by the accreditation body in a public directory, and it is the check a serious customer will perform on you.
It is also the check worth performing on your own suppliers. A certificate is a claim about a point in time; accreditation directories are current.
A note on who appears in those directories
Accreditation directories list conformity assessment bodies — the organisations that perform audits and issue certificates. They do not list consultants, coordinators or brokers, because those organisations do not hold accreditation.
If you are working with an intermediary who arranges certification, ask them to name the accredited CAB they propose to appoint, and check that body in the directory before you commit. An intermediary who will not name the accredited body is the one to be careful of.