27001cost

The fees outside the day rate

Day rate times days is not the whole price. Public price lists add an application fee, a yearly certificate fee, admin hours, travel time and expenses. For 50 people, the fees of one Swiss list add about CHF 1,615 in 3 years, and its surcharge for information security adds CHF 2,040-4,080 more.

The 5 kinds of fees

  1. One-off fees. Application, registration or review of the application. Often scaled by headcount.
  2. Yearly fees. For the certificate, the listing in the body's register or the use of its mark. Charged each year of the cycle.
  3. Admin hours. Project or programme management, preparing the certification decision. Billed per hour or as a fixed fee.
  4. Travel. Travel time per hour, mileage, trains, flights and hotels. Often "as incurred", with no cap.
  5. Extras. Extra certificates for sites or languages, changes of name or address, extra time when documents arrive late, follow-up audits.

Add the fees to your quotes

It adds every fee to the 3-year total.

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Germany: the TÜV Saar price list

TÜV Saar publishes its prices. The audit day for ISO/IEC 27001 costs €1,590 and includes preparation and reporting. These lines come on top, plus VAT:

Fee lines, TÜV Saar price list from 2026-03-01
LinePriceUnit
Auditor travel time Reisezeiten pro Stunde 85 € / h €85 per hour
Travel by car Fahrten mit PKW pro Kilometer 0,85 € / km €0.85 per km
Rail, flights, hotels and other costs Fahrten mit Bahn 1. Klasse / Flüge / Hotelübernachtungen / Sonstige: wie angefallen at cost as incurred
Project management: application review, certification decision, admin Projektmanagement: Sonstige Tätigkeiten wie Antragsprüfung, Vorbereitung der Zertifizierungsentscheidung, administrative Tätigkeiten, Std. 95 €95 per hour
Extra effort: late planning documents, checking corrective actions Mehraufwand bei nicht rechtzeitig eingereichten Planungsunterlagen [...] Verifizierung der wirksamen Umsetzung systematischer Korrekturmaßnahmen, Std. 195 €195 per hour
Extra site certificate Zertifikat / Standortzertifikat, Stück 75 €75 each
Certificate copy or extra language Zertifikat / Kopie, Stück 75 €75 each
Certificate change (new name, new address) Zertifikat / Änderung, Stück 35 €35 each

Example: an auditor who drives 150 km

2 hours each way is 4 hours of travel time at €85, plus 300 km at €0.85. That is €595 per visit before any hotel. Stage 1, Stage 2 and 2 surveillance audits make 4 visits: about €2,380 in 3 years. A remote audit removes this line.

Switzerland: the SQS price list

SQS bills audit work at CHF 265 per hour. It adds a one-off registration fee and a yearly fee for the certificate, both by headcount. For complex schemes, information security included, it adds CHF 15-30 per hour.

SQS fees by people in the organisation, December 2025
PeopleOne-off registrationYearly fee3 years
1-5 CHF 220 CHF 100 CHF 520
16-25 CHF 350 CHF 150 CHF 800
46-65 CHF 600 CHF 250 CHF 1,350
86-125 CHF 1,000 CHF 350 CHF 2,050
176-275 CHF 1,600 CHF 550 CHF 3,250
426-625 CHF 2,200 CHF 750 CHF 4,450

Other SQS lines:

  • Application review: CHF 265 up to 65 people, CHF 350 above.
  • Travel: CHF 120 per hour, CHF 0.80 per km, expenses as incurred.
  • Each extra certificate: CHF 100.

Example: 50 people on the SQS list

Registration CHF 600, application review CHF 265 and 3 yearly fees of CHF 250: CHF 1,615 in fees. The cycle has about 17 audit days, or 136 hours. If the surcharge for information security applies, it adds CHF 2,040-4,080. That is about €3,961-6,172 on top of the day rate.

UK fees: before day 1 and every year

A published quote from a large UKAS-accredited body lists these fees:

  • Before the first audit day: a £365 application fee and £1,162 for programme management, £1,527 in total.
  • Each later year: a £599 management fee, plus £149 for each extra legal entity on the certificate.
  • A group with 5 entities pays £1,344 a year in fees alone, before the surveillance day.

See that quote checked. A Slovak public contract with a large body adds €250 per year to register the certificate with the accreditation body.

Questions that bring the fees out

  1. List every fee outside the audit days, for each of the 3 years.
  2. Do you charge travel time? At what rate? Is there a cap per visit?
  3. Is there a surcharge for information security, or a fee per legal entity or site?
  4. What do a follow-up audit, a postponement or a cancellation cost?
  5. How long does the contract bind us, and what does it cost to leave early?