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ISO 27001 · 6 min read · Updated 2026-06-04

ISO 27001 vs SOC 2: Which Do You Need?

ISO 27001 and SOC 2 are the two most requested security credentials. They overlap heavily but are not the same thing, and which you need usually comes down to where your customers are.

The core difference

ISO 27001 is an international certification of a management system: you either hold the certificate or you do not. SOC 2 is an attestation report written by a CPA firm describing how well your controls meet the Trust Services Criteria.

One is a pass/fail certificate; the other is a detailed report a customer reads.

Audience and geography

SOC 2 is dominant in the United States. ISO 27001 is the global standard and is more commonly expected in Europe, the UK, Australia, and Asia.

If you sell internationally, ISO 27001 travels further; if your buyers are mostly US enterprises, they may specifically ask for SOC 2.

Can you do both?

Yes, and many companies do. The control sets overlap by a large margin, so once you have built the evidence for one, the marginal effort to add the other is much smaller. Most compliance platforms support running both in parallel.

ISO 27001 policy templates

Use these starting documents to turn the control into evidence. Adapt each template to your scope, systems, legal obligations and actual operating process.

AI use and governance policyUse for ISO 42001, AI governance, employee AI use, data handling, human review, and AI supplier risk.Incident response policyUse for ISO 27001 A.5.24 to A.5.28, SOC 2 incident response, PCI DSS 12.10, and security event handling.Information security roles and responsibilitiesUse for ISO 27001 A.5.2, A.5.3 and A.5.4, defining security roles, segregation of duties, management responsibilities, and SOC 2 organisational controls.Password and authentication policyUse for ISO 27001 A.5.17, A.8.5, SOC 2 Security, and PCI DSS requirement 8 authentication controls.
Open the control-to-policy map

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FAQ

Is ISO 27001 harder than SOC 2?
They are comparable in effort. ISO 27001 puts more emphasis on a formal management system and continual improvement; SOC 2 emphasises the control descriptions in the report.
Should a startup get ISO 27001 or SOC 2 first?
Follow your customers. US buyers often ask for SOC 2; international and enterprise buyers tend to ask for ISO 27001.

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