ISO 22301 vs ISO 27001: continuity and information security compared, and when you need both

ISO 22301 vs ISO 27001: the short answer

Choose ISO/IEC 27001 when your customers want to know that their information is safe with you. Choose ISO 22301 when they want to know that your service will still be there, at an agreed level and within an agreed time, after a fire, a flood, a ransomware attack or a supplier failure. Choose both when a single contract asks both questions, which is common in outsourcing, cloud services and financial services.

Both are management-system standards with the same clause pattern from context to improvement, audited by accredited certification bodies on a three-year cycle. What differs is what they protect, the analysis at their centre and the proof an auditor expects. Sterling does not certify either; an accredited certification body audits and decides.

What each standard protects

ISO 22301: the delivery of products and services

ISO 22301:2019, amended in 2024, sets requirements for a business continuity management system (BCMS). Its subject is the organisation's ability to keep delivering at a predefined capacity during a disruption, whatever the cause. It starts with a business impact analysis that ranks activities, sets the time within which each must resume and lists what each relies on; strategies, plans and a response structure follow, and exercises test them. A revision is at committee-draft stage, with no publication date announced.

ISO/IEC 27001: information and the systems that hold it

ISO/IEC 27001:2022, also amended in 2024, sets requirements for an information security management system (ISMS). Its subject is information: who can see it, whether it can be trusted and whether it is there when needed. At its centre is a risk assessment of loss of confidentiality, integrity and availability, followed by treatment decisions, a comparison with the 93 controls of Annex A and a Statement of Applicability recording what applies and why.

A payroll bureau can hold perfectly secured data and still miss every client's pay date after a flood at its only office.

Side by side: method, evidence, assessment and output

For both, the accreditation body should be recognised through Global ACI, which replaced the IAF MLA and ILAC MRA on 1 January 2026.

Where they overlap, and where they do not

The meeting point is availability. ISO/IEC 27001 treats loss of availability as an information security risk, and the 2022 edition added Annex A control 5.30, ICT readiness for business continuity, so that systems can be recovered when the business needs them. ISO/IEC 27031:2025 gives guidance on preparing ICT to support business continuity. Backups, replicated data and a tested disaster recovery arrangement serve both standards.

Beyond that point the two part company.

• Only ISO 22301 requires a BIA across all prioritised activities, not only ICT; continuity strategies for people, premises, suppliers and equipment; a response structure with authority to invoke plans; warning and communication procedures; and an exercise programme with post-exercise reports.
• Only ISO/IEC 27001 requires a risk assessment of confidentiality and integrity as well as availability, a Statement of Applicability, and controls such as access management, cryptography, secure development and data leakage prevention where the risks call for them.

So neither certificate stands in for the other. An ISO/IEC 27001 certificate shows planned ICT recovery, not that a call centre can move to another site within four hours with trained staff; an ISO 22301 certificate shows recoverable operations, not protected information.

If you already hold one and plan to add the other, the guide on running ISO 22301 and ISO/IEC 27001 as one system covers the shared clauses, one internal audit and management review, and the combined certification audit.

Who asks for which

Security questionnaires and tender panels usually name ISO/IEC 27001, because their first worry is the data a supplier will handle.

Continuity questions come from a different direction. A bank outsourcing customer service wants to know how long the service can be down; insurers ask what an outage would cost and how the business would recover. In the European Union, the Digital Operational Resilience Act, in application since 17 January 2025, requires financial entities to withstand, respond to and recover from ICT disruptions, and the pressure reaches the providers they depend on. Such rules set their own requirements rather than naming a certificate, yet ISO 22301 gives the provider a structured, independently audited answer.

If you are not yet sure whether any certification is needed, the ISO/IEC 27001 decision guide works through who asks, how binding the request is and when to wait. If the request is for a SOC 2 report, see ISO/IEC 27001 vs SOC 2.

Which one, or both? A decision table

Three misreadings that cost buyers time

Treating control 5.30 as a business continuity system

The control asks for ICT readiness, driven by continuity requirements. It does not ask for continuity plans for people, premises or suppliers, a response team or an exercise programme. A client who asked for business continuity will notice the difference.

Calling a disaster recovery plan a BCP

A plan that restores servers answers part of one ISO/IEC 27001 control and a small part of ISO 22301. Certification auditors for ISO 22301 look for a BIA that sets the recovery times the IT plan then has to meet, and for exercises that tested the whole response. See how to run a business impact analysis and business continuity exercises.

Choosing on effort instead of on the request

If a client asked for continuity evidence, an ISMS certificate chosen because it looked lighter will not close the question. Read the request first; the effort follows from it.

ISO 22301 vs ISO/IEC 27001: questions buyers ask