Win Buyers Abroad: Compliance for US Companies Expanding

• Done for you, end to end

  We write the policies, set up the controls and evidence, run the internal audit and coordinate the independent audit. You deal with one team from first call to final report.

• Simple and quick

  A free gap assessment, then one plan with dates from day one. Effivity, our GRC automation platform, is included to keep the evidence moving.

• 8,100+ client engagements

  In 60+ countries over 20+ years, with experts who bring 30+ years of experience.

• Under US$10,000, all-inclusive

  For most start-ups and SMEs: SOC 2, ISO 27001, ISO 42001, HIPAA or ISO 9001, including the independent audit. A fixed quote follows a free gap assessment.

The outcome. One team across borders, from first call to certificate.

1. Free gap assessment. Your evidence measured against the standard and the foreign customer's clauses. 2. One control set, mapped. Policies, risk assessment and procedures written once, mapped to each standard. 3. Evidence. Held in Effivity, Sterling's GRC automation platform. 4. Internal audit. Consulting and auditing are always separated: the people who consult never audit you. 5. External body. We coordinate scoping and audit logistics with the accredited certification body, or the CPA firm for SOC 2. 6. Staying current. Surveillance audits and recertification kept routine.

Every Sterling consulting engagement comes with the following, so you are not buying extras to get to the finish line:

• Effivity, Sterling's GRC automation platform, with a full-year subscription, to run your controls, evidence, tasks and audits in one place.
• Sterling Academy: preferential course access, with complimentary awareness training for your people.
• Internal auditor training for your audit team, as applicable to your standard.
• For information-security engagements, a vulnerability assessment.

These are part of the engagement, not a separate purchase. The details depend on the standard you are working toward, which we confirm during the free gap assessment.

Consulting and auditing are always separated: the people who consult never audit you. That keeps your internal audit objective and protects the independence of the CPA firm, Qualified Security Assessor or certification body that performs the final step.

Behind this are 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries over 20+ years, led by experts with 30+ years of experience.

What the fee covers, and what it doesn't:

• It is the fee for your first SOC 2 report or your first certification only.
• Annual work is always additional and billed the following year: later SOC 2 report periods, and ISO surveillance and recertification audits.
• It assumes a typical start-up or SME scope: one product or service and one main location.
• Larger or multi-site scopes get a fixed quote after the gap assessment.
• PCI DSS is quoted separately: a fixed quote follows a free gap assessment.

^[1] Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, May 2025: 15-1212 Information Security Analysts, national annual median wage. US Bureau of Labor Statistics. accessed October 23, 2026.

The outcome. Your first overseas deal closes on evidence its buyer recognizes, built on what you already hold. Sterling brings 20+ years of practice, 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries, experts with 30+ years of experience and a 100% success and on-time completion record, with offices in the US, the UK, the Middle East and Asia.

The US pipeline is healthy; then a Frankfurt bank, a London insurer, a Gulf telecom or a Singapore marketplace joins it. Your SOC 2 report still helps, but their procurement often names ISO/IEC 27001, sends a DPA under European law and wants to know how your AI is governed. US teams meet this through:

• One large foreign customer whose vendor policy names a standard you lack.
• A reseller or distributor that needs a certificate to sell you on.
• A local entity or first hires abroad, bringing local data and contracts.
• An AI feature that European or UK buyers must account for under their own rules.

The outcome. You answer each region in the form its procurement system files. The patterns below are Sterling's experience, not a rule for every contract.

• ISO/IEC 27001. One international standard; an accredited certification body audits and certifies, and Sterling does not. The same certificate serves every region.
• SOC 2. The SOC 2 report is issued by a US-licensed CPA firm, as AICPA standards require^[1]. Foreign buyers often accept it as support while naming ISO 27001.
• PCI DSS. A Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) performs the assessment and Report on Compliance where one is required; for SAQ-eligible merchants and service providers we prepare and support the SAQ.

The outcome. One control set, documented once, mapped to every audience. Separate regional programs are the costliest mistake.

1. Build the ISO 27001 management system on your SOC 2 work. Access, change, logging, incident response and vendor oversight carry over; ISO 27001 adds the risk method, Statement of Applicability, internal audit and management review. 2. Treat privacy as a layer. DPA answers must match what your product really does with personal data; see the GDPR hub. 3. Add ISO/IEC 42001 only if you ship AI. 4. Add PCI DSS or ISO 9001 when a named customer requires it. They follow sector, not geography.

We sequence the work against the signature closest to you; SOC 2 vs ISO 27001 compares the first two.

The outcome. You know which is a standard you choose and which is law that may reach you.

• ISO/IEC 42001. A voluntary AI management system standard; an accredited certification body certifies. See the ISO 42001 hub.
• EU AI Act, Regulation (EU) 2024/1689. Law, enforced by European authorities. As the Commission's AI Act Service Desk presents Article 2, it applies to providers placing AI systems on the EU market wherever they are established, and to third-country providers and deployers where the system's output is used in the Union^[2]. A US company with no EU presence can be in scope.

ISO 42001 certification does not equal AI Act compliance, and obligations depend on how your system is classified. Application dates have been subject to amendment proposals, so we state none; check the current text or take legal advice. See the EU AI Act hub.

The outcome. Shorter privacy reviews. The European Data Protection Board's guidelines explain that Article 3(2) can reach a controller or processor outside the Union when processing relates to offering goods or services to people in the Union or monitoring their behavior there^[3]. Whether that covers you is a legal question for counsel. Keep a current data map and subprocessor list; neither ISO 27001 nor SOC 2 makes you GDPR compliant, but both supply the security evidence privacy questionnaires look for.

The outcome. A dated plan you can share with the foreign buyer. These are Sterling's planning ranges for one main service at one main location, not guarantees; the certification body sets its calendar.

While you wait. Share the plan, your SOC 2 report and policies under NDA, a completed questionnaire, an AI governance summary if relevant, and a precise answer on data location and subprocessors. Never promise a certificate date someone else controls.

A SOC 2 engagement has one deliverable that no consultant can hand you: the report. The SOC 2 report is issued by a US-licensed CPA firm, as AICPA standards require^[1]. What Sterling does is make sure you get there ready, and that nothing between today and the report lands on your desk.

With Sterling, you deal with one team from start to finish. We coordinate:

• a readiness review and a gap assessment against the Trust Services Criteria;
• the policies, procedures and controls you need, written for how your company actually works;
• evidence collection, so the examination does not become a scramble;
• an internal audit before the examiner arrives, carried out by people who did not advise you on the controls;
• the Type 1 or Type 2 path that fits your deal timeline, and the examination itself, including scheduling, requests and follow-ups.

Our experts bring 30+ years of experience, and the firm has completed 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries over 20+ years. You get a single plan, a single point of contact and a clear view of what happens next.

^[1] SOC (System and Organization Controls) Suite of Services. AICPA & CIMA. accessed October 23, 2026.

ISO management system standards such as ISO/IEC 27001, ISO/IEC 42001 and ISO 9001 are certified by an accredited certification body, not by a consultant^[1]. Sterling never certifies. The certificate carries the name of the body that issued it, and that independence is what makes it credible to your buyers.

What Sterling does is prepare your company so that the certification body's audit goes smoothly. We coordinate:

• a gap assessment against the standard;
• the management system itself: scope, risk assessment, policies, procedures and records, sized for your company;
• training for your people and an internal audit before the certification audit;
• management review and corrective actions;
• the certification audit process, from choosing an accredited body to closing any findings.

Consulting and auditing are always separated. The people who consult never audit you, so the internal audit is a genuine test and the certification body's audit is independent.

Sterling has completed 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries over 20+ years, and our experts bring 30+ years of experience.

^[1] About the IAF MLA (multilateral recognition arrangement). International Accreditation Forum (functions transferred to Global Accreditation Cooperation Inc., 1 Jan 2026). accessed October 23, 2026.

PCI DSS is validated in one of two ways, depending on how you handle card data and what your acquirer or card brand requires. A Qualified Security Assessor (QSA) performs the assessment and Report on Compliance where one is required^[1]; for SAQ-eligible merchants and service providers we prepare and support the SAQ.

Either way, you work with Sterling from first scoping call to final submission. We coordinate:

• scoping: where card data is stored, processed or transmitted, and how to shrink that footprint;
• a gap assessment against the current version of the standard;
• the policies, procedures and technical control improvements needed to close the gaps;
• evidence collection and an internal review before anyone external looks at your environment;
• the assessment itself, including scheduling, evidence requests and follow-up questions.

What you receive is a validation of compliance, documented in the form your acquirer or card brand accepts. Our experts bring 30+ years of experience, and Sterling has completed 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries over 20+ years.

^[1] Become a Qualified Security Assessor (QSA). PCI Security Standards Council. accessed October 23, 2026.

A compliance tool is software. It can track tasks, collect evidence and show you a dashboard. What it cannot do is decide what your scope should be, write policies that match how your team really works, interview your engineers, or sit across from an examiner when a question is unexpected.

That work still has to be done by someone. With a tool-only approach, that someone is usually a founder or an engineering lead, which means a few weeks of product time quietly turns into a few months.

Done-for-you consulting changes who carries the load:

• we scope the program so you are not controlling more than you need to;
• we write the policies and procedures, and we show your team the few things they must actually do;
• we collect and check evidence, and run an internal audit before the external one;
• we coordinate the final step, so you have one plan and one contact.

Tooling still matters, which is why Effivity, our GRC automation platform, is included in every engagement. The difference is that it is run by people who have done this for 20+ years across 8,100+ client engagements in 60+ countries.

Tell us the market and what the first customer requested, and see how we work with US teams. Get a proposal showing what carries over and when the certificate can be in hand.

• ISO/IEC 27001: standard overviewStandard overview
• ISO/IEC 42001: standard overviewStandard overview
• EU AI Act: standard overviewStandard overview
• /standards/gdpr/: standard overviewStandard overview
• SOC 2: standard overviewStandard overview
• PCI DSS: standard overviewStandard overview
• Pass US Investor Due Diligence on Security, FastUnited States
• Clear US Enterprise Security Reviews and Questionnaires FastUnited States
• Meet US Contract, MSA and RFP Compliance Clauses FastUnited States
• SOC 2 vs ISO 27001 for US Companies: Which to Start WithUnited States
• ISO 42001 and the EU AI Act for US CompaniesUnited States
• ISO 42001 vs NIST AI RMF: Which Do US AI Companies Need?United States
• ISO/IEC 42001 for US AI Companies: What Buyers and Rules RequireUnited States
• Sterling in the United StatesUnited States

1. System and Organization Controls: SOC Suite of Services. AICPA & CIMA. accessed October 23, 2026.

2. Article 2: Scope, AI Act Explorer (Regulation (EU) 2024/1689). European Commission, AI Act Service Desk. accessed October 23, 2026.

3. Guidelines 3/2018 on the territorial scope of the GDPR (Article 3), Version 2.1. European Data Protection Board. accessed October 23, 2026.

The information on this page is provided for general informational purposes only. It is not legal advice, and it is not a substitute for advice from a qualified attorney about your own situation.

Requirements depend on your scope, your customers' contracts, your industry and the regulations that apply to you. Two companies asking for the same standard can have very different obligations. We confirm yours during a gap assessment, and we update our content as standards change, but you should check the current text of any standard or rule that matters to you.

Sterling consults and prepares. It does not decide whether you meet a standard. That decision belongs to the independent party that performs the final step: the US-licensed CPA firm for a SOC 2 report, the Qualified Security Assessor or acquirer for PCI DSS, and the accredited certification body for ISO certificates. Timelines and outcomes depend on your readiness and on those parties.

Standards and marks named on this site belong to their respective owners.