Buyer guide
Cyber Essentials Renewal Checklist 2026
Renewal principle
Treat renewal as a fresh evidence exercise, not a copy-and-paste of last year's answers. Reconfirm scope, supported software, accounts, cloud services and control settings before starting the new assessment.
30 days before
Review scope, devices, cloud services, unsupported software and ownership of remediation actions.
14 days before
Close patching, MFA, privilege and secure-configuration gaps and gather evidence.
Before submission
Recheck current NCSC requirements, current IASME question set and any tender/customer deadline.
Renewal checklist
- Confirm the legal entity and certification scope.
- Reconcile current asset inventory with last year's scope.
- Remove unsupported software or segregate it in line with current requirements.
- Review administrator and leaver accounts.
- Verify MFA coverage.
- Check the security-update process and recent patch evidence.
- Confirm malware-protection approach across in-scope devices.
- Check whether a contract or tender needs CE or CE+ specifically.