CORAA

SIA 7 — Quality Assurance in Internal Audit

ICAI Internal Audit Standards Board · Legacy standard, October 2008
Reviewed 1 October 2026

SIA 7 requires a quality assurance system for internal audit, made up of internal and external quality reviews, so that reports comply with professional, regulatory and legal requirements.

This page covers SIA 7 as it stands in ICAI’s October 2022 compendium. ICAI’s February 2026 compendium, applicable from 1 April 2026, renumbers the standards, so check the current number and text in that compendium before citing it in a report.

What the internal auditor has to do

  • Set up a quality assurance system for the internal audit function.
  • Carry out internal quality reviews.
  • Arrange external quality reviews.

How SIA 7 shows up in the internal audit file

  • The quality assurance process and the results of internal quality reviews.
  • External quality review reports and the action taken on them.

Common mistakes in practice

  • Treating the reviewer's sign-off on each assignment (SIA 350) as the whole of quality assurance.
  • Never having an external quality review.

The file checklist and the mistakes above are practice points drawn from the requirements of the standard. They are not text from the standard.

Note
The current set, in ICAI's February 2026 compendium, has a separate category of Quality Standards: QSIA 1, Internal Audit Quality Aspects, and QSIA 2, Peer Review and Third-Party Assessment. Only their titles are listed here.

Related standards

SIA 350 · Review and Supervision of Audit AssignmentsSIA 210 · Managing the Internal Audit Function

How this relates to global frameworks

The IIA's Global Internal Audit Standards (effective 9 January 2025) are a separate set from a different body, and there is no paragraph-for-paragraph match. The closest IIA principle is Enhance Quality.

Status and source

This standard is described here as it stands in the October 2022 compendium, which is the earlier set. ICAI's Internal Audit Standards Board lists its Compendium of Standards on Internal Audit (as on February 2026) as applicable from 1 April 2026 (source: the Board's compendium page, checked on 1 October 2026). That compendium renumbers the standards, so check the current number and text there before citing this standard in a report. ICAI's compendium page does not say whether the standards are mandatory or recommendatory, so we do not describe any standard as mandatory. In the October 2022 compendium this standard is still headed as recommendatory in the initial period and mandatory from a date to be notified by the Council of ICAI, and that date is left blank.

These pages summarise each standard as it stands in ICAI's Compendium of Standards on Internal Audit (as on 1 October 2022), working from an extract of that document. They are summaries and close paraphrases, not the text of the standards. ICAI's Internal Audit Standards Board lists its Compendium of Standards on Internal Audit (as on February 2026) as applicable from 1 April 2026 (source: the Board's compendium page, checked on 1 October 2026). For that current set we have only the titles, taken from the Board's 2025-26 annual report; its text is available from ICAI through a registration form on the compendium page and is not summarised here. ICAI's compendium page does not say whether the standards are mandatory or recommendatory, so we do not describe any standard as mandatory. Before you cite a number, a paragraph or a status in a report, check the February 2026 compendium. internalaudit.icai.org

Free working files for SIA 7

Take the working versions with you

Editable formats and tools from CORAA’s internal audit library that put SIA 7 into practice. Free to use.

Internal Audit Quality Assurance & Improvement Program →Quality review checklist →Internal audit maturity assessment →

SIA 7 — frequently asked

What is SIA 7?

SIA 7, Quality Assurance in Internal Audit, is a Standard on Internal Audit issued by the Internal Audit Standards Board of ICAI. SIA 7 requires a quality assurance system for internal audit, made up of internal and external quality reviews, so that reports comply with professional, regulatory and legal requirements. It was published in October 2008 and kept its original number.

Is SIA 7 mandatory?

ICAI's compendium page does not say whether the Standards on Internal Audit are mandatory or recommendatory, so we do not describe SIA 7 as mandatory. ICAI's Internal Audit Standards Board lists its Compendium of Standards on Internal Audit (as on February 2026) as applicable from 1 April 2026 (source: the Board's compendium page, checked on 1 October 2026). SIA 7 as described on this page is from the earlier October 2022 compendium. The February 2026 compendium renumbers the standards, so check the current number and text there before citing it in a report.

What should the internal audit file show for SIA 7?

The quality assurance process and the results of internal quality reviews. External quality review reports and the action taken on them.

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