A vendor risk assessment identifies what could go wrong with a supplier — financial, operational, compliance, cyber, reputational or geographic risk — and how serious it would be, so you can focus mitigation where it matters. Assessing risk before and during a relationship protects your operations from a single supplier's failure. This free template scores each risk by likelihood and impact to produce a rating and a red-amber-green band automatically in the Excel version, with a mitigation and owner field for every risk — plus a print-ready PDF.
Why assess vendor risk
Every supplier you depend on is a potential point of failure. A vendor risk assessment makes those risks explicit — from a supplier's financial fragility to a single-site or single-country dependency — so you can decide which to accept, mitigate or avoid.
Scoring by likelihood and impact turns a long list of worries into a prioritised one. You put your limited mitigation effort into the risks that are both probable and damaging, not the ones that merely feel alarming.
How to use this vendor risk assessment template
Assess each significant supplier:
- List the risks relevant to the supplier under each risk category.
- Score likelihood and impact from 1 (low) to 5 (high) for each risk.
- Read the automatic risk score and red-amber-green band.
- Record a mitigation or control, an owner and a review date for each risk.
- Reassess periodically and after any material change to the supplier.
Vendor risk assessment best practices
Assess risk proportionately — go deeper for critical, high-spend or single-source suppliers. Base scores on evidence such as financial checks, certifications and audit findings, and assign a named owner to every red and amber risk. Reassess after major events (a supplier acquisition, a delivery failure, a regulatory change) rather than only on a schedule, and pair the assessment with a supplier audit for a full risk-and-performance view.
Download the Vendor Risk Assessment Template
Free, editable Excel (.xlsx) & PDF (.pdf). Complete the form above and your download starts instantly.
Common questions
What is a vendor risk assessment template?
A vendor risk assessment template is a tool that identifies and scores the risks associated with a supplier — by likelihood and impact across categories such as financial, operational, compliance and cyber — to produce a risk rating and prioritise mitigation.
How does the risk score work?
You score each risk's likelihood and impact from 1 to 5. The Excel template multiplies the two into a risk score and assigns a red-amber-green band automatically, so the most serious risks stand out.
What formats does the risk assessment come in?
An editable Microsoft Excel (.xlsx) file with automatic scoring and banding, plus a print-ready PDF version.
Is this vendor risk assessment template free?
Yes. Enter your work email above and the files download automatically, at no cost.
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