These guidelines are intended for all people who do fieldwork with bats in the field anywhere in the world. They update our previous IUCN Bat Specialist Group guidelines, which were developed specifically to address bat-related fieldwork during the COVID-19 pandemic. These guidelines address "ordinary" circumstances and aim to minimize the risk of pathogen transmission in all directions – humans to bats, bats to humans, and between bat species or populations, facilitated by humans. These guidelines exist as much to protect bat populations as the humans who study them.