Consumers International is the membership organization for consumer groups around the world. Founded on 1 April 1960, it has over 250 member organizations in 120 countries. Its head office is situated in London, England, and has numerous regional offices in Latin America, Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa.

Consumers International is a not-for-profit company limited by guarantee.

The organization was first established in the year 1960 as the International organization of Consumers Unions (IOCU) by National consumer organizations who wanted to create cross-border campaigns and share knowledge.

IOCU was founded by Elizabeth Schadee, who would later chair the board of the Netherlands' Consumentenbond, and Caspar Brook, who was the first director of the United Kingdom's Consumers' Association. The two proposed an international conference to plan for consumer product testing organizations worldwide to work more closely together. The United States organization Consumers Union provided US$10,000 at the request of Colston Warne to help fund the event.

In January 1960, these three organizations sponsored the First International Conference on Consumer Testing in The Hague. Thirty-four people representing seventeen consumer organizations in fourteen countries attended to discuss product testing and founding the International organization of Consumers Unions as an international organization. Belgium's Association des Consommateurs and the Australian Consumers' Association joined the three conference sponsors as the five founding organizations who became the international organization's initial council. In 1979, IOCU (which then became Consumers International) and other citizens' groups formed the International Baby Food Action Network (IBFAN) to eradicate the death and disease affecting millions of babies in economically developing countries as a result of consuming bottle-fed formula milk. After intense campaigning by IBFAN, including organizing consumer boycotts against the likes of Nestlé, whose subtle yet effective campaigns were undermining breastfeeding, the World Health Assembly of the World Health Organization, adopted the International Code of Marketing on Breast Milk Substitutes the first such code designed to control widespread marketing abuses by baby food companies.

In 1981, Consumers International co-founded the Health Action International (HAI), an informal network of some 120 consumer and public interest groups, HAI engaged in worldwide campaigns for the safe, rational and economic use of pharmaceuticals. At the 41st World Health Assembly in 1987, HAI organised a large lobby of delegates to urge stronger controls on advertising by the drugs industry.

Consumers International has over 250 member organizations in 120 countries. These members are independent consumer organizations.

About two-thirds of member organizations are in economically developing countries, the other third in industrialised countries.