The article, based on many years of international experience in the formation and development of internal audit, scientific publications, and the practice of domestic, Russian, and foreign business entities, examines the issues of recognizing the essence of internal audit in the control concept. The authors substantiate the dualism of internal audit as a form of audit and an element of the internal control system, which makes it possible to comprehensively identify its essence in contrast to the existing set of one-sided views as a control measure. Analysis of the judgments of various scientists on the problem under study made it possible to generalize the main components of internal audit and reveal their content in the concept of control.