Seventeen national or regional federations were the founding affiliates. That increased over the years to 47 by December 2006.
The FIK was accepted as a member of the General Association of International Sporting Federations (GAISF) in April 2006. As a consequence the previous acronym of IKF was altered to FIK.
The secretariat of the FIK is located in the All Japan Kendo Federation building in Tokyo.
The FIK conducts the World Kendo Championship, an international competition contested by the member nations every three years since their inception in 1970.