How to Check an ISO Certificate Is Valid

To check an ISO certificate, look it up in IAF CertSearch or contact the certification body that issued it, then confirm that the status, scope, sites and expiry date match what the supplier told you. Also check that the certification body is accredited by a recognised national accreditation body. A PDF or a logo on a website is not proof; the record held by the certifier is.

Who issues an ISO certificate?

Not ISO: the organisation writes standards such as ISO 9001 and ISO 14001, but it states that it doesn't provide certification or conformity assessment. Certificates are issued by certification bodies, which audit the company against the standard.

Accredited vs non-accredited certification

Anyone can set up a certification company, so the next question is who checks the certifier, which is the role of accreditation. DNV explains that accreditation is formal recognition by a national accreditation body that a certifying body works to international standards, while certification is the attestation that a company's management system meets the standard. The European co-operation for Accreditation adds that each EU member state has one national accreditation body, appointed by its government.

A non-accredited ISO certificate is not necessarily worthless, but it carries less weight and many buyers and tenders do not accept it. If a tender asks for an accredited certificate, a non-accredited one will usually not be enough.

How to check an ISO certificate step by step

1. Ask for the certificate. You need the certificate number, the company name and address, the standard and edition, the scope, the certified sites, the issue and expiry dates, the certification body and the accreditation mark.
2. Search IAF CertSearch. It is a database of accredited management system certificates. According to its FAQ, each record shows validity status, standard, scope, certified locations and the issuing certification body and accreditation body. You can search the database by company name or certificate number.
3. Check the accreditation. The accreditation mark on the certificate should belong to a national accreditation body that is a signatory to the relevant multilateral agreement for that activity.
4. Contact the certification body if needed. If the certificate is not in the database, contact the certifier using details from its own website, not those printed on the document you received.
5. Match it to your order. Check that the site producing your goods and the activity you are buying fall within the scope.

What if the ISO certificate is not in IAF CertSearch?

Do not jump to conclusions, and do not accept a screenshot of a search result sent by the supplier instead of doing the search yourself. Only accredited certificates appear, and the database depends on data submitted by accreditation and certification bodies, so coverage may not be complete. It also covers management systems only, not product certification or certification of persons. Free use is limited: registered users get a small number of checks per day. A missing entry is a reason to ask the certifier directly.

What to look for on the ISO certificate itself

Scope and sites

The scope describes what is certified, for example "design and production of printed folding cartons". A certificate for one site of a group does not cover the others. If your order is produced elsewhere, the certificate may be irrelevant to it.

Dates and edition

Check the expiry date and the edition of the standard. Editions change: ISO 14001 was revised in April 2026, and the Irish national standards body NSAI expects certificates to the 2015 edition to stop being valid after 15 April 2029, and until then both editions are legitimate.

Warning signs

• No accreditation mark, or a mark from a body you cannot find.
• A scope that is vague or does not match the supplier's business.
• Spelling errors, inconsistent addresses or a company name that differs from the register.
• A certifier that cannot be reached, or that has no website of its own.
• Certificates that are "valid" for an unusually long or unspecified period.

Which ISO certificate do buyers in packaging and print usually ask for?

The right certificate depends on what you buy and why. In packaging, printing, signage and promotional products, these come up most often in requests and tenders:

• ISO 9001 for quality management, the most common baseline in supplier questionnaires.
• ISO 14001 for environmental management, often required by retail and public sector customers. See our guide to ISO 14001 for suppliers.
• ISO 45001 for occupational health and safety, relevant for installation work such as exhibition stands and signage.

Food packaging buyers often also ask for food safety or hygiene certification, which follows different schemes. Ask only for the ISO certificate that matters for the order; a long list of required certificates narrows the supplier pool without necessarily improving quality.

IAF CertSearch and Global Accreditation Cooperation

The international accreditation bodies reorganised recently, and the Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated became operational on 1 January 2026 and took over the work of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) and the International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation (ILAC). In 2025 the IAF General Assembly agreed in principle to transfer the IAF CertSearch database to the new organisation, subject to consultations and contracts. You may therefore see both names on certificates and websites for some time; an IAF reference on an existing certificate is not in itself a warning sign.

How often should you re-check an ISO certificate?

Certification is maintained through regular surveillance audits, and certificates can be suspended or withdrawn between audits. A sensible routine for key suppliers looks like this:

• Check at onboarding and record the result with the date, the database or contact used and the name of the person who checked.
• Re-check before the expiry date and when you renew a framework agreement.
• Ask suppliers to tell you about suspensions or scope changes as part of your contract.

The same approach works for product certificates such as FSC and PEFC; see our guide on FSC vs PEFC.

Certificates on Flobid supplier profiles

Buyers can ask for specific certificates in a request, for example ISO 9001 or ISO 14001 for the producing site. On Flobid, only certificates we have checked are shown on supplier profiles. Read how we check suppliers on our verification page, and use our supplier verification checklist for the full set of checks.

Sources

1. Does ISO carry out certification?, ISO Help Centre
2. ISO Accreditation vs. ISO Certification: Key Differences, DNV
3. General FAQ, European co-operation for Accreditation
4. IAF CertSearch FAQ: General, IAF CertSearch
5. Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated replaces IAF and ILAC, APAC (2025)
6. Transfer of IAF CertSearch Database to Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated, International Accreditation Forum (2025)
7. Transitioning your Environmental Management System certification to I.S. EN ISO 14001:2026, National Standards Authority of Ireland (2026)