After a company applies for an ISO certification, how can it verify the authenticity of the certificate?

Whether before or after applying for an ISO certificate, companies have always worried about whether the certificate they obtained is genuine or fake; during bidding, qualification reviews also need to verify the authenticity of the certificates provided by companies, and your competitors may conduct even more thorough verification (if supervision audits are not timely, competitors may expose it, causing you to lose a bidding project worth 10 million).

No matter where a company obtains its ISO certificate, it can be checked on the CNCA official website to determine the authenticity of the certificate. The steps are as follows:

http://cx.cnca.cn/CertECloud/result/skipResultList CNCA query website, click Certification Results → Comprehensive Certification Results Query → enter certificate-related information to query.

There are basically two possible query results: successful query or no results found. Next, let's analyze the possible outcomes.

First: Successfully found certificate information on the CNCA website, but the certificate may not be valid.

For example, the certificate may be in a pending annual review status, revoked status, or suspended status. Not long ago, one of my clients missed out on a major project because the supervision was not timely, and during bidding, competitors found that the certificate had not undergone annual review. This serves as a cautionary tale.

Second: No information found, but it may not necessarily be fake.

1. After passing the ISO certificate audit, the company may only have an electronic version, meaning the certificate is almost ready, but the certification body has not yet uploaded the data to the CNCA website, so it cannot be found. Wait a few days and check again.

2. The certification body may not have intended to upload the certificate at all. This situation is rare nowadays. The reason for not uploading could be that the certification body violated regulations during the certification process. Once uploaded, relevant information would be available, and CNCA might conduct spot checks. The certification body would then face penalties, and in severe cases, its qualification could be revoked.

Let's analyze two more special cases.

1. The company found a certificate, but the certificate is fake.

The company used a fake organization for certification, and the query website provided is from the fake organization, so the company can find it. However, the only website recognized for verifying authenticity is CNCA's; there is no second one.

2. The company found a certificate, the certificate is genuine, but it is not recognized.

Don't be confused. The company indeed obtained a genuine certificate and found it, but it is still not recognized. This situation often occurs when the certification body applied for is a foreign organization that has not filed with CNCA.

Some foreign certification bodies are indeed legitimate and successful abroad, but once in China, the rules are different. To conduct certification business here, they must first file with CNCA; otherwise, the certificates they issue are invalid in China. After certification, the query is also through the foreign certification body's website, not CNCA's. (These 15 organizations are illegally conducting certification activities, issuing invalid certificates, and companies should be cautious.)

Therefore, even if you have a genuine certification certificate, you still cannot find it on the CNCA website, so it is still considered a fake certificate. In China, the only recognized query results are those from the CNCA official website.

Finally, a friendly reminder: fake organizations often have several characteristics: low price, no on-site audit, fast processing time, etc. Especially foreign organizations, their certification efficiency is faster and cheaper than domestic ones. Companies should be cautious.