Who is Eligible to Grant ISO 9001 Certification?

So who is eligible to grant ISO 9001 certification? Many people assume that ISO grants certification, but in fact, this is not true, instead, a registrar or certification body (CB) will be the one to grant certification (Read: Who is ISO?). When choosing a registrar you should make sure that they are accredited. They should be a member of the International Accreditation Forum (IAF), and additionally need to be ISO/IEC 17021:2015 certified.

One of these standards is ISO/IEC 17021:2015 Conformity assessment
“Requirements for bodies providing audit and certification of management systems“, which in effect stipulates the requirements for Registrars who certify organizations to ISO management standards like ISO 9001, ISO 14001, etc.

People often say “ISO Certified” but ISO does not issue certificates or certify individual companies to any standard. So who can Grant ISO 9001 Certification? They are issued by certification/registration bodies (also called Registrars or CB’s), which are independent of ISO. CB’s need to be accredited by an IAF member to be internationally recognized.

ISO/IEC 17021 ensures international acceptance of the CB’s certifications (i.e. your ISO 9001:2008 certificate) by requiring that all Accreditation bodies (ANAB, etc.) belong to an internationally accredited organization, like the IAF. Likewise, the IAF ensures that CB’s comply with ISO/IEC 17021.

Some Quality System Registrars are not accredited by IAF, and thus are not meeting ISO 17021 — and will not be internationally recognized. Make sure that you choose a Registrar who is accredited by an IAF member (ANAB or the equivalent of ANAB in your country or region).

When you receive your registration certificate, it should display the ANAB and the IAF logos and unfortunately, without them, you are not officially ISO 9001 certified.