Certification is a ‘third-party attestation related to an object of conformity assessment, with the exception of accreditation,’ as defined by ISO/IEC 17000 Conformity Assessment – Vocabulary and General Principles.

Certification activities are carried out by certification bodies, which may assess a wide range of objects, including management systems, products, processes, services and persons. These activities are used to determine whether specified requirements have been fulfilled.

In most countries, accreditation is voluntary, however, many certification bodies choose to seek accreditation to relevant standards or schemes in order to demonstrate third-party confirmation of their competence.