CPSC Certificate of Compliance Checker
Paste a Children’s Product Certificate or a General Certificate of Conformity. You get back every party the rule requires against every field it requires — plus the two checks a template cannot do for you: whether the barcode identifying the product is a real number, and whether the attestation matches the words the regulation prescribes.
🔒 Your certificate never leaves your browser.
What changed, and why old templates fail
The eFiling rule rewrote § 1110.11, and it has been in force since 2026-07-08: certificate data for imported goods is filed electronically at the time of entry. Most certificate templates in circulation — and most guidance articles describing “the seven required elements” — still describe the 2008 text. Three differences matter:
- A unique identifier is now mandatory. A description alone no longer identifies the product: the certificate must carry a GTIN, model number, registered number, serial number, SKU, UPC or an alternate identifier.
- All four parties need an email address. The older text asked for one only from the records custodian, so a carried-over template is typically missing it on three parties at once.
- There is a prescribed attestation. It includes the acknowledgement that a materially false statement on the certificate is a federal crime. A paraphrase is not it.
Four parties, one contact block each
Four of the seven elements are parties, and they are routinely conflated. The regulation keeps them apart:
- Finished product certifier § 1110.11(a)(3)
- The importer (for imports) or the manufacturer — or the private labeler — for domestic goods.
- Individual maintaining records § 1110.11(a)(4)
- The person who holds the test records. May be a position title if the position is always staffed.
- Place of manufacture § 1110.11(a)(5)
- Where the product was manufactured, produced or assembled, with the manufacturer named.
- Third party conformity assessment body § 1110.11(a)(6)
- Whoever performed the testing the certificate depends on.
The one that trips people up is the first: for an imported product the importer is the finished product certifier — not the factory that made it. The factory belongs in the place-of-manufacture block.
What this tool does not do
It does not tell you which rules apply to your product — that is a judgement about the product, and CPSC’s own Regulatory Robot is built for it. It does not check whether a laboratory is CPSC-accepted, which needs the accreditation list. And it does not produce a filing: the eFiled form of this data goes through CBP’s ACE using CPSC’s PGA message set, which is a different artifact from the certificate itself.
A note on how the matrix judges addresses: street, city and state are shown as a single cell, and a ? means the tool found address-like text but could not confirm the parts from free text. That is not the same as missing, and it is marked differently for exactly that reason. Email, telephone and country are judged reliably — and those are the cells that usually fail.
Every check this tool runs (12 rules)
FPC-001 No unique identifier for the product
The amended rule no longer accepts a bare product description. A finished product certificate must carry at least one of: a global trade item number (GTIN), model number, registered number, serial number, stock keeping number (SKU), universal product code (UPC), or an alternate identifier — plus enough description to match the product to the certificate. This is one of the changes the eFiling rule made, and guidance written before it still says "identification of the product".
Fix: Add a GTIN, UPC, model or SKU that identifies exactly the product this certificate covers.
FPC-002 The GTIN or UPC on the certificate is not a valid barcode number
When the identifier is given as a GTIN or UPC it is a check-digit-bearing number, so a transcription slip is detectable rather than merely suspicious. A certificate that names a product by an impossible barcode identifies nothing — and the same number is what gets eFiled at entry.
Fix: Recompute the check digit and correct the number, or use the model number instead.
FPC-003 Applicable rules are not listed separately
The certificate must state each consumer product safety rule, ban, standard or regulation it certifies to, and must identify them separately. A blanket sentence such as "complies with all applicable CPSC regulations" is not a citation: it names nothing that can be checked, and each rule listed is what the testing in (a)(6) has to correspond to.
Fix: List each rule on its own, by citation — for example "16 CFR 1303" and "16 CFR 1501".
FPC-004 A required party is missing details
Four of the seven elements are parties, and each needs the same block: name, street address, city, state or province, country or administrative region, email address and telephone number. The email requirement is new — the 2008 text asked for it only for the records custodian, so certificates carried over from older templates are missing it on three parties at once.
Fix: Complete the missing cells. The records custodian may be a position title, provided the position is always staffed.
FPC-005 The attestation is missing or does not match the prescribed wording
Paper and electronic certificates must carry the attestation in the words the regulation sets out, including the acknowledgement that a materially false statement on the certificate is a federal crime. A paraphrase is not the attestation. (eFiled certificates carry it through the Product Registry and the CATAIR message set instead.)
Fix: Paste the attestation exactly as the regulation prints it.
FPC-006 Manufacture date missing, or given only as a year
The date of manufacture must be given to at least month and year. A year alone does not meet it. For a manufacturing run spread over several days, the initial date of manufacture is the one to give.
Fix: Give at least the month and year, and name the manufacturing location with its own contact block.
FPC-007 Testing date is not plausible against the manufacture date
The certificate must give the most recent testing date. A test dated before the goods were manufactured describes a different production run, which is the substantive question behind the date rather than a formatting one.
FPC-008 One certificate covers more than one product
Each finished product certificate must describe only one product. Combining a range onto a single certificate is a habit from the older paper practice and does not survive eFiling, where the certificate data is filed against an entry line.
Fix: Split into one certificate per product.
FPC-009 The certificate does not appear to be in English
An eFiled certificate must be in English. Other certificates must also be in English, and may repeat the same content in another language alongside it — but not instead of it.
FPC-010 A testing exclusion is claimed without naming it
Where a statutory or regulatory testing exclusion is being relied on, the certificate identifies that exclusion in place of the testing date and place for that rule — while still listing the rule itself among the applicable ones.
FPC-011 The certifier may not be the party the rule puts on the certificate
For imports the importer is the finished product certifier; for domestic goods it is the manufacturer, or the private labeler where the product is privately labeled. A foreign factory named as the certifier on an imported product is the classic mismatch — the factory is the place of manufacture, not the certifier.
Fix: Name the importer as certifier and keep the factory in the place-of-manufacture block.
FPC-012 No electronic access to the supporting records
Beyond naming the individual who holds the records, a certificate may carry a URL or other electronic means giving access to the underlying records. It is optional, but it is what turns a records request into a link rather than an exchange of emails.
The effective date above comes from the CPSC final rule in the Federal Register ↗. One quirk worth knowing if you read the regulation yourself: § 1110.11(a)(6) cites “§ 1110.11(a)(4)” for the list of rules, but (a)(4) is the records custodian and the rules are listed under (a)(2) — as paragraph (c) of the same section confirms. This tool follows the operative meaning.