How we calculate certification fees

Every CAS fee is one of four kinds, and your proposal shows each on its own line for every audit it covers.

• An administrative fee and a technical review fee, once per audit. One audit may cover several standards audited together; the two fees are then charged once for that audit, not once for each standard.
• The audit man-days. The audit time the standards require for your organisation (section 2), charged for each man-day of audit time.
• A certification fee for each certificate, every year. The full fee in year 1 of each cycle and a reduced fee in each surveillance year (section 4). A certificate re-issued — for example after a change of name or address, or by a special audit — carries a re-issue fee; a certificate re-issued to correct a CAS error is free.
• Travel days, where they apply. A day the audit team spends travelling without audit work, for example on international travel or a long domestic journey, is charged per auditor at a reduced day rate. It is shown on its own line and is never counted as audit time.

There is no application fee, and asking for a proposal is free.

The number of man-days is not a commercial choice. CAS calculates it from the mandatory international documents for each standard, applied to the facts of your organisation: the effective number of personnel in the scope, the complexity or risk of your activities, and your sites and shifts. The same facts always give the same man-days, and CAS never reduces audit time to lower a price.

• ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 — Global ACI TECH-3-004 (formerly IAF MD 5); for ISO 45001 also TECH-3-016 (formerly IAF MD 22).
• ISO 22000 — ISO 22003-1, which also sets minimum audit times.
• ISO 50001 — ISO 50003, from energy use, energy sources and significant energy uses as well as personnel.
• Several sites — site sampling under Global ACI TECH-3-001 (formerly IAF MD 1), unless the scheme is stricter; for ISO 22000 and ISO 50001, sampling follows ISO 22003-1 and ISO 50003.
• Remote audits — Global ACI TECH-3-003 (formerly IAF MD 4); a remote audit day is charged in the same way as an on-site one.

Surveillance and recertification times come from the same documents and are reviewed at each audit, on your facts at that time. Travel time, and the time of technical experts, translators, interpreters or observers, is never counted as audit time. If your personnel, sites, scope or shifts change, the man-days are recalculated and a revised proposal is issued; extra audit time found necessary during an audit is charged at the rates you agreed.

When several standards are audited together as one integrated system, Global ACI TECH-3-008 (formerly IAF MD 11) adjusts the combined audit time. The time for each standard is calculated first; the adjustment is then applied to their sum, according to how far your management system is integrated and how far the audit team can audit the standards together. It can reduce the time, and it can also increase it where the integrated audit is more complex.

An integrated audit is still one audit: it carries one administrative fee and one technical review fee.

A certificate is valid for three years from the certification decision. For fees, each cycle has three audit years:

• Year 1 — initial certification. Stage 1 and stage 2, then the certification decision. The full certification fee applies to each certificate.
• Years 2 and 3 — surveillance. Two surveillance audits, in the first and second years after the certification decision; the first is held no later than 12 months after it. The reduced certification fee applies in each.
• Recertification. Held before the certificate expires, with its audit time recalculated on your facts at that time. The recertification decision opens the next cycle, and for fees the recertification is year 1 of that cycle.

Every audit carries its own administrative and technical review fees and its man-days. A special audit — for example a scope extension, a short-notice audit or a visit to verify the correction of major nonconformities — is charged in the same way; held together with a planned audit, the two share one administrative fee and one technical review fee. For a certification transferred to CAS, after the pre-transfer review under Global ACI TECH-3-002 (formerly IAF MD 2), the first CAS year is year 1 for the certification fee, and the administrative and technical review fees are charged once in that year.

The fees do not include the following costs. Where they apply, your proposal states them and how they are charged:

• tickets and local transport;
• visas;
• accommodation and meals of the audit team;
• a technical expert, where the audit needs one — never counted as man-days;
• translation or interpretation, where needed — never counted as audit time;
• bank and money-transfer charges, which are paid by the sender so that the invoice total reaches CAS in full;
• VAT, where it applies (section 6).

When EGAC witnesses your audit to assess CAS, there is no charge to you and no extra man-days.

Nothing is ever paid to an auditor, to any individual, or in cash: every legitimate fee is invoiced by CAS in writing — see our Gifts, Hospitality & Anti-Bribery policy.

• Organisations in Egypt — including Egyptian branches of foreign companies — are invoiced and pay in Egyptian pounds.
• Organisations established outside Egypt are invoiced and pay in US dollars, by bank transfer from abroad.
• VAT is added inside Egypt as the law requires. For projects in Egyptian free zones, and for clients outside Egypt, no VAT is charged where the conditions of the Egyptian VAT Law are met (for free zones, once the supporting documents reach CAS before the invoice is issued); otherwise it is charged. Your proposal states whether VAT applies.
• CAS offices and agencies outside Egypt apply their own price lists, set for each office and approved by CAS; their clients pay that office's prices.

This method covers ISO management system certification issued by CAS. Schemes delivered through partner bodies are priced in their own proposals.

• Year by year or the whole cycle. You may contract each year on its own, paid in full before its audit, or the whole cycle at once — the three audits of a new cycle, or the remaining audits of a certification transferred to CAS. A whole-cycle contract fixes the prices for the cycle; a year-by-year contract is priced when each year is contracted.
• After an audit. Charges that arise after an audit, such as extra audit time the standards require or expenses, are invoiced at your agreed rates and are due within 15 days of the invoice.
• Within the accreditation time limits. Payment must reach CAS in time for each audit to be held within the dates the accreditation rules set. CAS cannot extend a certificate because payment was late.
• Government bodies. Where the law does not allow a government body to pay in advance, CAS may agree a written exception that follows the payment terms of its tender or contract.
• Bank details. CAS's account details are printed on every CAS invoice. CAS never changes its bank details by email or telephone: confirm any change with CAS Finance before you pay.

You may postpone each audit once, free of charge, if you ask CAS in writing at least 10 working days before its first day. This free postponement does not apply to short-notice or unannounced audits. The new date is agreed with CAS, at the prices already agreed, no more than three months after the original date and always within the accreditation time limits.

A late postponement (less than 10 working days' notice) or a second postponement of the same audit is charged the administrative fee plus documented expenses that cannot be refunded. If you cancel an audit that has not started, CAS refunds what you paid for it less the administrative fee — and, with less than 10 working days' notice, less those documented expenses too. Once an audit has started its fees are final, except that the stage 2 man-days are refunded if you cancel before stage 2 starts. If CAS is the cause, everything you paid for that audit is refunded. The full rules, including force majeure and whole-cycle contracts, are set out in the policy and in your certification agreement.

To protect integrity, impartiality and non-discrimination, CAS does not give discounts. Every client invoiced by CAS pays the prices of the CAS fees policy, set by the same rules for everyone, and no rate changes with the number of certificates a client holds. Clients of CAS offices and agencies outside Egypt pay that office's approved prices.

• A contribution reduces fees only. It never reduces the audit man-days the standards require, and the audit, the technical review and the certification decision follow exactly the same rules as for any other client.
• A contribution is never given to EGAC, to any body that regulates or oversees CAS, to any body with a pending tender or decision affecting CAS, or to any organisation represented on CAS's impartiality committee, and it is never linked to the audit result, the certification decision or any other service.

• No fee depends on, or changes with, the audit result or the certification decision: fees pay for the assessment work, not for a result.
• Extra audit work the standards require because of audit findings — for example a visit to verify the correction of major nonconformities — is charged as work performed, at the published rates, whatever the decision.
• CAS does not provide consultancy, and no fee is linked to consultancy or training.

Before any work, CAS gives you a written proposal. It shows the audit man-days and how they were calculated, and every fee, line by line, for each audit. A proposal is valid for 30 days from its date; once you sign the agreement, the agreed prices are fixed for everything it covers.

The Certification Fees Policy (CAS-POL-FEES-01), by its issue number, forms part of every CAS certification agreement signed while it is in force. A copy of the policy is available from CAS on request.

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