Key takeaways
- 1An accreditation number identifies one certification body in one accreditation body's register.
- 2The accreditation certificate says the body is accredited, against which standard for certification bodies, and until when.
- 3It does not tell you the certificate is currently valid. Accreditation status and certificate status are separate records.
Most people look at an ISO certificate and read the standard, the company name, and the dates. The accreditation number is the field that gets skipped — and it is the only field on the page that leads anywhere.
It is an address, not a badge
An accreditation number identifies one certification body in one accreditation body's register. It is not a rating, not a level, and not a mark of seniority. It is a pointer: type it into the right register and you arrive at a record maintained by somebody other than the party who printed the certificate.
That is its entire function, and it is enough.
CAS's is 012418. The accreditation certificate is 012418A. The schedule is 012418B. Three related numbers doing three different jobs, and the third is the one that matters most.
Certificate, schedule, and why the schedule matters more
The accreditation certificate says the body is accredited, against which standard for certification bodies, and until when. Ours: accredited under ISO/IEC 17021-1:2015, first accredited 28 November 2025, valid to 27 November 2029.
The schedule of accreditation says what the accreditation actually covers. Which certification schemes. Which technical sectors within each scheme. Which countries. It is usually longer than the certificate and almost never asked for.
This is where a lot of quiet imprecision lives in the market. A body can hold a genuine accreditation certificate and still not be accredited for the scheme printed on the certificate in front of you. The certificate is a headline; the schedule is the contract.
So when you are evaluating a certification body — as a buyer checking a supplier, or as an organization choosing who will audit you — ask for the schedule. If it is not readily available, that itself is information.
Reading a scope entry
A schedule entry is not prose. It is structured, and each part restricts the one before it.
Scheme. Which standard the body may certify against — ISO 9001, ISO 22000, and so on. Granted individually. Accreditation for one confers nothing on another.
Technical sectors. Within a scheme, which industries. These follow the IAF technical sector codes. A body accredited for ISO 9001 in construction and IT is not accredited for ISO 9001 in pharmaceuticals. CAS holds 32 IAF technical sectors for ISO 9001, listed individually in schedule 012418B.
Scheme-specific criteria. Some schemes add their own layer. Food safety certification under ISO 22000 is assessed against ISO 22003-1:2022 and scoped by food-chain category. Energy management under ISO 50001 is assessed against ISO 50003:2021.
Countries. Accreditation names the markets in which the body may operate.
Four filters, applied in order. A certificate is properly accredited only when it sits inside all four.
What the number does not tell you
It does not tell you the certificate is currently valid. Accreditation status and certificate status are separate records. A body can be accredited today while a particular certificate it issued is suspended — under ISO/IEC 17021-1 clause 9.6.5.3, a suspended certification is temporarily invalid. Check both.
It does not tell you the scope of the certificate. The accreditation scope is the outer boundary of what the body may certify. The certificate scope is what this organization was actually assessed for, and it is narrower. Read both.
It does not tell you about recognition arrangements. Whether a certificate is covered by an international mutual recognition arrangement depends on whether that scheme is inside the accreditation body's own recognised scope. In our case, five of our six accredited standards — ISO 9001, 14001, 45001, 22000 and 50001 — fall within EGAC's IAF MLA scope. ISO 22301 is accredited by EGAC and sits outside that scope. Both are properly accredited; only one group carries the IAF MLA mark.
A short checklist
When an accreditation number is in front of you:
1. Find the accreditation body it belongs to. The number is meaningless without knowing whose register to search. 2. Search it there. Confirm the body appears and the accreditation is current. 3. Open the schedule. Confirm the scheme on the certificate is listed. 4. Confirm the technical sector or category matches the certified activity. 5. Then check the certificate itself, separately.
Five steps, and only the first four concern the body. The fifth is the one most people start with and the one that means least on its own.
Why we publish ours
ISO/IEC 17021-1 clause 4.5 makes openness a principle of certification: a certification body should provide public access to appropriate information about the certification status of any organization. Clause 8.1.2 requires it to give the status of a given certificate on request.
We take that as the floor rather than the ceiling. Our accreditation certificate, our schedule, and our EOS registration are published as documents on our accreditation page, and every accredited certificate we issue goes to IAF CertSearch. You should not have to ask us whether to believe us.
CAS — An EGAC accredited MS certification body No. 012418. Accreditation certificate 012418A, schedule 012418B, valid to 27 November 2029.
Verify any certificate: cas.com.eg/certsearch
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