Accreditation
A certification body audits organizations. Accreditation is how the certification body is itself checked. This page explains who checks whom, who accredits AQC Group, and what to ask for before you rely on any certificate.
01The chain
Who checks whom
Four kinds of organization are involved, and they are often confused with each other. Each has one job.
ISO writes the standards
ISO, the International Organization for Standardization, publishes standards such as ISO 9001. It does not audit organizations and it does not issue certificates, so no certificate comes from ISO.
A certification body audits and certifies
A certification body audits an organization against a standard. If the management system meets the standard, the body issues a certificate. AQC Group is a certification body, and the certificates described on this site are issued by it.
An accreditation body checks the certification body
An accreditation body assesses whether a certification body is competent to audit and impartial when it decides. It measures the body against ISO/IEC 17021-1, the international standard for bodies that audit and certify management systems. Its assessors read the body's procedures and files, watch its auditors at work, and return at intervals to do so again.
Accreditation bodies are evaluated by their peers
Accreditation bodies are checked in turn, by teams from other accreditation bodies, usually organized through a regional group. Those that pass this peer evaluation sign a multilateral recognition arrangement, under which each signatory treats the others' accreditations as equivalent to its own.
The arrangement is run by Global Accreditation Cooperation (Global ACI). Global ACI began operating on 1 January 2026 and took over the work that the International Accreditation Forum (IAF) used to do for certification.
A certificate therefore rests on three checks: the audit of the organization, the assessment of the body that audited it, and the peer evaluation of the body that accredited that one.
A certificate or an accreditation document may still carry the IAF's mark. Global ACI has said that accreditation bodies need not remove the earlier marks only because it has started work, so the older mark does not by itself make a document out of date.
02AQC Group
Who accredits AQC Group
AQC Group is accredited by the Egyptian Accreditation Council (EGAC) and the United Accreditation Foundation (UAF).
That sentence is where a check starts. It is not where a check ends. The documents that count are the accreditation certificate and the schedule attached to it. They name the legal entity that is accredited, the accreditation body, and the scope: the standards, and often the sectors, that the accreditation covers. A web page can lag behind those documents, ours included.
Start with AQC Group's accreditation page. Then ask us for the accreditation certificate and schedule that cover your standard, and we will send them. Accreditation bodies also publish the bodies they have accredited and the scope of each, so you can compare what we send with the accreditation body's own record.
Accreditation is granted standard by standard
Accreditation is not one answer for the whole of a certification body. It is granted for each standard separately, and for many standards sector by sector. What a body is accredited for is called its scope of accreditation. A body can be accredited for one standard and not for another that it also certifies, and for one edition of a standard before the next.
AQC Group's published process says that each application is reviewed against its scope of accreditation before a quotation is prepared: see AQC Group's certification process. Ask the same question yourself before you apply: whether your standard, in the edition you need and for your kind of work, is inside the scope today. The schedule answers it.
If you ask us, we will tell you in writing whether the certificate you are being quoted for would be an accredited one, and under which accreditation.
FSSC 22000
FSSC 22000 certificates can be issued solely by certification bodies licensed by the scheme owner, Foundation FSSC. If FSSC 22000 is what your customer has asked for, ask us whether it is available before you plan around it. The ISO 22000 page explains how the scheme differs from the standard.
03On the certificate
Accredited and unaccredited certificates
Both kinds exist. The difference is printed on the certificate.
An accredited certificate
It carries the accreditation body's symbol beside the certification body's own mark, usually with the certification body's accreditation number. It was issued for a standard and a sector inside the certification body's scope of accreditation, under rules that the accreditation body checks: who may audit, how long the audit must last, and who makes the decision.
An unaccredited certificate
It carries the certification body's mark alone. It was issued outside any accreditation: by a body that is not accredited, or by an accredited body for a standard or a sector that its accreditation does not cover. The audit may have been just as careful. No accreditation body stands behind the certificate to say so.
Neither kind is good or bad by definition. ISO's own guidance says that accreditation provides independent confirmation of competence, that it is not compulsory, and that a certification body without it is not for that reason a poor one.
What decides the matter is what the person who asked you for a certificate will accept. Many tenders, customers and regulators ask for an accredited certificate, and some name the accreditation they recognize. Read their wording before you choose, and ask them where it is silent.
04Across borders
Whether an accreditation is recognized abroad
An accredited certificate is most widely accepted when the accreditation body behind it has signed Global ACI's recognition arrangement for the kind of certification concerned. Signatory status, like accreditation, is granted by scope: an accreditation body can be a signatory for one standard and not for another. Not every member of Global ACI is a signatory.
Global ACI publishes the accreditation bodies that have signed, with the scopes each has signed for. If recognition in another country matters to you, look up the accreditation body named on the schedule in Global ACI's list of recognized accreditation bodies, and check the scope as well as the name.
Recognition under the arrangement makes acceptance more likely. It does not oblige a buyer or an authority to accept a certificate, so their own wording still decides.
Ask for the schedule.
Tell us the standard you need and the kind of work you do. We will send the accreditation certificate and schedule that cover it.