Last updated: October 2026
By Jack Lv, General Manager — 925 sterling silver and GRA moissanite manufacturing in Foshan since 2011
A certificate is only worth as much as the number printed on it, and a claim such as we are REACH and RoHS compliant carries almost no information on its own. What you can actually verify is a report number looked up on the issuing laboratory's own website, checked against the company name that signs your contract, the models the report covers and the dates it is valid.
Very little on its own, because each of those words is a category rather than a result: a REACH claim can mean a substance list, a test method or one report. A claim becomes checkable only when it carries a report number you can look up.
Compliance language is easy to copy and hard to disprove, which is why a supplier page that says REACH compliant, RoHS compliant or CE certified tells you very little on its own. Each of those words is a category rather than a result. A REACH claim can refer to a report on a single sample or to a screen covering hundreds of substances. A RoHS claim can cover a product family or one model. CE is a marking whose meaning depends entirely on which directive or regulation applies to the product in question.
The sentence worth asking for is not we are compliant but the report number, the issuing laboratory, the date and the models covered. With those four facts you can check the claim yourself in a few minutes. Without them you are accepting a sales assurance on trust, which is a poor position to be in for goods you are going to resell and carry liability for.
Ask for the scan of the full report rather than a cropped cover page, then find the report number and the issuing laboratory on it. Enter that number on the laboratory's own site: it either produces a live record or it does not.
Work through the following in order. It takes minutes, and it either produces a live record on the laboratory's own site or it does not.
| What to check | Where to look | Red flag |
|---|---|---|
| Certificate or report number | On the document, then in the laboratory's own online query service | No number at all, or a number that returns nothing on the laboratory's site |
| Issuing laboratory name | Compare the document with the supplier's own compliance page | The page names a different laboratory from the one printed on the report |
| Legal entity and address | Against your purchase contract and commercial invoice | The report is issued in another company's name |
| Covered models or samples | The scope or sample description section of the report | Your model is not in the list, or the report tested a single sample only |
| Validity or issue date | The date line on the report | The report predates a change of material, finish or manufacturing site |
Different documents answer different questions: a test report covers the substances and the samples it lists, a factory audit covers a site rather than a product, and a declaration covers a claim. Before you rely on one for a shipment, check which of those questions it answers.
Different documents answer different questions, and it is worth being precise about which question each one answers before you rely on it for a shipment.
| Document | Issued by | What it covers | What it does not cover |
|---|---|---|---|
| REACH SVHC report BKC25020516BR | Shenzhen BKC Testing, dated 2025-02-27 | 247 SVHC substances screened below 0.1 percent, on a sample set of necklace, bracelet, ring and earring | Substances outside the SVHC list, and any model that was not part of the sample set |
| RoHS and CE certificate HYC2025120053RV1 | Shenzhen HyCert, dated 2025-12-31 | The 27 models listed on the certificate | Any model outside that enumerated list |
| Intertek factory audit certificate 483553466_T | Intertek, valid 2025-12-31 to 2026-12-30 | That the factory site was audited, queryable through the ASV service at intertek.com.cn | The compliance of any particular product or shipment |
| GRA report | GRA, one report per stone | That a specific stone is moissanite | The metal, the plating or the finish of the setting |
Most problems are not crude forgeries but real documents used outside their scope. The common one is another company's genuine report attached to goods that company did not make, so check that the name on the report is the entity selling to you.
Most problems with certificates are not crude forgeries. They are real documents used outside their scope, which is much harder to spot unless you are looking for it.
Ask for the certificate number and the issuing body, then use that body's own verification service instead of the copy the supplier sends. Intertek audits, for example, can be looked up through Intertek.
A factory audit is verified differently from a test report, because it is about a site rather than a product. Ask for the certificate number and the issuing body, then use the body's own verification service. Intertek audits, for example, can be looked up through the ASV service at intertek.com.cn using the certificate number. For Nabest the number is 483553466_T, valid from 2025-12-31 to 2026-12-30.
An audit tells you that the site exists and met the audited standard on the day of the visit. It does not tell you the quality of a particular order, which is why the audit and your own inspection of the goods both matter. Nabest runs four inspection gates, from incoming material through in-process work and final assembly to pre-shipment inspection, photographs every shipment before dispatch and welcomes third-party inspection on site.
For each order, save the report numbers, the date each one was verified and a screenshot or PDF of the live result page. Keep the query URL next to the number so a colleague or a customs broker can repeat the check.
For each order, save the report numbers, the date you verified each one, and a screenshot or PDF of the live result page. Where the laboratory offers a query service, note the URL and the number together so a colleague or a customs broker can repeat the check later without emailing you.
This file is also what you hand to a retail customer or a marketplace that asks how you know your supplier is compliant. It is far more persuasive than a sentence on a website, because every claim inside it can be independently reproduced by the person receiving it.
The practical summary is short. Ask for numbers, look them up at the source, check the name and the scope, and write down what you found. That is the whole method.
It is worth saying that this is not scepticism for its own sake. The suppliers who pass the check are usually the ones who already know their own report numbers, the scope of each document and the dates, and who can answer the question in one reply instead of several, which is itself a useful signal about how the account will be run.
No. They come from different regulations with different substance lists, so one does not substitute for the other. REACH SVHC screening looks for substances of very high concern, while RoHS restricts a specific set of substances in electrical and electronic equipment and related products. Ask which regulation each document answers.
Only if the number on it returns a live record on the issuing laboratory's own site, the company name matches the entity you are contracting with, and the models listed include what you are buying. A document that fails any of those three checks is not evidence for your order.
A report is tied to a sample and a date, so one report can serve repeat orders only while the material, finish and manufacturing site stay the same. If any of those change, ask for a fresh report, because the old one no longer describes what you are buying.
A test report records the result of a specific test on a specific sample. A certificate states that a product or site conforms to a standard or directive. The certificate usually depends on reports underneath it, so ask to see both and check that the underlying report covers your model.
A declaration is a statement by the supplier, not an independent test result, so it is worth what the supplier's accountability is worth to you. Treat it as a pointer to the third-party reports, not as a replacement for them, and verify the numbers those reports carry.
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