Certification Status Details
Fair Trade Certified partners can have various certifications statuses depending on the certifier and/or their certification scope. You can look up what certification status your partner has by visiting: https://partner.fairtradecertified.org/partners/search. Below you can find details explaining what each status means for your sourcing needs.
| Status | Sourcing decoded |
| Permission to Trade | Source freely |
| Activated | Source freely |
| Certified | Source freely |
| Suspended | Sourcing contains certain conditions, see standard for details |
| Terminated | Can no longer source, see standard for details |
| Decertified | Can no longer source, see standard for details |
| Not Authorized |
No longer eligible to sell Fair Trade products after these dates: 12/31/20 - Coffee |
| Authorized | Source Freely |
For more details surrounding these statuses, read through the applicable standards section.
- Agricultural Production Standard: Module 5: Traceability and Transparency, Sub-Module 5.3: Certificate Holders Are Transparent With Fair Trade USA and the Conformity Assessment Body) – 5.3.4.a (suspension)
- Capture Fisheries Standard: Section 6: Traceability and Transparency (TR), Sub-Section (CS): Contract Suspension & Decertification – TR-CS 1.1 (suspension), TR-CS 2.1 & 3.1 (decertification)
- Factory Standard: Contact Fair Trade USA for details
- Trade Standard: Module 1: General Requirements, Sub-Module 1.2: Product Sourcing – all of Objective 1.2.2 (suspension), all of Objective 1.2.3 (decertification)
My business partner has multiple certification statuses, what does that mean?
Sometimes, Fair Trade Certified entities can have more than one certification status. This may occur in two cases:
- Entities have a certificate from both Fair Trade USA and Fair Trade International (FLO).
- Entities perform multiple roles along the supply chain and each role has a separate certificate.
If you have any questions about what this might mean for your sourcing needs, contact Fair Trade USA at helpcert@fairtradeusa.org.
My business partner has no Certification Scope, what does that mean?
If you don't see an entry in the Certification Scope column for your business partner, please reach out to Fair Trade USA at helpcert@fairtradeusa.org for more details.