How to verify a factory certificate in Bangladesh

Three checks verify a certificate from a Bangladeshi factory: the company name and address on it must match the factory making your order, the expiry date must not have passed, and the issuing body’s public register must list it, such as WRAP, OEKO-TEX Label Check, the GOTS database or Textile Exchange. For organic or recycled claims, also ask for a transaction certificate for your shipment. A certificate PDF proves very little on its own: documents get edited, expire, or belong to a different factory. Most checks take a few minutes, and this guide shows where each register lives, what each certificate covers, and what it does not.

1. Match the name and address first

Every certificate names a legal entity and a site address. Compare both with the factory’s trade licence and the address on your purchase order. A certificate held by a sister unit down the road does not cover your production, and a group certificate rarely covers every site in the group.

2. Check the expiry date

Validity varies a lot. WRAP stopped certification levels on 1 March 2026: it now issues an annual Certification of Compliance with no Gold or Platinum level, so a new WRAP certificate lasts one year, and a Platinum certificate issued before then stays valid until the expiry date printed on it. OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 certificates last twelve months. amfori BSCI works on a two-year cycle: after an A or B rating the next full audit is due within two years, and a C, D or E rating needs a follow-up audit two to twelve months after the full audit. SA8000 certificates run three years with surveillance audits in between. A Sedex SMETA audit has no expiry date, only an audit date, and Sedex no longer accepts one older than 24 months as a robust assessment of current conditions, so ask how recent it is.

3. Look it up in the register

Each standard keeps its own register, and none of them shares data with the others, so check each certificate where it was issued.

4. Ask for transaction certificates on material claims

For organic and recycled claims, a factory’s scope certificate only shows it can process certified material. The Transaction Certificate shows that your goods were made with it, batch by batch. Without a TC, you cannot legally use the claim on your label, and from 27 September 2026 EU rules ban generic environmental claims and self-certified sustainability labels, so the claim must be backed; our sustainable production page explains what a claim needs behind it.

5. Check the statutory basics

Ask for the trade licence, Export Registration Certificate, fire licence and DIFE factory licence. A factory missing any of these cannot legally produce and ship your order, whatever voluntary certificates it holds. The Department of Inspection for Factories and Establishments runs an online licence verification page that gives a factory’s current status from its licence or registration number, and the Export Promotion Bureau’s exporter database confirms that a company exports at all.

6. See who has listed the factory on Open Supply Hub

Open Supply Hub is a free, open database of production locations, run by a non-profit registered in the United States. Brands, retailers, civil society groups, certification schemes and factory groups contribute lists of sites, and each site gets an OS ID. Its help pages say a facility’s profile shows the contributors that have added it, so you can see which brands have listed the factory and which other organisations list it. Some contributors appear only as a type, such as [A Brand/Retailer], for example when an organisation stopped working with the factory and its contribution was anonymised; a list that Open Supply Hub’s own team uploaded from an organisation’s published data, rather than the organisation itself, is marked [Public List]; and old lists stay on the site with the date they were last updated. Anyone can search it free of charge.

Both Bangladeshi garment associations have signed agreements with it. BGMEA signed a memorandum of understanding with Open Supply Hub on 10 May 2026 under which its member factories’ information and locations are to be added to the platform, each with an OS ID. BKMEA signed one on 22 July 2025, and Just Style reported that its member list would be published there. Read a profile for what it is. A listing shows that someone disclosed or registered the site, not that it passed an audit, still works for that brand or makes your product. A factory that lists no brands is not necessarily hiding anything, because each brand decides how much of its supplier list to publish. Use it to check that the name and address match the other documents, and to ask a sharper question: “Brand X lists you; which products do you make for them?”

What a certificate does not cover

Even a valid certificate has limits worth understanding before you rely on it.

• It covers one site. A certificate held by a sister unit does not cover the factory sewing your order, and subcontracted work is outside it entirely.
• It covers a scope. A GOTS scope certificate shows a facility can process certified material; only a transaction certificate shows your goods actually were.
• It is a snapshot. A social audit reflects the days it was conducted. A year-old report says little about conditions this month.
• It is not a quality guarantee. None of these standards promises your garment is well made; that is what your specification and inspections are for.

How to read an audit report

When you receive an audit report rather than a certificate, look past the rating. Read the findings list and check three things: what was found, what the corrective action plan says, and whether the follow-up evidence shows it was closed. A factory with several minor findings that were fixed is usually safer than one with a clean report from an auditor nobody recognises. Note the audit date, the auditing firm and whether the audit was announced or semi-announced. Our compliance page explains what an amfori BSCI grade means and which findings matter most in Bangladesh, and our guide to amfori BSCI audit ratings shows how the 13 performance-area grades become one rating from A to E, and when the follow-up audit is due.

Common ways a certificate turns out to be worthless

• The certificate is genuine but belongs to the fabric mill, not the garment factory, or the other way round.
• The number is genuine but the name on the register does not match the company quoting you.
• The certificate expired last year and the PDF has been edited, which is why the register, not the PDF, is the check.
• The scope covers knitting and dyeing but not garment making, so the finished product is outside it.
• The certificate is for a different product category from yours.

A ten-minute verification checklist

• Legal name and address on the certificate match the factory making your order.
• Certificate is in date, and the scope covers your product type and process.
• Number found in the issuing body’s public register, not only on the PDF.
• For organic or recycled claims, a transaction certificate exists for your shipment.
• Statutory documents exist too: trade licence, Export Registration Certificate, fire licence and DIFE factory licence.
• Safety inspection status checked on the International Accord’s public factory list.
• Name and address found on Open Supply Hub, with the brands and organisations that list the site.

Met the supplier at a trade fair? A stand says nothing about who will sew your order, so run the same checklist; our guide to BATEXPO and Dhaka's garment fairs lists the registers to search before a deposit.

Not sure which audit your buyer will accept? See BSCI, WRAP, SMETA or SA8000 compared.

Before production we name the factory making your order in writing, with its address, certificates and audit reports, so you can run this checklist yourself. See the full list of standards and registers on our certifications page. Laboratory test reports are checked differently, against the lab’s accreditation scope, as our lab testing guide shows.