“ISO Certified”, “Accredited”, “Award-Winning”: How to Advertise Certifications and Credentials Legally in Singapore

Last updated 21 October 2026 — by Adrian Tan, SDM. Marketing guidance, not legal advice. References are to the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act 2003 and the Trade Marks Act 1998 on Singapore Statutes Online as at 21 October 2026, ISO’s and the Singapore Accreditation Council’s published guidance, and the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice. Where we infer how a rule applies, we say so.

Look at the footer of almost any Singapore B2B website and you will find a row of badges: an ISO logo, a “certified” seal, an award trophy, sometimes a government agency’s crest. Look at a tender submission or a LinkedIn company page and the same words appear in the first line: “ISO 9001 certified”, “accredited”, “award-winning”, “Singapore’s No. 1”.

Those words do real work. Procurement teams shortlist on them, consumers trust them, and Google Ads headlines built on them tend to earn the click. That is exactly why Singapore law and the advertising code treat them as factual claims that must be true, current and provable, not as decoration. And one of the most common versions, the ISO logo in a footer, breaks ISO’s own rules even when the company really is certified.

This guide explains what you may say about certifications, accreditations, awards and rankings in Singapore marketing, which rulebook each claim answers to, how the Competition and Consumer Commission of Singapore (CCCS) has dealt with false credentials, and how to rewrite the risky versions into claims that still sell.

Why a credential is a legal claim

The Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act 2003 (CPFTA) makes it an unfair practice for a supplier to do anything listed in its Second Schedule (section 4(d)), on top of the general bans on misleading consumers and making false claims. Several of the listed practices read as if they were written for certification badges:

• Item 1: representing that goods or services have a sponsorship, approval, performance characteristics, qualities or benefits that they do not have.
• Item 2: representing that the supplier has a sponsorship, approval or affiliation that it does not have.
• Item 4: representing that goods or services are of a particular standard, quality or grade if they are not.
• Item 16: presenting advertising as editorial without making clear it is paid, which matters for “award” advertorials and paid listicles.
• Item 23: omitting or concealing a material fact.

The Second Schedule has grown over the years and now runs to 27 items, so older summaries that quote 20 are out of date. A consumer who suffers loss can sue, and CCCS can take undertakings or seek court orders against a business that persists. The CPFTA protects consumers rather than business buyers, so a purely B2B tender sits outside it. But a false credential in a tender is still a misrepresentation in the ordinary contractual sense, and the same badge usually sits on a public website that consumers also see.

On top of the statute, the Singapore Code of Advertising Practice (SCAP), administered by the Advertising Standards Authority of Singapore (ASAS), applies to advertising whoever the audience is. It is self-regulatory, but media owners and platforms in Singapore follow ASAS decisions, so a ruling can take an ad down.

What CCCS has actually done about false credentials

Two cases show where the line is drawn.

Purexygen (March 2024). CCCS found that the water-filtration company’s sales materials claimed its filters had been tested by testing bodies when they had not been. Purexygen gave undertakings to stop, and CCCS issued warnings. In the same release, CCCS said it was reviewing the “accreditation, certification and health benefit claims” made by other filtration suppliers, which tells you the regulator sees credential claims as a category, not a one-off.

Triple Lifestyle Marketing (TLM). In March 2023 the State Courts ordered TLM to stop unfair practices after CCCS alleged, among other things, false claims that the business or its products were accredited.

Neither case involved an elaborate fraud. Both turned on a sentence in a sales kit or on a sales call about who had tested or approved the product. That is the level of detail at which credential claims go wrong.

Who certifies what: the chain behind an ISO badge

Most mistakes come from misunderstanding who does what. There are four separate parties, and only two of them have anything to do with your certificate.

ISO writes standards; it does not certify

ISO’s own certification page is blunt: ISO “does not perform certification or issue certificates”, and it does not permit anyone to use the ISO logo in connection with certification. Its name-and-logo guidance adds that you should not:

• use, copy or modify the ISO logo;
• use “ISO” in a product or company name;
• say your company or product is endorsed, approved or certified by ISO.

What ISO does want is precision. Cite the full reference, such as “ISO 9001:2015”, not just “ISO certified”, which names no standard at all. If you want a badge, use the one supplied by the certification body that issued your certificate, under that body’s own rules. Anyone can check a certificate on the IAF CertSearch database, and complaints about a certificate go first to the certification body that issued it.

Accreditation is a different thing, and usually not yours to claim

In Singapore, the Singapore Accreditation Council (SAC), under Enterprise Singapore, accredits certification bodies, laboratories and inspection bodies. Being certified by an accredited body does not make your company “SAC-accredited”. SAC’s published rules for its marks are written for the accredited bodies themselves: the mark must carry the organisation’s certificate number, in prescribed red and dark-grey Pantone colours, at a minimum size of 30 mm by 15 mm, and advertising or promotional use needs SAC’s prior approval. The IAF MLA mark may be used only together with the SAC mark, under a sublicence.

Accreditation bodies’ licence terms for the IAF mark go further. The templates published by accreditation bodies such as UKAS and COFRAC state that the accredited body “shall not allow its certified organisations” to use the IAF MLA mark. So the IAF globe that some company websites display alongside their ISO badge is, on those terms, one their certifier was not allowed to let them use.

If your business genuinely is accredited, for example a testing laboratory accredited by SAC for specific tests, the claim is legitimate but scoped: name the accreditation, the scope and, where the rules require it, the certificate number.

Certification marks are also trade marks

The Trade Marks Act 1998 recognises certification marks: signs that show goods or services have been certified by the mark’s owner as to origin, material, mode of manufacture, quality, accuracy or other characteristics (section 61). Their use is governed by the rules the owner registers. Using a certification mark outside those rules is a trade mark problem as well as a consumer protection one. Separately, section 51 makes it an offence to represent a trade mark as registered when it is not, which our guide to using the ® symbol and “patented” claims in Singapore advertising covers in detail.

What the advertising code adds

SCAP applies a set of clauses to credential claims that are easy to miss because none of them mentions ISO by name:

SCAP has no clause dedicated to “No. 1” or “award-winning”. Those claims fall under the substantiation and exaggeration clauses above, which in practice means: name the ranking or award, its year and who gave it, and make sure it measured what your ad implies it measured.

Rewriting the risky claims

Most credential problems are not lies. They are vague or overstretched versions of something true. The fix is usually to add the detail that makes the claim checkable.

Where credential claims hide in a marketing stack

Credential claims are rarely written once. They are copied, and every copy drifts out of date at its own pace. Audit these places when a certificate is renewed, its scope changes, or an award gets old:

• Website: footer badges, “About us” timelines, service pages, schema markup that lists awards.
• Paid ads: Google Ads headlines and callout assets, Meta primary text, LinkedIn single-image ads. Ad copy is often the last place anyone updates.
• Sales documents: capability statements, tender templates and sales decks. The Purexygen problem sat in sales materials, not on the website.
• Packaging and labels for physical products, where reprinting is expensive and old claims can sit on shelf for months.
• Directory and marketplace listings: Google Business Profile descriptions, B2B directories, e-commerce product pages.
• Staff profiles: individual LinkedIn pages that describe the company as “ISO certified” or “award-winning” in their own words.

For physical goods there is a second layer. Some marks are not marketing choices at all. The SAFETY mark for controlled goods and Singapore’s energy labels are mandatory and tightly specified, and misusing them is a regulatory offence rather than an advertising-code matter. Our guides to the Trade Descriptions Act and product marks and to energy label rules in Singapore advertising cover those.

Four worked examples

1. The contractor bidding for a tender

A facilities-management SME has a certificate to ISO 9001:2015 from an SAC-accredited certification body. Its capability statement shows the ISO logo and says “ISO-accredited company”. Three fixes: remove the ISO logo (ISO does not allow it for certification), replace “accredited” with “certified” (the company is certified; its certifier is accredited), and add the certificate number, scope and expiry. The result is more persuasive to a procurement officer, who can now verify it on IAF CertSearch in a minute.

2. The IT company with a narrow ISO 27001 scope

A managed-services firm’s ISO/IEC 27001 certificate covers its data-centre hosting service only. Its Google Ads say “ISO 27001 certified IT support”. That implies the certificate covers IT support, which it does not, so it risks item 4 (a particular standard or quality the service does not have). The fix is to tie the claim to the certified service in the ad and on its landing page, and keep IT-support ads to claims that are true of IT support.

3. The air purifier “tested by labs”

A retailer’s product page says “lab tested to remove 99.9% of viruses” with no lab, method or date. On the facts CCCS described in Purexygen, an untrue testing claim of this kind is exactly what it acted on. If a real test exists, name the lab, the test method, the conditions and the year, and make the report available. If it does not, remove the claim. A percentage without a named method is the SCAP cl 5.3(b) problem as well: a statistic implying more validity than it has.

4. The agency that was shortlisted

A marketing agency was a finalist in a regional awards programme two years ago. Its homepage says “award-winning agency”. A finalist did not win, and a two-year-old result quoted as current edges into the “obsolete” problem in SCAP cl 3.2. “Finalist, [category], [awards] 2024” is accurate and still useful. If you have paid to enter a “best agencies” list or a sponsored ranking, item 16 of the Second Schedule is the reminder to label it as advertising when you republish it.

A credential-claims checklist

1. List every certificate, accreditation, award and ranking you mention anywhere, with issuer, scope, number and expiry date.
2. Remove the ISO logo and any IAF mark from your own materials; use the certification body’s mark under its rules.
3. Write standards in full (“ISO 9001:2015”), and name the certification body.
4. Match each claim to its scope: a certificate for one service or site is not a claim about the whole company.
5. Use “certified” for your company and “accredited” only for the body or laboratory that holds an accreditation.
6. For tests, name the lab, the method and the year; for awards, name the award, category, year and organiser.
7. Do not use any agency’s, certifier’s or awards body’s logo without written permission.
8. Set a calendar reminder 60 days before each expiry to update ads, sales decks, packaging and profiles.
9. Keep the evidence in one folder you can send to ASAS, CCCS or a client the same day.

The same discipline applies to environmental credentials, which carry their own guidance from CCCS. If your badges include “carbon neutral” or recycled-content claims, read our guide to green claims in Singapore marketing as well. For the disclosures your website must carry regardless of credentials, see our website legal requirements guide.

Where this leaves you

Credentials are some of the most valuable words in your marketing, and they are worth the most when a buyer can check them. The rules come down to four things: ISO certifies no one, so do not use its logo; you are certified, while your certifier is accredited; every claim has a scope and an expiry date; and “award-winning” or “No. 1” means nothing without a named source. Get those right and your badges become evidence instead of liability.

If you want help turning real credentials into campaigns and landing pages that convert without overclaiming, our performance marketing team in Singapore can work through it with you, and you can see how we report results in our client case studies. For the wider picture, start with our complete guide to performance marketing in Singapore.

Frequently asked questions

Can I use the ISO logo on my website if my company is ISO 9001 certified?

No. ISO says it does not certify anyone and does not permit its logo to be used in connection with certification. Cite the standard in full, such as ISO 9001:2015, and use the certification body’s own mark under that body’s rules.

Is it correct to say my company is “ISO accredited”?

Usually not. Companies are certified to a standard by a certification body. Accreditation is what bodies such as the Singapore Accreditation Council give to certification bodies and laboratories. Say “certified to ISO 9001:2015 by [certification body]”.

Is a false certification claim illegal in Singapore?

It can be. Items 1, 2 and 4 of the Second Schedule to the Consumer Protection (Fair Trading) Act cover false claims of approval, affiliation, standard or quality. CCCS took undertakings from Purexygen in 2024 over false claims that its filters were tested by testing bodies.

Can I call my business “award-winning”?

Only if you actually won, and it is better to name the award, category, year and organiser. The advertising code requires factual claims to be substantiated and testimonials or endorsements not to be obsolete, so a finalist place or an old win should be described accurately.

Can I say “Singapore’s No. 1” in an ad?

Only with independent evidence that measures what the claim implies. It is a comparative, factual claim under the advertising code’s substantiation and comparison clauses. A specific, sourced statement such as a dated review rating is usually safer and just as persuasive.

Can I display the SAC or IAF logo?

Generally not as a certified company. SAC’s mark rules are written for accredited bodies and require approval for promotional use, and accreditation bodies’ licence terms state that certification bodies must not allow their certified clients to use the IAF MLA mark.