Our register shows one of five statuses on every certificate we have issued: valid, renewing, suspended, withdrawn or expired. Suspended means the certificate is not valid on the day you read it and that it can be reinstated. Withdrawn means we ended the certification, and expired means the certificate passed its expiry date without being renewed. Status is the one fact in that list a certificate document cannot carry, which is why we publish the register.
What each status means
Valid means the certificate is in force and subject to ongoing surveillance audits. The scope printed on it is the scope we audited, and the surveillance programme behind it is current.
Renewing means the certificate is in its recertification window at the end of its three-year cycle, and it remains in force until the expiry date shown. It describes the ordinary end of a cycle. Where a bidder's certificate shows renewing, it is still valid evidence, and the question worth asking is when the recertification decision is due.
Suspended means the certificate must not be presented as evidence of conformity until it is reinstated. Suspension is a state with a route out of it: something has to be resolved, and the certificate returns to valid when it is. A surveillance audit that did not take place inside its window suspends a certificate, and that route to suspension involves no failure in the management system at all. While the suspension lasts the organisation is not certified, whatever expiry date is printed on the document.
Where the reason for a suspension is not resolved inside the period set for it, the certification is withdrawn. The sequence is written down at every step: a finding issued in writing with the evidence it rests on and a window to respond, then suspension where that window closes unresolved, then withdrawal.
Withdrawn means the certification ended and the certificate is no longer valid for any purpose. A withdrawn certificate stays in the register with its status attached, because a certificate number put in front of a buyer has to resolve to an answer. Deleting the entry would leave the document in the buyer's hands unexplained.
Expired means the certificate reached its expiry date and was not renewed. The register keeps expired and withdrawn apart because they describe different histories. An expired certificate ran its cycle to the end. A withdrawn one was stopped before its expiry date, and the reason for that sits with us.
Checking a status rather than reading a certificate
A certificate is a document with an issue date, an expiry date and a scope printed on it. None of those change when the certificate is suspended or withdrawn. An organisation whose certificate was suspended last month holds exactly the document it held before, and the expiry date on it still reads two years out. That is how a supplier assurance file goes stale while every page in it still looks correct.
The public register is searchable by certificate number or organisation name, and it returns the standard edition, the scope, the validity dates and the current status, from us rather than from the holder. Reports of a document that names Viscount and does not appear in the register go to cert@viscount.ae, and we treat each one as a possible falsification.
For a buyer, the consequence is that a status carries a date. A register entry read at tender submission is evidence about that day, and a certificate valid in March can be suspended in June. Where a contract depends on certification for its duration, the check belongs at award and at each renewal as well as at prequalification.
The register covers the certificates we have issued, against the four standards EIAC and ANAB accredit us for: ISO 9001, ISO 14001, ISO 45001, additionally ISO 22301 by EIAC. It says nothing about a certificate issued by another body. For those the status sits with whoever issued it, so the issuing body's own register is where to look, and a body with no searchable register leaves the holder as your only source for whether the certificate is current. Whether that body is accredited for your supplier's standard and sector is a separate check, and we have set it out in how to check whether a certification body can actually certify you.
If you hold a certificate, the status in the register is worth reading against your own surveillance dates. The three-year cycle runs certification, a first annual surveillance, a second annual surveillance and then recertification, and each surveillance falls in a window rather than on a date of your choosing. A surveillance that slips is an administrative problem until the window closes. After that it is a status a client can read.