How to Verify a GRS Certificate Before You Order

A Scope Certificate proves a factory can handle GRS material. It does not prove your order did. That link is the Transaction Certificate, and it is issued per shipment, after the fact.

Almost every supplier who says "we are GRS certified" is referring to the first document. That is not dishonest — it is the certificate they hold. But if you are building a recycled-content claim for your packaging or your product listing, the two documents carry very different weight, and knowing which one you actually need will save you from both under-verifying and over-asking.

This guide covers what each certificate proves, the two content thresholds buyers routinely conflate, and how to check any supplier's GRS certificate yourself in about four minutes. If you want the background on GRS as a standard and on recycled materials generally, start with Sustainable Materials & GRS Certification.

Scope Certificate vs. Transaction Certificate

The Global Recycled Standard, administered by Textile Exchange, works through two separate documents.

The Scope Certificate (SC) is facility-level. It names the certified company, the site, the processes that site is certified for, and the product categories covered. It is issued by an approved certification body after an audit, and it is valid for twelve months before re-audit. Every customer of that factory sees the same Scope Certificate — it says nothing about any particular order.

The Transaction Certificate (TC) is shipment-level. It is issued against a specific consignment and names the buyer, the goods, the quantity and the certified input material behind them. It is what carries the chain of custody from one company to the next down the supply chain.

The practical consequence is simple. A valid SC means the factory is set up to run GRS material correctly. It does not mean the material in your cartons was that material. Only a TC ties the claim to your goods.

The Two Thresholds Buyers Conflate

GRS uses two different minimums, and mixing them up is the single most common compliance error in this category.

So a supplier can accurately describe a product as GRS certified at 20% recycled content, while your marketing team, reading "GRS certified," designs packaging with a GRS logo on it. That logo requires 50%. The gap between those two numbers is a compliance exposure that sits with the brand, not the factory — you are the one making the claim to the consumer.

Ask for the actual percentage in writing, not the certification status.

GRS Is Not the Only Recycled Certificate You Will Be Shown

Suppliers sometimes answer a GRS request with a Recycled Claim Standard certificate. Both are Textile Exchange standards and both sit on the same Content Claim Standard chain of custody, so the paperwork looks similar — but they verify different amounts of ground.

RCS is single-attribute. It verifies the recycled content percentage and nothing else: no social criteria, no environmental processing requirements, no chemical restrictions. It applies from 5% recycled content upward, and comes in RCS 100 and RCS Blended versions.

GRS covers the same content tracking and adds to it — social requirements and environmental and chemical criteria at the processing sites, on top of a 20% content floor.

Neither is a downgrade of the other for every purpose. If all you need is a verified recycled percentage, RCS answers exactly that question at lower cost to the supply chain. But if your buyer, retailer or tender asked for GRS specifically, an RCS certificate does not satisfy it, and accepting one because the logos look alike is a mistake that surfaces late.

When You Actually Need a Transaction Certificate

Most buyers either never ask for a TC, or ask for one reflexively on every order. Neither is right. The test is what claim you are making, and to whom.

You need TCs when you are making a consumer-facing recycled claim — a GRS logo or recycled-content percentage on the product, the hangtag, the packaging or the listing page. That claim has to be substantiated down the chain, and the TC is the substantiation. Retailers and marketplaces that police green claims will ask for it, and increasingly so will regulators.

A Scope Certificate plus a written material declaration is proportionate when you want assurance that the supply chain genuinely uses certified recycled input but you are not putting a certified claim in front of the end customer — internal ESG reporting, a tender requirement, a brand that says "made with recycled polyester" without invoking the standard by name.

Decide which of the two you are before you start collecting paperwork. It determines what you ask for, what it costs, and how long it takes — TCs are issued per shipment by the certification body, so they carry their own fee and lead time, and they have to be arranged as part of the order rather than requested after delivery.

How to Verify a GRS Certificate in Four Steps

Any Scope Certificate can be checked against Textile Exchange's public register. It takes minutes and it catches the large majority of problems.

1. Look the company up. Search the certified company or the certificate number in Textile Exchange's Find Certified Company database, which is built from scope certificate data supplied by active certification bodies.

2. Match the legal name against your invoicing party. This is where most problems surface. The certificate must name the entity you are actually buying from. A certificate belonging to a trading company, an affiliate, or — very commonly — the fabric mill upstream does not certify the factory assembling your goods.

3. Check the scope covers your process. A certificate whose scope is trading does not cover cut-and-sew manufacturing. Confirm that the listed processes and product categories match what this supplier is doing for you.

4. Check the validity dates. A GRS Scope Certificate runs twelve months and needs a fresh audit to renew. Expired certificates circulate as PDFs for years.

Red Flags

• "Our fabric supplier is GRS certified." That certifies the mill, not the factory. If the factory itself is not in the chain of custody, the finished goods are not GRS.
• A certificate image with the number cropped or blurred. Without a number and a legal name, there is nothing to verify. Ask for the full PDF.
• An expired certificate presented as current. Check the dates yourself rather than the cover email.
• "We are SGS certified." SGS is a certification body — one of the organisations that issues and audits certificates. It is not a standard, and "SGS certified" on its own states nothing about what was certified. The same applies to Intertek, Bureau Veritas and TÜV.
• A verbal recycled percentage. If it is not written into the PO or the spec, it is not a specification.

Our Certificate, and How to Check It

It would be inconsistent to publish this and not make our own documentation checkable, so:

• Certified entity: Zibo Sanjin Travel Products Co., Ltd.
• Certificate number: SGC-GRC09908-GRS-2026-04
• Textile Exchange licence: TE-00337880
• Issued by: SGS-CSTC
• Valid: 24 April 2026 to 23 April 2027

Put either number into the Textile Exchange database linked above and confirm it yourself rather than taking this page's word for it. The same applies to our other certifications, which are listed with their registration numbers on our credentials page — including the ones where we spell out what the certificate does and does not cover.

For how GRS sits alongside the social and quality audits buyers usually request in the same email, see our certification guide to BSCI, SEDEX/SMETA and ISO 9001.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is a GRS Scope Certificate enough to prove my order used recycled material?

No. A Scope Certificate is facility-level: it proves the factory is audited and certified to handle GRS material. Proof that a specific shipment was made from that material is the Transaction Certificate, which is issued per consignment and names the buyer and goods.

Does "GRS certified" mean the product is 100% recycled?

No. GRS certification requires a minimum of 20% certified recycled content. Displaying the GRS logo on consumer-facing labelling requires at least 50%. Always ask for the actual percentage in writing rather than relying on the certification status alone.

How do I check whether a supplier's GRS certificate is genuine?

Search the company name or certificate number in Textile Exchange's public "Find Certified Company" database, then confirm three things: the legal name matches the entity invoicing you, the certified scope covers the process they are performing for you, and the certificate has not expired. Scope certificates are valid for twelve months.

Is rPET automatically GRS certified?

No. rPET describes a material — polyester made from recycled input, usually post-consumer bottles. GRS is a certification of the chain of custody around such a material, including social and environmental criteria at the processing sites. A supplier can use rPET with no GRS certification at all, and an rPET certificate held by a fabric mill does not certify the factory that sews the finished product.

Is RCS the same as GRS?

No. Both are Textile Exchange standards sharing the same chain-of-custody framework, but the Recycled Claim Standard verifies recycled content percentage only, from 5% upward. GRS requires at least 20% recycled content and additionally covers social, environmental and chemical criteria at the processing sites. If a customer or tender specified GRS, an RCS certificate does not satisfy that requirement.