What is a Non-Certificate Holder?

A NCH is an organization or individual (e.g. retailer, holding, mother company and multi-national companies) who are not required to have FSC® certification but who wish to:

• promote FSC labelled products to final consumers
• advise or specify the use of FSC products
• promote the use of FSC products in their business or activities
• promote FSC as a system.

Additionally NCH’s may be organizations wishing to promote their status as FSC accredited certification bodies. For example:  Certification bodies and their partners.

Who can become a “Non-certificate Holder”?

These are organisations and individuals that do not have FSC certification but wish to use the FSC trademarks for promotional purposes. This trademark user group includes commercial or non-commercial organizations, educational and research organizations, media, and Certification Bodies and their partners. In order to use the FSC trademarks for general or product promotion, the organization must have signed an FSC trademark license agreement. Members of the media, educational institutions or research organizations will instead sign an acknowledgement of receipt of the logo files.

How do I check if a NCH code is valid?

You can visit the NCH search page on info.fsc.org. This site contains the most up-to-date information available. It is the place to find non-certified companies that have been granted a license to use the FSC trademarks. Their license code in the form of FSC®N000000 is their identification number.

What can I find in this database?

When the license code is entered into the database it provides information about the country in which the license was granted and the organization to whom the license was issued.

More information

For further details about registering with your local Trademark Service Provider (TSP) please contact your National Office. If there is no National Office in your country, please contact trademark @fsc.org.