How to Check an Elevator Type-Examination Certificate: Scope, Issuer and Register

A type-examination certificate is checked in three moves: read its scope block, confirm that the body which signed it is authorised for that equipment and that market, and look the certificate up in the issuing body's own register. The document itself proves nothing. Seals, borders and QR codes can be reproduced, and a PDF can be edited in a minute. What a buyer can rely on is a record held by somebody other than the seller, matching the certificate number, the model and the parameters actually being purchased.

Most certificate problems are not forgeries. They are real certificates attached to the wrong transaction. The model has moved on a generation, the rated speed sits outside the tested envelope, the annex never arrived, or the certificate covers a safety gear while the buyer believes it covers the lift. Each of those failures survives a visual inspection and collapses the moment somebody opens the register.

What the certificate certifies — and what it does not

Under China's TSG T7007-2022, the Regulation for Type Test of Lifts issued by the State Administration for Market Regulation, a type test takes place after the manufacturer has completed its own full product verification. An approved type-test body then reviews the technical documentation and runs safety-performance tests to establish whether the product conforms to the safety technical regulation. The 2022 edition replaced the 2016 edition, which is why the edition cited on a certificate matters.

Read that definition carefully, because it defines the boundary. A type-examination certificate is evidence about a design. It is not a production licence, not an installation approval, and not an inspection of the units in your shipment. Those are three different instruments held by three possibly different parties, and none of them substitutes for another.

The European equivalent sits in Module B of the Lifts Directive, 2014/33/EU. There, a notified body examines the technical design of a model lift — or of a safety component — and attests that it meets the essential health and safety requirements of Annex I. For complete lifts the certificate is issued to the installer, and it must state the installer's name and address, the conclusions of the examination, any conditions of validity, and the particulars needed to identify the approved type. Annexes may be attached, and in practice the annex is where the useful content lives.

That difference in addressee is a practical trap. A Chinese certificate names a manufacturer; an EU lift certificate names an installer; an EU component certificate names a component maker. A buyer who asks a supplier for "your certificate" without saying which of the three they mean will usually receive whichever document is easiest to send.

Six fields to read before anything else

Every genuine certificate in this field carries the same core information, whatever its language or layout. Read these six fields in order, and read them against the quotation rather than against the brochure:

• Certificate number. A unique key into the issuer's register. It is not a checksum: no arithmetic on the digits tells you whether it is live, and a structurally correct number can belong to an expired or withdrawn certificate.
• Applicant and manufacturer. These are frequently two different companies. The applicant may be an overseas agent, a group affiliate, or the customer who commissioned the test. The manufacturer is the party whose name has to survive into your contract chain.
• Equipment category, type and model. Landing door locks, safety gears, overspeed governors, buffers and complete lifts are separate categories with separate certificates. A safety-component certificate does not cover a lift, and a certificate for one model does not cover its successor.
• Regulation or standard cited. TSG T7007-2022 or its 2016 predecessor in China; EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 for the EU route. A certificate still citing a superseded edition is not automatically invalid, but the reason needs to be documented.
• Dates. Original issue, any recertification, and — in the Chinese format — a review date. The certificate typically states that it does not apply to products manufactured after that review date. That sentence is the difference between a valid document and a historical one.
• The annex. A parameter and configuration table. If you have received page one only, you have received a cover letter, not a certificate.

The annex is where certificates are usually lost

A lift type-test annex is a grid of limits. For a safety gear it may specify permissible mass range, rated speed range, maximum tripping speed of the governor, draw mode, the material and hardness of the gripping elements, the hardness and grade of the guide rails, and the applicable environment. For a complete lift it will describe the drive, the suspension, the door arrangement, the control system and the parameter envelope.

The certificate is bounded by every cell in that grid, not by the model name at the top. A quotation that keeps the model number but raises the rated speed, changes the safety gear material, alters the suspension ratio, or specifies a different door operator can sit outside the tested configuration while looking identical on the first page. In China, a change to the main parameters or to the type-test configuration is itself a trigger for a new type test. In the EU, the installer is obliged to tell the notified body about modifications that may affect conformity or the conditions of validity, and the body then decides whether the certificate stands, needs an addition, or requires a fresh application.

So the request to a supplier is not "send me the certificate". It is: send the certificate and its complete annex, for this model, at these parameters, with this configuration, issued in the name of the manufacturer who will produce the equipment. Then compare the annex line by line with the technical schedule you are being asked to sign.

Checking a Chinese certificate in about ten minutes

China publishes type-test certificates. The issuing body uploads the report and the certificate to the national publicity platform for electromechanical special-equipment type tests, and it does so within five working days of issuing the certificate. The report itself is issued within fifteen working days of the test being completed; where the test passes, the certificate is issued together with it. Those timelines give you a sanity check on any certificate that is said to be days old.

The platform moved. A new site went live on 1 April 2024 at xssy.csei.org.cn, and at least one major issuing laboratory has stated that it no longer uploads to the older address at xssy.cpase.org.cn. Producers, users and members of the public can register; registrations are reviewed before access is granted, and the switch involved no fee. A supplier who can only point to an old printout, and whose certificate cannot be found on the current platform, owes you an explanation.

The routine:

1. Ask for the certificate as a file, not a photograph of a screen, together with the annex and the type-test report number.
2. Copy the manufacturer's full registered name exactly as printed, in Chinese characters. The English trading name is not the key.
3. Register on the platform and open the certificate query screen.
4. Select the equipment category, then enter the full manufacturer name and the certificate number.
5. Open the certificate view and compare it with the file in hand — model, parameter range, dates, annex pages.
6. If nothing returns, ask which body issued the certificate and contact that body directly. A missing record is not proof of forgery, but it is an open question until the issuer answers it.

One limitation is worth stating plainly: a register lookup confirms that a certificate exists and what it says. It does not confirm that the units in your container were built to it. That gap is closed by production conformity assessment, factory acceptance testing and pre-shipment inspection, which are separate activities.

Checking an EU certificate

European certificates are easier to route and easier to misread. The notified body's four-digit number is printed on the certificate, and that number can be looked up in the Commission's NANDO database — now served through the Single Market Compliance Space — filtered to Directive 2014/33/EU. Confirm two things there: that the body is notified for that legislation, and that the module on your certificate falls inside its notified scope. A genuine body acting outside its scope produces a document with no legal weight.

Then test the certificate's current status rather than its existence. Module B certificates can carry conditions of validity, and they can be withdrawn, suspended or restricted. Notified bodies are required to inform their notifying authority, and each other, of certificates issued, refused, withdrawn, suspended or restricted, which means the body that signed the paper is the authoritative source on whether it still stands. Ask in writing, quoting the certificate number and the model, whether the certificate is valid and whether any addition covers the variant you have been quoted.

Finally, check the addressee. For complete lifts, Module B issues the certificate to the installer. A certificate naming a different installer is not a document you can simply inherit; the conformity route for your installation has to be constructed properly, with final inspection or unit verification at the end of it.

What no certificate can tell you

It cannot tell you whether the factory still builds to the tested design, whether the units shipped match the tested sample, whether the installation was performed to the design, or whether the equipment satisfies your own market's rules. A Chinese type test is not a European conformity assessment, and a CE mark is not a Chinese special-equipment approval. The two regimes test against different standards and are administered by different authorities. A supplier who implies that one substitutes for the other is telling you something useful about how they handle compliance in general.

Ten ways a real-looking certificate misleads

None of these requires a criminal. Most are the by-products of haste, translation and sales pressure.

• An expired review date. The document is genuine, the certificate has lapsed, and the note excluding units manufactured after the review date does the rest.
• Parameters stretched past the annex. The model matches; the rated speed or load does not.
• A configuration swap. Different door type, machine, suspension or safety gear from the tested arrangement.
• A component certificate presented as a lift certificate. Common when the buyer's request was vague.
• Holder and manufacturer differ. The certificate belongs to a component maker or an affiliate, while the contract is with somebody else.
• Page one only. A real cover sheet attached to a rewritten annex is the classic composite document.
• A QR code or link that resolves somewhere else. If it opens a copy of the same PDF hosted on the seller's site, or a lookalike domain, it proves nothing. It has to resolve on the issuer's domain and match the document.
• A screenshot instead of a file. No metadata, no report number, nothing to compare.
• ISO 9001 or a CE mark offered in place of a type examination. ISO does not issue certificates at all, and a management-system certificate says nothing about a product's design.
• A recycled model name. The same designation reused across generations, with an older certificate attached to a newer product.

Visual checks have a place as a filter, not a verdict: a missing certificate number, vague wording, mismatched fonts, a low-resolution logo or a signature with pasted edges are reasons to slow down, never reasons to proceed.

The record worth keeping

Verification is a five-minute task that becomes valuable only if it is written down. Keep, with the contract: the certificate number and issuing body; the manufacturer's registered name; the model and the parameter range from the annex; the issue, recertification and review dates; the register you checked and the date you checked it; and any written confirmation from the issuing body about current validity.

That file forces the supplier to commit to a specific document rather than a category of document. If the equipment arrives with a different configuration, it also establishes what was represented at the point of sale — the only moment at which the argument is still cheap.

Where we sit in this process

ElevApex is a distributor and multi-brand supplier, not a manufacturer. We work across ten manufacturers and match equipment to a project rather than pushing a single factory's catalogue; manufacturer authorisation for overseas business is issued per project, and the brand notes are on the brands page. What that means for certificates is simple: the certificate you need is the manufacturer's, for the exact configuration quoted, and we will name the issuing factory so you can look it up yourself rather than take our word for the filing.

Our own credentials are checkable the same way. We hold a Special Equipment Production Licence for Elevator Installation (including Repair), Class A2 covering Class B, issued as TS3351339-2026, together with a China AAA credit rating certificate. Those are installation credentials, and we do not present them as manufacturing authority. Details are on the company page; the multi-brand supply model explains how equipment and installation responsibility are split.

FAQ

Does a type-examination certificate cover the whole elevator?

Only if it is a complete-lift certificate for that model and configuration. Component certificates for door locks, safety gears, governors and buffers cover those components alone. Even a complete-lift certificate covers a design and a parameter envelope, not the individual unit installed in your building — that is addressed by final inspection or unit verification at commissioning.

How long is a certificate valid?

Read the document rather than assuming. Chinese certificates carry a review date and typically state that they do not apply to products manufactured after it; EU certificates carry whatever conditions of validity the notified body imposed. In both systems, the current status is a question for the issuing body, not an inference from the issue date, because certificates can be suspended, restricted or withdrawn.

Can I check a Chinese certificate without reading Chinese?

Yes, with care. The platform is Chinese-language and the query key is the manufacturer's full registered Chinese name, so ask the supplier to send that name exactly as it appears on the certificate rather than an English translation. Browser translation is adequate for navigating menus; the model designation, parameter values and certificate number should be compared character by character against the file, and a written confirmation from the issuing body is a reasonable substitute when the register is hard to use from abroad.

Is a CE certificate the same as a Chinese type test?

No. They are separate approvals under separate legal regimes, testing against different standards — the EN 81-20 and EN 81-50 route in Europe, the GB/T 7588 series and TSG rules in China. Holding one does not satisfy the other. A supplier who can produce both is demonstrating two distinct competencies; a supplier who presents one as covering the other is inviting you to find out later.