What exactly is the IECEE CB Scheme?

In the words of the IECEE, it is an international system for mutual acceptance of test reports and certificates dealing with the safety of electrical and electronic components, equipment and products. It is a multilateral agreement among participating countries and certification organisations. A National Certification Body (NCB), working with a CB Testing Laboratory (CBTL), issues a CB Test Certificate and CB Test Report against an IEC standard; other certification bodies that recognise that standard use them as the basis for their own national certification. The scheme came from the former European CEE and was integrated into the IEC in 1985.

Does a CB Test Certificate let me sell my product anywhere?

No. It is not a market authorisation and not a mark. The IECEE FAQ states that it is strictly forbidden to make reference to the IECEE or the CB Scheme on the product. The certificate and report are test evidence that each national scheme then uses under its own rules, with its own mark, labelling and administrative steps.

What product categories does the CB Scheme cover?

The IECEE list of standards operated in the scheme uses 23 category codes, from BATT (batteries) and CABL (cables and cords) to HOUS (household equipment), LITE (lighting), MED (medical electrical equipment), MEAS (measurement and laboratory equipment), OFF (IT and office equipment), TRON (electronics, entertainment), and also EMC, CYBR (cyber security), E3 (energy efficiency) and PV (photovoltaic). In August 2026 the list held 1,802 standard entries.

Does the CB Scheme cover EMC and radio as well as safety?

EMC, yes: Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) is one of the 23 categories of the standards list, with its own test report form template. Cyber security (CYBR) is also a category. Radio type approval is not: no national radio authority is bound by a CB report, so FCC equipment authorisation, the radio part of the RED and national radio approvals stay separate procedures.

Is IEC 60950-1 or IEC 60065 still usable for a CB report?

Both were withdrawn by the IEC on 29 March 2024, as shown on the IEC web store entries. In the EU, the presumption of conformity from EN 60950-1 and EN 60065 had already ended on 20 December 2020. New IT and audio/video work runs against IEC 62368-1.

What are national differences and why do they matter?

They are the national and group differences, national deviations and special national conditions that member bodies and certification bodies declare for each standard. CENELEC countries share group differences. The IECEE says the detailed differences are restricted to members and that you should ask your NCB. Asking the CBTL to test against the differences of every target country at the outset is what keeps later delta testing small.

Who can issue a CB Test Certificate?

Only an NCB accepted in the IECEE, for a standard it is recognised to issue against, with testing done by a CBTL (or under the Customers' Testing Facilities programme described in OD-2048). The IECEE standards list shows, per standard, how many CB Testing Laboratories, issuing and recognising bodies, and recognising-only bodies exist. ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation alone does not make a laboratory a CBTL.

CB Scheme (IECEE): global safety via one report

Hugues Orgitelloupdated 7 Oct 202612 min read

When a product has to be sold in many countries, the slow part is rarely the engineering, it is repeating the same safety tests for every market. The IECEE CB Scheme is the international answer: a National Certification Body issues a CB Test Certificate and a CB Test Report against an IEC standard, and other certification bodies that recognise that standard use them as the basis for their own national certification. This page explains, from the IECEE documents themselves, how the scheme is organised in 2026, which categories and countries take part, how national differences work, and where the scheme stops.

What the CB Scheme is

The CB Scheme is operated by the IECEE, the IEC System of Conformity Assessment Schemes for Electrotechnical Equipment and Components, one of the conformity assessment systems of the IEC (see the glossary entry on the IEC). "CB" stands for Certification Body. The IECEE describes the scheme as "an international system for mutual acceptance of test reports and certificates dealing with the safety of electrical and electronic components, equipment, and products", and as "a multilateral agreement among participating countries and certification organizations". Its stated aim is "one product, one test, one mark, where applicable". The scheme was originally run by the CEE (the former European International Commission for Conformity Testing of Electrical Equipment) and was integrated into the IEC in 1985.

The actors are:

the member body, which represents a country in the IECEE (a standards body, a national committee or a ministry, depending on the country);
the National Certification Body (NCB), accepted in the IECEE after peer assessment, which issues and/or recognises CB Test Certificates for specific standards;
the CB Testing Laboratory (CBTL), attached to an NCB, which performs the tests;
optionally, a Customers' Testing Facility (CTF), a manufacturer laboratory used under the conditions of OD-2048, in four stages that go from full testing by CBTL staff (stage 1) to witnessing selected parts of selected test programmes (stage 4).

The scheme produces two documents that always travel together:

the CB Test Certificate, the attestation issued by the NCB that the tested sample complies with the cited IEC standard;
the CB Test Report, drawn up on the IEC test report form (TRF) for that standard, with the clause-by-clause verdicts, measurements and construction details.

How the actors interlock with accreditation is covered in the guide on conformity assessment bodies and accreditation.

The rule set in force in 2026

The scheme runs on the IEC basic rules (IEC CA 01), an IECEE supplement, the CB Scheme rules of procedure (IECEE 02) and a series of operational documents (ODs). All are listed on the IECEE "Rules, operational documents and guides" page with their edition and effective date. The documents a manufacturer is most likely to meet:

Document	Edition	Effective	Subject
IECEE 01-S	5.1	20 March 2025	IECEE supplement to IEC CA 01
IECEE 02	25.0	1 January 2026	Rules of procedure of the CB Scheme and related services (E3 energy efficiency testing, GMEE motor efficiency, industrial cyber security, component and aspect certification)
IECEE 02	26.0	1 January 2027	Next edition, already published
IECEE 02-2	13.0	1 January 2026	Particular rules: membership
OD-2037	4.5	1 January 2026	IECEE certificates
OD-2020	4.1	1 January 2026	Test report forms: development, maintenance and use
OD-2048	1.14	1 January 2026	Use of Customers' Testing Facilities (edition 2.0 from 1 January 2027)
OD-2039	2.4	1 January 2025	Acceptance of components within the IECEE
OD-2061	2.3	1 January 2026	Cyber security programme
OD-2055	2.3	1 January 2022	Medical electrical equipment in the CB Scheme (IEC 60601 and ISO/IEC 80601)

Several of these documents change on 1 January 2027 (IECEE 02 edition 26.0, OD-2048 edition 2.0, new TRF templates). If a CB project straddles that date, ask your NCB which edition it applies.

How the mechanism works, step by step

Step	What happens	Who acts
1. Pick the standard	Find the IEC standard and its edition in the IECEE standards list, and check that your NCB issues against it and that the target countries recognise it	Manufacturer, with the NCB
2. Declare target countries	List every country whose national or group differences must be covered	Manufacturer
3. Test	The CBTL (or a CTF under OD-2048) tests against the standard and the requested differences, using the TRF	CBTL
4. Issue	The NCB issues the CB Test Certificate with the CB Test Report	Issuing NCB
5. Recognise	An NCB in the target country that recognises the standard reviews the package and the national differences, and orders any additional testing	Recognising NCB
6. National certification	The national scheme issues its own certificate or mark under its own rules	National scheme

Recognition happens between certification bodies, standard by standard. The IECEE member-bodies page sends readers to each NCB page "to see the standards for which IECEE deliverables are recognized by the member country". For each standard, the IECEE standards list gives the number of CB Testing Laboratories, of issuing and recognising bodies, and of recognising-only bodies. For IEC 62133-2:2017, for example, the August 2026 list showed 134 CB Testing Laboratories, 33 issuing and recognising bodies and 11 recognising-only bodies.

National and group differences

A CB Test Report is written against the IEC standard. Each member declares, per standard, its national differences, national deviations and special national conditions. The CENELEC countries share group differences (the IECEE page lists 34 CENELEC member countries for them), and OD-2020 includes a dedicated "EU GD" template. On the IECEE page of IEC 60950-1:2005/AMD2:2013, for instance, declared differences appear for Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, the United States and the CENELEC group, among others.

Two practical points from the IECEE itself:

the disclaimer on each standard page says the differences are based solely on information provided by member bodies and certification bodies, and recommends contacting the member body or NCB of the country to verify their current status;
the FAQ says the detailed differences information is restricted to IECEE members, and that the old CB Bulletin has been discontinued. Your NCB is the route to the current text.

The classic cause of a stalled conversion is a CB report that did not cover the differences of a target country. Asking for all of them before testing costs less than a later delta test.

The 23 product categories

The IECEE standards list groups the standards into 23 categories, each with a short code. The counts are the number of entries per category in the list as captured in August 2026 (a standard, an amendment or an edition each count as one entry; 1,802 entries in total).

Code	Category	Entries
BATT	Batteries	89
CABL	Cables and cords	114
CAP	Capacitors as components	57
CONT	Switches for appliances and automatic controls for household appliances	151
CYBR	Cyber security	10
E3	Energy efficiency	90
ELVH	Electrical vehicle	31
EMC	Electromagnetic compatibility	428
HOUS	Household and similar equipment	840
INDA	Industrial automation	10
INST	Installation accessories and connection devices	294
ITAV	Information technology audio video	5
LITE	Lighting	360
MEAS	Measurement, control and laboratory equipment	107
MED	Electrical equipment for medical use	339
MISC	Miscellaneous	64
OFF	IT and office equipment	29
POW	Low voltage, high power switching equipment	217
PROT	Installation protective equipment	161
PV	Photovoltaic	83
SAFE	Safety transformers and similar equipment	79
TOOL	Portable tools	178
TRON	Electronics, entertainment	12

Typical anchors: IEC 62368-1 for IT and audio/video equipment, the IEC 60335 series in HOUS, IEC 61010-1 in MEAS, the IEC 60601 series in MED and IEC 62133-2 in BATT. The IECEE FAQ adds two edge cases: a CB Test Certificate may be issued to IEC 60825-1 alone with the disclaimer "Only hazards resulting from laser radiation have been addressed", and a component non-invasive blood pressure module cannot receive a CB Test Certificate under the IEC 60601 series, because a component cannot meet all the requirements of the standard (medical-grade power supplies are the exception the FAQ discusses).

IEC 60950-1 and IEC 60065: withdrawn

The IEC web store shows IEC 60950-1 (consolidated version) and IEC 60065:2014 as withdrawn, with a withdrawal date of 29 March 2024. In the EU, the presumption of conformity under the Low Voltage Directive given by EN 60950-1 and EN 60065 had ended earlier, on 20 December 2020; the edition cited today under the LVD is EN 62368-1:2014 + AC:2015. New IT and audio/video CB work therefore runs against IEC 62368-1, whose engineering logic is covered in the guide on IEC 62368-1 safety engineering.

Who takes part

The IECEE member-bodies page lists each country with its member status and its number of National Certification Bodies, CB Testing Laboratories, supplementary testing laboratories, Customers' Testing Facilities and other recognising bodies. In the version captured in June 2025 it showed 53 countries: 38 voting members, 5 non-voting members and 10 observers. Extract for frequent export markets:

Country	Member body	Status	NCB	CBTL
China	CNCA	Voting	7	44
Germany	DKE	Voting	9	84
France	LCIE, by delegation from the French IEC national committee	Voting	4	26
Japan	JISC	Voting	5	65
Korea, Republic of	KATS	Voting	3	19
India	Bureau of Indian Standards	Voting	1	0
Saudi Arabia	SASO	Voting	1	1
United Arab Emirates	MoIAT	Voting	1	1
United Kingdom	UK Committee for IECEE	Voting	4	16
United States	US National Committee of the IECEE	Voting	5	36
Canada	CNC/IECEE	Voting	4	15
Australia	JAS-ANZ	Voting	1	0
Malaysia	Department of Standards Malaysia	Voting	1	1
Brazil	COBEI	Observer	0	0
Indonesia	BSN	Observer	0	0
Viet Nam	STAMEQ	Observer	0	0

Three things stand out. Membership is not the EU as a block: in that list, Cyprus, Estonia, Ireland, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, Romania and Slovakia were absent, Croatia and Greece were non-voting, and Bulgaria was an observer. An observer has no NCB, so there is nobody in Brazil, Indonesia or Viet Nam to recognise a CB certificate within the scheme. And a member with one NCB and no CBTL, such as India, can recognise CB documents but has no CB laboratory of its own. The list changes; check it at the source before planning.

A test becomes a CB Test Certificate only under an NCB accepted for that standard. A competent laboratory outside this structure cannot produce one, whatever its ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation (see the glossary entry on ISO/IEC 17025): accreditation proves competence, IECEE acceptance follows its own peer assessment (IECEE 02-3).

From CB package to national approval

Being an IECEE member does not tell you how much testing the national mandatory scheme will still ask for. That depends on the national rules, which the dedicated guides cover:

United States: an NRTL can accept the CB report and assess the US national differences to the UL standard; the NRTL listing is its own act. See NRTL / UL listing.
European Union: the LVD uses internal production control, so there is no national certificate to convert to. A CB report covering the CENELEC group differences is test evidence in the technical file. See the Low Voltage Directive guide.
Malaysia: the Energy Commission lists IECEE CB Scheme laboratories among the recognised sources of test reports, provided the CB Test Report comes with its CB Test Certificate. See Malaysia SIRIM and MCMC.
South Korea, China, India, Saudi Arabia: KATS, CNCA, BIS and SASO are all IECEE member bodies, but the KC, CCC, BIS and SABER routes each keep their own steps. See the guides on the KC mark, CCC, India BIS, TEC and WPC and Saudi Arabia SASO and CITC.

In every case the CB package removes repeated testing to the IEC core; it does not remove the local representative, factory inspection, marking, labelling or fees that a national scheme imposes.

Certificate versus report

Document	Role	What the receiving NCB does with it
CB Test Certificate	Attestation by the issuing NCB that the sample complies with the cited standard	Confirms scope: product, standard and edition, issuing NCB, reference of the report
CB Test Report	Clause-by-clause record on the IEC TRF, with the national differences that were tested	Checks the product against its own national differences and decides on extra testing

Both are needed. In the TRF for IEC 62368-1 the report carries a table of critical components (safety-relevant parts identified by manufacturer and type, often with their own certificates). Changing one of them later is a frequent trigger for an amendment of the report, so keep that table accurate over the life of the product.

The IECEE FAQ gives two rules people often miss: a CB Test Certificate is valid as long as the certified product remains in conformity with the initial certification, unless cancelled at the request of the licensee; and no reference to the IECEE or the CB Scheme may appear on the product.

Claims the texts contradict

Common claim	What the IECEE and IEC documents say
"EMC is outside the CB Scheme, in a separate IECEE EMC programme" (this page said so before)	EMC is one of the 23 categories of the CB Scheme standards list, with 428 entries in August 2026 and its own TRF template in OD-2020
"Recognition is between member countries"	Recognition is between certification bodies and is shown per standard: the standards list gives issuing and recognising NCB counts for each standard
"Each category code appears on the CB Test Certificate" (this page said so before)	The category codes are used in the IECEE standards list; we found no IECEE text requiring them on the certificate, so we removed the claim
"Most of the EU takes part"	Nine EU countries were absent from the June 2025 member-bodies list, two were non-voting and one an observer; CB recognition only exists where an NCB exists
"You can show the CB logo on the product"	The IECEE FAQ: it is strictly forbidden to make reference to the IECEE or the CB Scheme on the product
"The IEC 60950-1 to IEC 62368-1 transition is complete"	More precise: the IEC withdrew IEC 60950-1 and IEC 60065 on 29 March 2024; EU presumption from EN 60950-1 and EN 60065 ended on 20 December 2020
"The CB Scheme saves weeks to months" (this page said so before)	No IECEE source gives a time or cost saving; it depends on the national schemes and on the differences covered
"National differences are published in the CB Bulletin"	The CB Bulletin in its old format has been discontinued; detailed differences are restricted to members, ask your NCB

The limits of the CB Scheme

No radio approval. FCC equipment authorisation, the radio requirements of the RED and national radio approvals are separate procedures, covered in the guide on radio type approval worldwide.
No market authorisation and no mark. The CB package is evidence that each national scheme uses under its own rules.
Recognition only where an NCB recognises the standard. Observers have no NCB, and an NCB does not recognise every standard.
National steps remain. Factory inspection, local testing, local representative, marking and labelling are set by each national scheme.

Verifying a CB certificate

The IECEE FAQ points to the public area of its online deliverables site to check whether a CB Test Certificate has been issued, and notes that not all certificates issued in the restricted area are made public. If a certificate is not found, ask the issuing NCB, whose contact details are on the IECEE NCB list. Doing this for the CB certificates of components you integrate (power supplies, batteries) is good practice before relying on them in your own technical file.

Frequently asked questions

What exactly is the IECEE CB Scheme?: In the words of the IECEE, it is an international system for mutual acceptance of test reports and certificates dealing with the safety of electrical and electronic components, equipment and products. It is a multilateral agreement among participating countries and certification organisations. A National Certification Body (NCB), working with a CB Testing Laboratory (CBTL), issues a CB Test Certificate and CB Test Report against an IEC standard; other certification bodies that recognise that standard use them as the basis for their own national certification. The scheme came from the former European CEE and was integrated into the IEC in 1985.
Does a CB Test Certificate let me sell my product anywhere?: No. It is not a market authorisation and not a mark. The IECEE FAQ states that it is strictly forbidden to make reference to the IECEE or the CB Scheme on the product. The certificate and report are test evidence that each national scheme then uses under its own rules, with its own mark, labelling and administrative steps.
What product categories does the CB Scheme cover?: The IECEE list of standards operated in the scheme uses 23 category codes, from BATT (batteries) and CABL (cables and cords) to HOUS (household equipment), LITE (lighting), MED (medical electrical equipment), MEAS (measurement and laboratory equipment), OFF (IT and office equipment), TRON (electronics, entertainment), and also EMC, CYBR (cyber security), E3 (energy efficiency) and PV (photovoltaic). In August 2026 the list held 1,802 standard entries.
Does the CB Scheme cover EMC and radio as well as safety?: EMC, yes: Electromagnetic Compatibility (EMC) is one of the 23 categories of the standards list, with its own test report form template. Cyber security (CYBR) is also a category. Radio type approval is not: no national radio authority is bound by a CB report, so FCC equipment authorisation, the radio part of the RED and national radio approvals stay separate procedures.
Is IEC 60950-1 or IEC 60065 still usable for a CB report?: Both were withdrawn by the IEC on 29 March 2024, as shown on the IEC web store entries. In the EU, the presumption of conformity from EN 60950-1 and EN 60065 had already ended on 20 December 2020. New IT and audio/video work runs against IEC 62368-1.
What are national differences and why do they matter?: They are the national and group differences, national deviations and special national conditions that member bodies and certification bodies declare for each standard. CENELEC countries share group differences. The IECEE says the detailed differences are restricted to members and that you should ask your NCB. Asking the CBTL to test against the differences of every target country at the outset is what keeps later delta testing small.
How long is a CB Test Certificate valid?: The IECEE FAQ answers that CB Test Certificates are valid as long as the certified products remain in conformity with the initial certification, unless cancelled at the request of the licensee. A receiving NCB still applies its own rules on which standard editions it accepts.
Who can issue a CB Test Certificate?: Only an NCB accepted in the IECEE, for a standard it is recognised to issue against, with testing done by a CBTL (or under the Customers' Testing Facilities programme described in OD-2048). The IECEE standards list shows, per standard, how many CB Testing Laboratories, issuing and recognising bodies, and recognising-only bodies exist. ISO/IEC 17025 accreditation alone does not make a laboratory a CBTL.