All professions CE · International · for providers
IACET CEU certificate requirements for Accredited Providers
The elements an IACET Accredited Provider must record for every learner and show on the certificate, the exact approved accreditation statement, how to count CEUs in tenths, and the seven-year record rule. Checked against the ANSI/IACET 1-2018 Standard, the IACET 1-2023 text and IACET’s own CEU guidance.
Short answer · checked 30 October 2026
An IACET CEU certificate should show the five things the standard makes you record for every learner: the provider’s name and address, the learner’s name, the learning event title, the completion date, and the number of IACET CEUs awarded, written in tenths (1 CEU = 10 contact hours). Add the approved IACET accreditation statement. Award CEUs only to learners who met every completion criterion; there is no partial credit. Keep the record for at least 7 years and let learners get a copy.
- Required elements
- 6
- Issue deadline
- On completion, no fixed deadline
- Keep records
- 7 years, open to learners
- Central reporting system
- None
New to CE?
How continuing education works, in one line
New to CE?
How continuing education works, in one line
Accreditor
Sets the rules and approves providers.
Provideryou
Runs the course and issues the certificate.
Learner
Completes the course and keeps the certificate.
Board
Renews the licence and may audit the certificate.
- Accredited Provider (AP)
- An organization IACET has reviewed against the ANSI/IACET Standard and allowed to award IACET CEUs in its own name, for five years at a time.
- CEU
- Continuing Education Unit. The unit IACET created in 1970 to measure continuing education. One IACET CEU is ten contact hours.
- Contact hour
- One clock hour in which a learner works with an instructor or with learning material that gives feedback. Breaks, meals and sales pitches do not count.
- Learning event
- IACET’s word for a course, class, workshop, webinar, conference session or self-paced module that has learning outcomes.
- Learner record
- The entry you keep for each learner and each learning event. It holds the same facts as the certificate and must be kept for seven years.
- ANSI/IACET Standard
- The Standard for Continuing Education and Training. The 2018 edition (ANSI/IACET 1-2018) is current. A 2023 text is approved by IACET and awaits ANSI approval.
Who this applies to
Providers under IACET, and the learners they serve
Providers
- Organizations accredited by IACET as Accredited Providers (APs): training companies, associations, universities, corporate training units and government agencies
- Only an Accredited Provider may award the IACET CEU. IACET itself issues no CEUs and keeps no learner records
Learners
Adults in any field who need continuing education that a licensing board, certification body or employer will accept. The IACET CEU is not tied to one profession.
The 6 elements
What the certificate must show
Each number on the sample matches one element IACET requires. The list says where the rule is written and which Hyperstack field fills it.
- 1
Provider name and address
The Accredited Provider that awards the CEUs, with a postal address. The record must hold both, so the certificate should too.
Example: Harbor Ridge Training Institute, 412 Mill Street, Portland, ME 04101
In Hyperstack: set once in the templateIACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.2.1 (ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 8.4)
- 2
Learner name
The person who completed the event. The standard asks for the learner’s name and/or a unique ID. You must verify this is the same person who registered and took part.
Example: Daniel K. Osei
In Hyperstack:
[recipient_name]IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.2.1 and 7.1.2 (ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 8.1 and 8.4) - 3
Learning event title
The title of the course or event, as it was advertised. The certificate must say exactly what the learner completed.
Example: Confined Space Entry Supervisor
In Hyperstack:
[group_title]IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.1.4 and 7.2.1 - 4
Completion date
The date the learner met all completion criteria. For a self-paced course, the day the learner finished, not the day you launched it.
Example: 14 October 2026
In Hyperstack:
[issue_date]IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.2.1 - 5
IACET CEUs awarded
The number of IACET CEUs this learner earned, in tenths. Write “IACET CEUs”, not “CEUs through IACET”. Show the contact hours too if you like, but keep the CEU figure first.
Example: 1.4 IACET CEUs (14 contact hours)
In Hyperstack:
[custom_ceus]IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.1.5, 7.1.6.1, 7.1.7 and 7.2.1 - 6
Accreditation statement
The approved short or long statement, word for word, with your organization name in it. IACET requires it on marketing and promotional material; put it on the certificate so the CEU claim carries the approved wording.
Example: As an IACET Accredited Provider, Harbor Ridge Training Institute offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.
In Hyperstack: set once in the templateIACET, Now That You’re Accredited (Logo and Advertising Terms); IACET blog, 8 December 2021
Exact wording
The statements, word for word
IACET has 3 wordings. Use the one that fits your approval and your activity. Copy it, do not retype it.
Short statement
As an IACET Accredited Provider, [Organization name] offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.
IACET requires the short or the long version on marketing and promotional material, including your website. The short one fits a certificate. Use it as written; do not shorten it or change “IACET CEUs”.
IACET blog, Updates from IACET Accreditation and Training Department, 8 December 2021; Now That You’re AccreditedLong statement
[Organization or unit name] is accredited by the International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training (IACET) and offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard. IACET is recognized internationally as a standard development organization and accrediting body that promotes quality of continuing education and training.
The long version adds one sentence about IACET. Use it where you have room, for example on a course page or the back of the certificate. IACET quotes both versions in full in its 8 December 2021 post; they and the logo are also in the Logo and Advertising Terms area of the provider portal.
IACET blog, Updates from IACET Accreditation and Training Department, 8 December 2021What you may not say
Do not write “CEUs through IACET”, “IACET-approved course” or “approved by IACET”. The CEUs come from you, the Accredited Provider, not from IACET, and IACET does not approve individual programs.
IACET’s own words: “You may not say that you offer CEUs through IACET” and “You may not say IACET approves your programs.” The IACET 1-2023 text also says the provider shall not award partial or adjusted CEUs.
IACET, Now That You’re Accredited (Logo and Advertising Terms)How credit is counted
Minutes in, IACET CEUs out
The unit
1 IACET CEU = 600 minutes
One IACET CEU is ten contact hours. A contact hour is one clock hour of two-way contact between the learner and an instructor or learning material that monitors progress or gives feedback. Count class time, supervised self-paced work, assessments and assignments. Do not count breaks, non-working meals, awards, group photos, travel, exhibitions or anything promotional.
IACET 1-2023 Standard, 3.5, 7.1.6.1 and 7.1.7; IACET, The Continuing Education Unit: How to Calculate CEUs, pp. 1–2; IACET blog, Six Steps to Submitting CEU Calculations, 24 October 2019Rounding
Divide contact minutes by 60, then by 10. Express the result in tenths: 2.18 rounds to 2.2. The 2023 text allows hundredths at most. Breaks come out before you round. No single learning event may be worth less than 0.1 CEU (30 minutes).
Worked example
Two days of 7 hours of instruction after breaks and lunch = 840 minutes ÷ 60 = 14 contact hours ÷ 10 = 1.4
840 minutes → 1.4 IACET CEUs
840 ÷ 600, to the nearest 0.1. Rounded to the nearest tenth, as in IACET’s CEU guidance. Subtract breaks and meals before you enter the minutes.
Timeline
From the last slide to the audit file
Activity
Day 0
The learner finishes the learning event and meets every completion criterion you told them about in advance, including any assessment.
Certificate
On completion
Tell every learner whether they met the criteria, then recognize success with a certificate, transcript, badge or similar. IACET sets no deadline in days.
Report
Not required
IACET has no central reporting system and keeps no learner records. Learners ask you, not IACET, for copies.
Records
7 years
Keep the learner record, with a backup, for at least seven years and make it available to the learner on request.
Right and wrong
The same certificate, two ways
The lines on the left are the mistakes auditors find most. The lines on the right are the fix.
Fails an audit
Harbor Ridge Training Institute
Daniel K. Osei
- This course is approved by IACET for 1.4 CEUs
- 14 CEUs
- 0.7 IACET CEUs (attended day 1 of 2)
- Date: 5 October 2026 (course launch)
- Harbor Ridge Training Institute (no address)
- 1.4 IACET CEUs (certificate of attendance, no assessment)
Passes an audit
Harbor Ridge Training Institute
Daniel K. Osei
- As an IACET Accredited Provider, Harbor Ridge Training Institute offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard. · 1.4 IACET CEUs
- 1.4 IACET CEUs (14 contact hours)
- No certificate. The learner is told they did not meet the completion criteria.
- Completed: 14 October 2026
- Harbor Ridge Training Institute, 412 Mill Street, Portland, ME 04101
- 1.4 IACET CEUs, awarded after a passing score of 80% on the final assessment
- 1. IACET accredits providers, not courses. You may not say IACET approves your programs or that CEUs come through IACET.
- 2. One CEU is ten contact hours. Writing hours as CEUs inflates the award tenfold.
- 3. The provider shall not award partial or adjusted CEUs if the criteria have not been met.
- 4. The record holds the learning event completion date, which for a self-paced course is the day this learner finished.
- 5. The learner record must hold the provider’s name and address. A certificate that matches the record is easier to defend at reaccreditation.
- 6. The standard requires an assessment of the learning outcomes before completion is recognized. Attendance alone is not completion.
Digital
Electronic certificates and badges
Electronic certificates
Allowed. The 2018 standard says completion is recognized “through a certificate of completion or a training transcript” and does not say paper. The IACET 1-2023 text says CEUs “shall be recognized through a certificate, digital badge, or other mechanism”. Records may be electronic; the standard asks only for a working system with a backup.
Digital badges
The IACET 1-2023 text names a digital badge as an accepted way to recognize CEUs. IACET also publishes Guidelines for Open Digital Badging and a badge taxonomy, in which a “Grade-Based Badge” carries CEUs and should state the learning gain, the type of assessment and the score with the cut score. A badge that carries CEUs must still show what the learner completed.
IACET has said it plans an Accredited Digital Badge Issuer designation. It was not live when this page was checked. ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 8.3; IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.1.4 and 7.1.5; IACET Badging Taxonomy (2018); IACET, Guidelines for Open Digital Badging
Records and other rules
What else IACET checks
Keep learner records for 7 years and give learners access
Each learner and each learning event needs a record in a working system with a backup. Keep it at least seven years and make it available to the learner. Hyperstack keeps every certificate, its verification page and its audit log for the life of your account and after you cancel, so a learner can fetch a copy without asking you.
ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 8.4 and 8.5; IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.2.1 and 7.2.2No partial or adjusted CEUs
A learner who misses part of the event, or fails the assessment, gets no IACET CEUs for that event. Tell them so. You may not scale the CEUs down to the hours attended. If you want to credit a half day, make the half day its own learning event with its own outcomes, assessment and CEU figure.
IACET 1-2023 Standard, 6.2.3 and 7.1.3; ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 8.2Only you can award your CEUs
An Accredited Provider cannot let a partner organization award IACET CEUs, and cannot co-sponsor so that the partner issues them. If you run an event with a partner, the certificate must come from you, with your name, your statement and your logo. When your accreditation lapses, stop at once and remove all IACET wording and logos.
IACET FAQ (co-sponsoring); Now That You’re Accredited (lapse)Self-paced and online courses
For a self-paced course, set a standard number of contact hours from a pilot: several typical learners time themselves, you take the average and round to whole hours. IACET’s example averages five learners at 12.2 hours to 12 hours and 1.2 CEUs. Recalculate when content, length, delivery or method changes in a big way.
IACET, How to Calculate CEUs, pp. 4–5; IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.1.8Conferences with several sessions
Only planned learning sessions that meet the whole standard count; exhibitions, keynotes for information sharing and business meetings do not. IACET says no single CEU learning event should be under 30 minutes (0.1 CEU). Track attendance per session and award one CEU figure for what the learner actually completed. IACET sells a conference checklist for this.
IACET, How to Calculate CEUs, p. 4; IACET blog, Six Steps, 24 October 2019; IACET, Conference Guidelines: Overview and ChecklistTell learners the criteria before they start
Before the event, learners must get the learning outcomes, prerequisites, the criteria for successful completion and the criteria to earn the CEU. Repeat them at the start. The certificate then confirms those same criteria were met.
ANSI/IACET 1-2018, 2.3 and 6.5; IACET 1-2023 Standard, 6.4.3Logo rules
Use only the official Accredited Provider logo IACET supplies, as one unchanged unit including its outer rule. On a website it should link to your IACET accreditation certificate. Spanish, French and Chinese versions exist. Individual members may not use it.
IACET, Now That You’re Accredited (Logo and Advertising Terms); IACET FAQSignatures and other extras
IACET has no rule on signatures, seals or a certificate number. Add a signature if your learners’ boards expect one. A unique learner or certificate ID is allowed instead of, or next to, the name; Hyperstack’s [credential_id] fills that role.
IACET 1-2023 Standard, 7.2.1Before you send
The audit checklist, to tick or print
IACET certificate checklist0/12
How to do it in Hyperstack
Three steps to a compliant certificate
- 1
Open the IACET template
The template has a place for every element on this page. Add your logo and your 2 fixed elements once.
- Provider name and address
- Accreditation statement
- 2
Map your columns
Upload a spreadsheet or connect your LMS. Each column fills one element for every learner.
- [recipient_name]
- [group_title]
- [issue_date]
- [custom_ceus]
- 3
Issue and keep the record
Every learner gets an email, a verification page and a QR code. The record stays for as long as the rules need it.
- Verification page
- QR code
- Audit log
- Kept 7 years and beyond
Free template
An IACET-ready certificate, with all 6 elements in place
Set your provider details once. Names, dates and IACET CEUs fill in for every learner. Each certificate gets a verification page and QR code.
FAQ
IACET certificates, answered
Not as a list for the certificate itself. The 2018 standard says to recognize completion through a certificate of completion or a training transcript. What it does list is the learner record: provider name and address, learner name or ID, event title, completion date and CEUs awarded. Put those five on the certificate so it matches the record, then add the approved accreditation statement.
Ten contact hours. Divide the contact minutes by 60 to get hours, then by 10 to get CEUs, and write the result in tenths. A 7-hour training day is 0.7 CEU. Time for breaks, meals and anything promotional comes out first.
No. The IACET 1-2023 text says the provider shall not award partial or adjusted CEUs if the criteria have not been met, and IACET’s guidance has always said the learner must complete the whole event. Tell the learner they did not meet the criteria. If you want to credit shorter blocks, design them as separate learning events.
Yes. The 2018 standard does not say paper, and the 2023 text names a certificate, digital badge or other mechanism. A badge that carries CEUs should still show what the learner completed, the CEUs and, in IACET’s taxonomy, the assessment and score. Hyperstack certificates and badges carry the same data and a verification page.
No. IACET keeps no learner records and has no reporting system. Learners who need a copy ask you, which is why the standard makes you keep records for seven years and make them available. A link that never expires covers most of those requests.
The approved short statement: “As an IACET Accredited Provider, [Organization name] offers IACET CEUs for its learning events that comply with the ANSI/IACET Continuing Education and Training Standard.” Or the long version, which adds a sentence about IACET. Never “CEUs through IACET” or “approved by IACET”.
No. The record in your system is. The certificate is the way you communicate completion to the learner. Keep both consistent, keep the record seven years with a backup, and have a written process for releasing a learner’s information to the learner or to a board with their permission.
IACET lists ANSI/IACET 1-2018 as the current standard. The IACET 1-2023 text was approved by IACET on 28 March 2024 and is waiting for ANSI approval; a further revision was opened in September 2025. The certificate rules are the same in both: same record elements, 10 hours per CEU, 7 years, no partial credit. The 2023 text adds the digital badge and the tenths-or-hundredths rule in plain words.
Sources
Read from International Accreditors for Continuing Education and Training documents on 30 October 2026. This page is a guide, not legal advice. Your accreditation manual and your licensing board have the final word. Something out of date? Tell us.
Changes to this page
- 2026-10-30Page written from the ANSI/IACET 1-2018 element list, the IACET 1-2023 standard text and IACET’s CEU calculation guidance.
- 2026-10-30Fact check: provider count dropped because IACET’s site gives two undated figures (“over 600” on the home page, “more than 1,000” on the partners page); long accreditation statement confirmed word for word on IACET’s 8 December 2021 post; blog links updated to their current addresses.
- 1ANSI/IACET 1-2018 Standard: Application Matrix Planning Tool (IACET, revised April 2020)Full element list of the 2018 standard. Elements 2.3, 6.4, 6.5, 7.1, 7.2 and 8.1–8.6 used.
- 2IACET 1-2023 Standard for Continuing Education and Training (approved by IACET 28 March 2024, awaiting ANSI), in the 26 September 2025 revision work itemClauses 3.5, 6.2.3, 6.4.3, 7.1.2–7.1.8 and 7.2.1–7.2.3, plus the 2018-to-2023 crosswalk table.
- 3IACET: The Continuing Education Unit, How to Calculate CEUs (2018)Formula, tenths, activities that count and do not count, self-paced pilot method (pp. 1–5).
- 4IACET blog: Six Steps to Submitting CEU Calculations (24 October 2019)Round to the nearest tenth (2.18 → 2.2); no event under 30 minutes / 0.1 CEU.
- 5IACET: Now That You’re Accredited (Maintaining Accreditation)Logo and Advertising Terms, the short-or-long statement rule, what you may not say, five-year term, lapse.
- 6IACET blog: Updates from IACET Accreditation and Training Department (8 December 2021)The approved short and long accreditation statements.
- 7IACET: Accreditation Frequently Asked QuestionsOnly APs use the logo; no co-sponsoring of IACET CEUs; five-year validity.
- 8IACET blog: Top 10 Frequently Asked Questions about IACET Accreditation (27 July 2020)Seven-year records; IACET keeps no learner records; 0.1 CEU minimum.
- 9IACET: Guidelines for Open Digital BadgingBadge guidance and the planned Accredited Digital Badge Issuer designation.
- 10IACET Badging Taxonomy (2018)Grade-Based Badge carries CEUs; evidence it should show.
- 11IACET store: Conference Guidelines, Overview and ChecklistThe paid conference checklist; a conference still has to meet the whole standard.
- 12IACET Accredited Providers list
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