What Does the NRTL Mark Mean?

Below is a transcript of this video clip.

You get certified to get the NRTL mark, so you can sell into the United States. What does that mark look like? When I say the NRTL mark, that's really United States specific designation. So that's the OSHA Nationally Recognized Test Lab designation. Canada doesn't call it the NRTL, but it's the appropriate certification mark for their national standards. The marks look very similar with only a little difference on the terminology and a slight change on that actual mark. And the NRTL mark, that certification mark, is production location specific and model specific. If you're making a power supply in Taiwan and you want to make the same power supply in China or Vietnam or North America or in Mexico, you can't transfer that certification from one facility to another without an approval from the certification body. You can't just say, "Oh, it's the same thing. It's the same process. I'm good to put the mark on it, all locations." It doesn't work that way. It must be evaluated at each location.

Also, it must be model-specific. You have a series of products within a family. Those all must be evaluated together and just because one product is certified doesn't mean any others would be certified. It's all very important to be model-specific and production facility-specific. The online listings typically reflect that for most certification bodies. What does this look like. For NSF, that is the recognized blue dot with the electrical underneath it. So that way you know that this product has been evaluated to the United States electrical requirements. A Canadian and United States certification, it's a very similar looking mark. It's got the C in the bottom left to denote it's been evaluated for the Canadian requirements and then the US and the bottom right to denote it's been certified for the United States requirements.

And a recognition, which we'll talk on a little bit later, has a slightly different mark. It's got the component label underneath the electrical so that way you could tell that this is a component and then the end-user needs to be evaluated, the conditions of acceptability of what that recognition looks like. These NRTL marks must be on the product once it's certified and able to bear the NRTL mark. These are in addition to any other certification marks you may have. You're selling into the pool and spa industry. You need to have the appropriate pool and spa certification marks, such as NSF/ANSI Standard 50, or the food sanitation side, you need to have the food sanitation mark along with it, as well. These are additive marks on your product.