Certification FAQs

You can claim certificates online through the Portal, using the Certification menu. We currently provide certificates for all NCFE, CACHE, Functional Skills and V Certs qualifications achieved since 2012. The Portal User Guide gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do this. 

T Level certificates and replacements are managed by the Department for Education (DfE) via the Manage T Level Results Service. 

You do not need to claim certificates for your Level 1/2 Technical Award learners. These learners will be auto-certificated 6 weeks after the results release date. This means you’ll be able to view their e-certificates from 2 October 2025 on the Portal and will receive a physical copy of the certificates around 4 weeks after this date. 

No, NCFE does not manage certification for T Level students. For details on overall final qualification grades and timelines for certification, please contact the Department for Education (DfE).  

You can amend a learner’s name in the ‘My learners’ and then ‘Manage learners’ section of the Portal. The Portal User Guide gives you a step-by-step guide on how to do this.

You need to complete the invalid certificate form, which can be found on this page. Once we receive the form, we’ll help you rectify the error and recover any invalid certificates that have been issued. 

When you complete an Invalid Certificate form, our Provider Assurance team will establish the root cause of the error and recommend preventative measures. During this process, it is of the utmost importance that you do not take any further action in connection to the claim until you receive communication from our Provider Assurance team advising you to do so.  

The process to cancel the invalid certificate and/or grades can take up to 5 working days from the initial acknowledgement of your Invalid Certificate form.  

A full claim means that the learner has the required amount of units or credits to qualify for a full achievement and will be issued a Qualification Certificate or Credit Certificate (depending on the type of qualification or award).

A partial claim means the learner doesn’t have the required amount of units or credits for a full achievement and will be issued a Unit Certificate or Credit Certificate (depending on the type of qualification or award). 

Yes. When you make a claim the Portal will update the learner status with a ‘full’ or ‘partial’ status based on the units you’ve selected for your learners, so please check this before you submit your claim. The qualification specification gives more details on full and partial achievement criteria. 

If your claim is showing as pending, this means it is waiting to be signed off by the External Quality Assurer (EQA), as you don’t have Direct Claim Status (DCS). 

Certificates

Centres claiming qualifications with Direct Claim Status (DCS) will find their submissions are automatically accepted when made in the Portal. For those without DCS, claims will need to be manually signed off by one of our External Quality Assurers (EQA). 

If we receive a signed off (via Direct Claim Status (DCS) or External Quality Assurer (EQA) certificate claim before 5pm this will be dispatched the next working day. 

Claims received after 5pm will be dispatched on the second working day from the claim being received. 

Certificates posted to domestic UK centres should arrive within 21 working days. We endeavour to deliver to international addresses within 28 working days. 

Please contact our Customer Support team if your certificates have not arrived within these timeframes. 

Replacement certificates

Replacement certificates can only be requested for qualifications awarded since 2012. For certificates awarded before this, we can issue a Proof of Qualification, where we still hold your records in our data. A replacement certificate or a Proof of Qualification can be requested by completing the form on our replacement certificate page. 

We are unable to issue either a replacement certificate or Proof of Qualification for any qualification awarded before 1 September 1994. 

If we can find a record of the achievement, we’ll issue and post a new certificate within ten working days of your payment clearing. 

This could be for several reasons, including:

• an external quality assurance review hasn’t taken place for this qualification
• the portfolio(s) are not of the required standard and need further work before certification can take place
• the learner(s) haven’t been sampled or are part of a batch that hasn’t been sampled
• the learner(s) have been cancelled, transferred or withdrawn
• the EQA may have picked up on a discrepancy between the claim made and the work presented.

There are many reasons why a claim may be rejected, but your EQA will support you through the actions needed to be completed before certificates can be issued. If you are uncertain of your EQA details, please refer to the Portal User Guide and visit the ‘Reports’ page. 

Direct Claim Status (DCS) is when certificate claims are automatically accepted when made in the Portal. 

DCS is awarded for an individual qualification and is based on quality criteria that are measured and reported on through our external quality assurance visits. DCS can be achieved after one visit or two consecutive visits over a maximum period of 18 months. 

When you meet the quality criteria, we'll automatically award you DCS for that qualification. We'll email the Programme Contact at your centre to inform them that you've been awarded DCS with a copy of your visit report. You don't have to do anything - it's that simple! 

For more information about DCS and the quality criteria to achieve it, please refer to the DCS section on our website. 

Please refer to our Transferring DCS from another awarding organisation page.