Food Safety Certificate UK

Verify a food hygiene certificate

Free check for any food safety certificate issued by us. Enter the certificate ID (format FSC-UK-XXXXXX) to confirm the holder's name, course and issue date. No account needed.

Don't have a certificate to hand? Try it with this sample certificate ID: FSC-UK-SAMPLE

Only the certificate holder's name, course and issue date are returned. No other personal data is exposed by this lookup. If you believe a certificate is being misrepresented, contact support@foodsafetycertificateuk.co.uk.

What the check confirms

The register returns the three details an employer or environmental health officer needs to accept a certificate as evidence of training.

Holder's name

The full name the certificate was issued to, so you can match it against the person in front of you.

Course and level

Which course was completed — Level 1, Level 2, HACCP or Food Allergy Awareness.

Issue date

When the training was completed, so you can judge whether a refresh is due.

For employers: checking a new hire's certificate

Under retained Regulation (EC) No 852/2004, a UK food business must be able to show that its food handlers are trained to a level appropriate to their role. At inspection, the "confidence in management" score depends partly on being able to produce that evidence for every member of staff — so a certificate you cannot check is a certificate that does not help you.

  • The name on the certificate matches the employee's name on file.
  • The course level matches the role — Level 2 for anyone preparing or cooking open food, Level 1 for low-risk front-of-house and packaged retail.
  • The issue date is recent enough for your refresh policy (three years is the common industry standard).
  • The certificate carries a unique reference that can be checked independently, not just a logo.
  • You keep a copy in the staff training file, ready to show an environmental health officer.

Not sure which level a role needs? Our guide on what level of food hygiene certificate you need maps UK roles to levels, and how long a food hygiene certificate lasts covers refresh timing.

Certificate verification — common questions

Enter the certificate ID printed on the certificate into the box above. Every certificate we issue carries a unique ID in the format FSC-UK-XXXXXX. If the ID is in our register, the check returns the holder's name, the course they completed and the date it was issued — which is exactly what you need to confirm the document in front of you is real.

At minimum: the learner's full name, the course title and level (for example Level 2 Food Hygiene), the date of completion, the name of the training provider, and a unique reference that can be checked independently. A certificate with no name, no date or no traceable reference is not evidence an environmental health officer will accept.

No. This register only covers certificates issued by Food Safety Certificate UK. To check a certificate from another provider, contact that provider directly — most reputable UK training companies operate their own verification page or will confirm by email.

Most failed checks are simple typing errors, so re-enter the ID carefully — the characters O and 0 are easy to confuse. If the ID is definitely correct and still returns no result, the certificate was not issued by us. If you believe a certificate is being misrepresented, email support@foodsafetycertificateuk.co.uk with the details.

There is no statutory expiry date on a UK food hygiene certificate — the Food Standards Agency does not set one. In practice most employers and environmental health officers expect food handlers to refresh their training every three years, and many company policies make that mandatory. The issue date returned by this check is what lets you work out how current the training is.

Yes. Checks are free and unlimited, and you do not need an account or a login. Only the holder's name, course and issue date are returned — no other personal data is exposed.

Need to train a member of staff?

Our UK food safety courses are online, take an afternoon, and produce a dated certificate in the learner's name — verifiable on this page from the moment it is issued.

Browse courses