As more and more consumers, retailers, wholesalers, and manufacturers have put their concerns on product safety issues, product safety certifications like UL Certification are getting increasingly hot recently.

UL certification cost varies greatly between different industries and product categories. In this article, I’ll introduce the common types of the fees you may encounter when applying for UL certification.

The fees charged by UL are mainly consisted by 4 parts: the initial product test fee, the follow-up service fee, the UL marking fee, and other miscellaneous fees.

The initial test fee is charged according to published standards, which varies through different product categories.

The follow-up service fee is directly related to the frequency and times of the follow-up inspections. UL will carry out 4 follow-up factory inspections during the 4 seasons respectively.

And you have to pay for UL’s labels and marks and other miscellaneous expenses that may occur during the certification process.

The types of fees charged by UL are not more than a few, but the charging basis for each type of fees can vary to a great extent.

Determine basis for product test fee

The initial test fee will be determined by the product information submitted by you. The information should include the full name of your company, the full name of your product, the model, type or classification of the product, the intended use of the product, the component list of the product, and other necessary details of the product.

Determine basis for follow-up service fee

Generally, the services provided by UL are classified into 2 types: Type R and Type L. And the follow-up service fee varies greatly between Type R service and Type L service.

For Type R UL services, you can print and add the UL marks on your products on your own. Products that can apply for Type R UL services are widely covered by UL’s rules, including most electronic appliances, electronic components, and other materials.

For Type L UL services, you have to purchase the UL marks directly from UL. Commonly seen products that can apply for Type L services include wires, lamps, alarms, life jackets, and other products to which relatively high safety standards are necessary.

If you don’t know what kind of service you should apply for, you can make an inquiry with UL’s customer service team.  

Follow-up service fee can be further divided into annual maintenance fee and follow-up inspection fee.

The annual maintenance fee will be charged by UL at the beginning of every year, and the bill will be sent out in every January. It mainly covers the maintenance fee of the service projects provided by UL to its customers, which mainly include Listing, Recognitions, Classifications certification, data base maintenance, on filed problem solving, and other customer related services.

The annual maintenance fee will be charged based on the customer’s product manufacturing sites. The specific amount will be determined by the number of the UL documents belong to the manufacturer. Before the end of every November, UL will notify the customer in advance of the charging status of following year.

For follow-up inspection fee, there can be a big difference between that of Type R services and that of Type L services.

For Type R services, the follow-up inspection fee will be determined by the times of inspections conducted. If the target product is in production or inventory when the inspector is visiting the factory, then the inspection will be charged at $280. Otherwise, inspections will be charged at $93.5 per time. If addition inspection is needed due to rework of the product, such inspection will be charged at $93.5 per time as well.  

If special inspection is needed, the follow-up inspection fee will be determined by a combination of the time needed and the inspection rates varying through time determined by UL. Usually, you will be able to receive the bill in 1 month after the inspection is done.

For Type L services, the follow-up inspection fee is charged by UL through UL marks. And the follow-up inspection fee will be included in the purchase price of the UL marks. For that reason, UL will not charge additional fees for factory inspection unless a special inspection is needed.

For both Type R services and Type L services, UL requests you to send the payable remittances as within 3 months after you receive the bills. If you fail to settle the payment within that timeframe, UL may revoke your inspection report and clear your documents out from their database.

Determine basis for other fees

Variation notice fee

This fee is charged by UL to compensate the UL factory inspector for extra work. It will occur if any non-compliant of the product is confirmed under the follow-up service procedures.

The variation notice verification fee is charged on a one-off basis for every variation notification, and it will cover all the fees occurred for the following corrective actions. This fee will only occur when UL gives you a variation notification.

Customer corrective action fee

Customer corrective action fee includes the fees additional inspection fee and other relevant fees occurred when UL helps customers in restoring products or systems to meet UL’s compliance requirements.

Sample test fee

This fee will occur when the manufactures are requested to sample their products for testing by UL under UL’s follow-up services procedures.

New work fee

This is the cost for carrying out new certification projects for customers’ new products or original products whose structure have been changed.

The specific amount of certification cost will be determined by your product category, number of product certificated, scope of certification, and other relevant factors. The roughly estimated total cost can be somewhere between $5, 000 to 50,000.

Normally, UL will inform you of the estimated cost for your certification after receiving the related information submitted by you. If you have more questions about the fees charged by UL, you can make an inquiry with the local UL branches or contact UL’s accounting department.

The End

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