Standards and compliance
Who issues what, which standards apply to which products, and where the official text lives. Every entry links to the issuing organisation rather than restating its requirements.
No single organisation covers a whole charging product. Wireless power is owned by the Wireless Power Consortium (Qi and Qi2); USB-C connectors, USB Power Delivery and PPS by the USB Implementers Forum; battery safety by the International Electrotechnical Commission; and lithium battery transport testing by the UN Manual of Tests and Criteria, administered through IATA and national authorities. Each market then sets its own conditions for sale — CE marking in the European Union, FCC authorisation in the United States, UKCA in the United Kingdom, PSE in Japan, KC in Korea and CCC in China — and those conditions are independent of any product standard. The distinction that causes most confusion is between conformance, certification and market access: a product can be designed to a specification without any verification, certified without being legal to sell somewhere, and legal to sell somewhere without either.
How to use this index
The alliance does not write standards and does not paraphrase them into something that could be mistaken for the authoritative text. This page tells you which organisation owns a requirement and where to read it.
If you need to know what a standard actually requires, read the standard. If you need to know whether a specific product complies, that is a question for an accredited test house.
Standards bodies and industry organisations
| Organisation | Covers | Most relevant to | Official source |
|---|---|---|---|
| Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) | Qi and Qi2 wireless power transfer | Wireless chargers, magnetic power banks, charging pads | wirelesspowerconsortium.com |
| USB Implementers Forum (USB-IF) | USB-C connectors and cables, USB Power Delivery, PPS | Wall chargers, car chargers, power banks, cables | usb.org |
| Bluetooth SIG | Bluetooth radio and profile specifications | Connected charging accessories, app-linked devices | bluetooth.com |
| AirFuel Alliance | Resonant and radio-frequency wireless power | Alternative wireless power approaches | airfuel.org |
| Connectivity Standards Alliance (CSA) | Matter and related smart-home interoperability | Smart plugs, connected power products | csa-iot.org |
| International Electrotechnical Commission (IEC) | IEC 62368-1 safety, IEC 62133-2 battery safety | Power supplies, cells and battery packs | iec.ch |
| JEDEC | Semiconductor and component standards | Component-level qualification | jedec.org |
Transport and battery requirements
Lithium cells and batteries are regulated in transport independently of any product standard. A power bank that is fully compliant for sale in a market can still be refused carriage if its transport documentation is wrong.
| Requirement | Applies to | Issued by |
|---|---|---|
| UN 38.3 | Lithium cells and batteries offered for transport | UN Manual of Tests and Criteria, administered through IATA and national authorities |
| IEC 62133-2 | Safety of secondary lithium cells and batteries | IEC |
| Transport documentation | Shipper declarations, test summaries, labelling | Carrier and national authority requirements |
Market access
Each market sets its own conditions for placing a charging product on sale. The bodies below are the authorities; test houses and certification bodies are how most manufacturers demonstrate conformity to them.
| Market | Requirement | Authority or scheme |
|---|---|---|
| European Union | CE marking, EMC and Low Voltage directives, RoHS | European Commission and notified bodies |
| United States | FCC equipment authorisation; UL or ETL listing where required by the buyer or retailer | FCC; UL Solutions and other NRTLs |
| United Kingdom | UKCA marking | UK government |
| Japan | PSE | METI |
| South Korea | KC | MOTIE |
| China | CCC where applicable | SAMR |
The distinction that causes most confusion
Three things get treated as one, and they are not the same:
Conformance. A product is designed to meet a specification. This is a statement about the design, and no external body has verified it.
Certification. An independent body has tested the product against a specification and issued a certificate. This is what the WPC, USB-IF and Bluetooth SIG operate in their own schemes, and what accredited laboratories operate for safety and EMC.
Market access. A regulator allows the product to be sold in its jurisdiction. This is separate from both of the above.
A product can conform without being certified. It can be certified without being legal to sell somewhere. It can be legal to sell somewhere without either. Knowing which of the three a supplier is claiming is usually the single most useful question in a technical conversation.
Terminology and further reading
The tables above name the requirements. These pages explain them, and the glossary defines the vocabulary they are written in.
| Where to go next | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Charging glossary | Eighteen defined terms — Qi, MPP, BPP, PDO, PPS, AVS, e-marker, rated capacity, watt-hour, UN 38.3, IEC 62133-2, NRTL, declaration of conformity and others. Each definition is written to be quoted on its own, without the page around it. |
| CE, FCC, UL and the rest | Why these are three different kinds of requirement rather than three versions of the same one — a self-declaration, a radio regulator's authorisation and a private safety listing. |
| Conformance, certification and market access | The three-way distinction set out above, in full, with what each one does and does not prove. |
| Reading a test report | What a test report establishes, what it does not, and which pages of it are worth reading before you rely on the summary. |
| Charging industry map | The seven capability layers a charging product passes through — from cells and chemistry to compliance and documentation — and which requirements bite at each layer. |
The three guides above sit in the knowledge base rather than here, because they are explanations rather than references. This page tells you which organisation owns a requirement and where to read it; those pages explain what the requirement means in practice.
Correction
If a link here has moved, or an entry misstates which organisation owns a requirement, report it through the contact page. Corrections are recorded on this page.