A training certificate has five stages. It is issued, delivered to the people who need it, checked by someone who has to rely on it, it expires, and then it is renewed or it lapses. The expiry and the renewal are where the money is. Every certificate with an expiry date tells you, years in advance, when that person will need the course again, and very little of your marketing is that precise.

Key takeaways

• A certificate is only as useful as the details on it. Name the learner, the course or qualification, your organisation, the completion date, the expiry date, the hours of learning and a unique reference.
• Issue on evidence, not on payment: attendance, completion of any online part, and the assessment where there is one.
• How long a certificate lasts depends on the subject and the country. UK workplace first aid certificates are valid for three years. Safe Work Australia’s code says CPR should be refreshed every year and first aid renewed every three. The American Red Cross says CPR certification lasts two years.
• A lapsed certificate can stop a person counting. HSE guidance says a first-aider who does not requalify before the expiry date is “no longer considered competent” to act as one at work.
• CPD is mostly counted in hours of active learning. Points, units and credits usually equal one hour each, and an IACET CEU equals ten contact hours. Put the hours on the certificate so the learner can claim them.
• A first aid provider that certifies 3,000 people a year has about 3,000 renewals due every year. At St John Ambulance’s published UK requalification price, every ten points of rebooking rate is worth £72,000. Working that list each month is the cheapest sale available to you.

The five stages of a certificate

A certificate passes through several hands after the course. Each stage has someone who depends on it and a common way for it to go wrong.

Stage	Who depends on it	What they need from you	Where it goes wrong
1. Issued	The learner	A certificate with the right details, on the day they finish	Issued on payment, or days later by hand from a template
2. Delivered	The learner, and the employer who paid	Their own copy, and every copy for the employer in one place	Sent one email at a time, then requested again a year later
3. Checked	An employer, an auditor or a regulator	A way to confirm it is genuine, current and theirs	A PDF that anyone could have edited, and no record behind it
4. Expiring	The learner and their employer	Notice that it runs out while there is still time to rebook	Nobody looks until the date has passed
5. Renewed	You	A list of who is due, by client, early enough to fill dates	The learner rebooks with whichever provider asked first

Issued: what goes on a training certificate

A useful public specification for a short-course certificate is the UK Health and Safety Executive’s guidance for workplace first aid, L74. It says a first aid certificate should show the name of the training organisation, the name of the qualification, the name of the individual, “a validity period for three years from date of course completion”, the regulations it was issued under, and a statement that teaching followed currently accepted first aid practice.

Those details are specific to UK first aid, and the principle travels to any subject in any country. A certificate has to answer the questions the next reader will ask without phoning you.

Detail	Why the next reader needs it
The learner’s full name, as on their ID	To match the certificate to the person in front of them
The course or qualification, and the awarding or accrediting body if there is one	To know what was learned and to what standard
Your organisation’s name	To know who to ask, and whether you are an approved provider
The completion date	To know how recent the training is
The expiry date, where the subject has one	To know whether it still counts
Hours of learning, and CPD points or credits	To claim them with a professional body
A unique reference	To check it against your records
The trainer’s name, where an awarding body asks for it	To trace who assessed the learner

Where the course leads to a regulated qualification, the qualification certificate may not be yours to issue. In England, Ofqual’s rules for awarding organisations put it with the awarding organisation, which must “ensure that the issue of certificates is timely”. In Australia the training provider issues it: ASQA’s guidance on the 2025 standards says a registered training organisation must issue the certification to a learner it has assessed as competent “within 30 calendar days from the completion of the assessment”, once the training is complete and the agreed fees are paid.

Whoever issues it, keep the dates on your own record: when the learner completed, when the qualification certificate was issued and when it expires. A certificate of attendance from you on the day gives the learner something to show their employer while the qualification certificate is on its way.

Issue it on evidence. For a classroom course that means the learner was marked as attended, and passed the assessment where there is one. For an online course it means completion. For a blended course it means both. A certificate issued when the invoice was paid, before anyone has taken a register, is a certificate you may have to withdraw.

Issue it on the day. A learner who leaves with the certificate in their inbox can forward it to their manager the same day. One who waits a week is chased by their employer, and the employer then chases you.

Delivered: to the learner and to whoever paid

The learner wants their own copy. Their employer, if it paid, wants every copy for every person it sent, and it wants them again later when an auditor asks. Those are different requests and both are routine.

• Send each learner their own certificate by email, addressed to them, with the certificate attached or one click away.
• Give the employer one place to collect all of them. The person who booked eight places should not receive eight emails or have to ask for a ZIP file.
• Correct and reissue rather than edit. If a name is misspelt, issue a new certificate and withdraw the old one, so only one version is in circulation.
• Keep your own copy linked to the learner and to the client. A certificate you can only find by searching your sent mail is a certificate you cannot report on.

How to sell training to corporate L&D buyers covers what the client’s L&D lead needs after a course, of which certificates are one part.

Checked: what verification means

Someone will rely on the certificate: the learner’s employer, a new employer, an auditor, an insurer or a regulator. Each of them checks the same things.

1. Is it genuine? It was issued by you, to this person, and has not been altered.
2. Is it current? It has not expired, and it has not been withdrawn.
3. Is it the right course? The content and level match what their policy or the regulation requires.
4. Is the provider credible? You can show how the course was delivered and assessed.

A PDF on its own answers none of these well, because anyone can edit one. What answers them is a record behind the certificate: a unique reference, and a link that opens the certificate from your system. If you withdraw a certificate issued in error, the link should stop working, so that the record and the document always agree.

Records matter for the provider too. L74 says that training records, where they are kept, should be retained “for a minimum of three years” after the assessment, and that employers “should keep a record of first-aiders and certification dates”. Some professional bodies set requirements for the learner as well. The UK’s Nursing and Midwifery Council requires nurses and midwives to keep CPD records that include the number of hours and “evidence that you undertook the CPD activity”. A certificate from you is often that evidence.

Records also have a limit. Under data protection law in the UK and the EU, the storage limitation principle means, in the ICO’s words, “You must not keep personal data for longer than you need it.” Set a retention period for each kind of certificate, such as the validity period plus the longest period an employer or awarding body may ask about it, and state it in your privacy notice.

Expiring: how long training certificates last

Some subjects have a validity period set by a regulator or a recognised body. Many do not, and the period is set by the awarding body, the client’s own policy, or you. The examples below show how much the same skill varies by country.

Certificate	How long it lasts	Who says so
First aid at work and emergency first aid at work, UK	Three years from completion. HSE strongly recommends annual refresher training as well	HSE, L74
First aid qualifications, Australia	Renewal every three years and a CPR refresher every year, as recommended practice	Safe Work Australia, model Code of Practice: First aid in the workplace
CPR certification, American Red Cross	Two years from completing the training	American Red Cross

Where nobody sets a period, decide one with the client and print it on the certificate. An expiry date that only lives in someone’s head cannot be acted on.

What happens at the expiry date is the part providers should explain to clients, because it is the client’s risk. L74 says: “If the first-aider does not retrain or requalify before the expiry date on their current certificate, they are no longer considered competent to act as a first-aider in the workplace.” It also says employers “need to arrange retraining before certificates expire”, that the requalification course for first aid at work lasts two days against three for the full course, and that a first-aider whose certificate has expired can still requalify on the two-day course, although it may be prudent to take the full three-day course, especially more than a month after expiry.

So rebooking before the date avoids a gap in the client’s cover, and the risk of a longer course to put it right. That is a reason to contact them, and it is in their interest as much as yours.

Renewed: the expiry date is your next sale

A certificate with an expiry date is a booking you can see coming. Workplace first aid shows the scale, because every first aid certificate in the table above lapses on a fixed cycle.

Take a first aid provider that certifies 3,000 people a year. Once it has been running for longer than the validity period, and if its volume holds steady, about as many certificates expire each year as it issues: around 3,000 a year, whether they last two years or three. The rebooking rate is the share of those people who book their renewal with you, and every ten points of it is 300 seats.

What those seats are worth depends on what the renewal course costs where you work. The table uses the price that one large provider in each country published for the course a learner takes to renew, checked on 8 October 2026.

Where	Renewal course and published price	Every ten points of rebooking (300 seats)	At a 50% rebooking rate (1,500 seats)
UK	St John Ambulance, First Aid at Work Requalification (two days), from £240 ex VAT	£72,000	£360,000
Australia	St John Ambulance Victoria, HLTAID011 Provide First Aid (one day), A$225 as listed	A$67,500	A$337,500
US	American Red Cross, Adult and Pediatric First Aid/CPR/AED, a classroom class in Alexandria, Virginia, $115	$34,500	$172,500

These figures are illustrative. Each price is one provider’s list price for one course in one place, before any discount, and prices vary with location, format and group size. The rebooking rates are not benchmarks either: we have not found a published figure for how many training certificates are renewed with the same provider. Put your own renewal price and your own rate into the same arithmetic.

Every one of those people has already trained with you, and many came through an employer that has already paid you once. They need no persuading that they need the course. The question is only who asks them first, and when.

A monthly routine covers it.

• Once a month, list every certificate that expires in the next six months. Six months gives a client time to approve the spend and raise a purchase order, and gives you time to put on a date.
• Contact employers about their people, and individuals about themselves. A client with twelve people due wants one email with all twelve names on it.
• Offer specific dates before the expiry date, and say what happens if it lapses: for UK first aid at work, a gap in cover and possibly a longer course.
• Contact the people who are still due again a month before expiry, and remove those who have rebooked so nobody is asked twice.
• Check that your privacy notice and marketing consents cover renewal emails before you send them.

The routine depends on one thing: an expiry date stored as data against each learner and each client, rather than printed on a PDF. With that, the list is a filter. Without it, someone has to open old certificates one at a time, which is why the list so often goes unworked.

CPD points, hours and CE credits

Continuing professional development (CPD) is the learning a professional records to stay in good standing. In North America the same idea is usually called continuing education, measured in CE credits or continuing education units (CEUs). The learner needs your certificate to claim it, so the certificate has to state it in a unit their body accepts.

The CPD Certification Service defines CPD hours as time spent in “active learning”, and gives the example of a course from 9am to 5pm with an hour for lunch, which counts as 7 CPD hours. It says that where bodies use points, units or credits, “typically 1 CPD point equals 1 CPD Hour”. In the US, IACET defines the continuing education unit as “1 CEU = 10 contact hours” of participation in organised continuing education.

Professional bodies then set how much their members need, and in what form. The Nursing and Midwifery Council asks for 35 hours of CPD in the three years since registration was last renewed, of which at least 20 must include participatory learning. SHRM gives its certified HR professionals two routes to recertify, one of which is to earn 60 professional development credits within a three-year cycle.

That gives a short list for every certificate that carries CPD.

• State the hours of active learning. Breaks do not count.
• Say how it was delivered, live with a trainer or self-paced. Some bodies, the NMC among them, count participatory learning separately.
• Use the unit your learners’ body uses where you serve one profession: CPD hours or points, CE credits, CEUs, PDCs.
• Show the same figure on the course page. A professional choosing between two courses will check what each is worth.

What this asks of your system

Look back over the five stages and the requirements are specific. They make a test for the system you have, or any you are considering. What is a training management system? covers the rest of what such a system does.

Stage	What the system should do
Issued	Issue the certificate from the register or on completion, from your own template, with an expiry date and CPD hours, and email it to the learner
Issued	Hold more than one template, and more than one certificate per learner where a course has them
Delivered	Let the person who booked collect every certificate on their order, and send them in bulk where they cannot
Checked	Give every certificate its own reference and link, and stop the link if the certificate is withdrawn
Expiring	Store the expiry date as data on each learner’s record, linked to the client who paid
Renewed	Filter learners by expiry date and by client, export the list, and email the people on it
CPD	Record hours and points per course, in the unit your learners use, and show them on the course page

The same certificates, run in Cademy

In Cademy the certificate is part of the learner’s registration, which is linked to the course date, the order and the organisation that paid. The register you take is what issues it, and the expiry date is a field you can filter on.

Issued and delivered

Once you switch it on, certificates issue automatically when a learner is marked as attended or completes an on-demand course, and for a blended course when both are true. The learner is emailed when it is issued, and the expiry date is set from the issue date. From the Pro plan you design your own templates, up to ten pages, with merge fields such as the facilitator’s name. A registration can carry more than one certificate where the templates differ, such as a certificate of attendance and an accredited one.

Certificates can also be issued in bulk, with the choice of sending them to the learners, to the learners and the people who booked them, to the bookers only, to an address you enter, or as a single ZIP file. The person who booked for a team sees each learner’s attendance or progress from their own account and downloads every certificate on the order.

Checked

Every certificate has its own link that opens it. Revoking a certificate stops the link working. Because the certificate belongs to the registration, the course, date, attendance and quiz results are on the same record when someone asks how it was earned, and the organisation’s record shows every learner a client has sent.

Renewed

The renewal routine above is a filter on the Registrations page. Filter on certificate expiry date for the next 30 days, the next six months or any range, add the organisation column, and save the filter so it is one click each month. From there you can export the list, or select the learners and email them the next dates.

admin.cademy.io/registrations

Registrations

New Registration

SearchActive Registr…Save FilterFilterSortColumnsExport

WhereCertificate Expiry Date next 6 months ×

+ Add FilterAdd GroupApply

6 SelectedSelect All 214× Deselect AllEmail

	Name	Registration Code	Status	Role	Course	Completion
	ARAnna Reid	REG-2211	Active	Direct	Emergency First Aid at Work	Completed
	TRTom Reid	REG-2210	Active	Booker	IOSH Managing Safely	In Progress
	LALena Adeyemi	REG-2209	Active	Direct	Fire Marshal	Not Started
	RWRuth Walsh	REG-2208	Active	Guest	Fire Marshal	Not Started
	DPDan Price	REG-2207	Active	Direct	Manual Handling	Completed
	MOMark Okafor	REG-2206	Active	Booker	Mental Health First Aid	In Progress

10 per page1–6 of 2,973 registrations1 / 298

	Name	Course	Organisation	Certificate Expiry Date ↑
	ARAnna Reid	Emergency First Aid at Work	OOakfield Care	Nov 12, 2026
	PSPriya Shah	Emergency First Aid at Work	OOakfield Care	Nov 12, 2026
	TRTom Reid	First Aid at Work	PPathways Construction	Dec 3, 2026
	LALena Adeyemi	Fire Marshal	OOakfield Care	Jan 14, 2027
	RWRuth Walsh	First Aid at Work	–	Feb 22, 2027
	MOMark Okafor	Mental Health First Aid	LLancashire NHS Trust	Mar 30, 2027

10 per page1–6 of 214 registrations1 / 36

For one client, the organisation’s record lists its registrations, sorted by certificate expiry, which gives you the list to send the person who booked. On the Teams plan an export can also be scheduled to run daily, weekly or monthly.

CPD

From the Pro plan, CPD points and hours are awarded automatically when a learner attends or completes a course. You can rename the units to the ones your learners use, and they show on your course listings, where learners can filter by them.

To see your own certificates set up this way, book a call and bring a course with an expiry date, or start for free and issue a certificate from your first register. Regulated and accredited training shows the rest of the record behind each certificate.

Frequently asked questions

What should a training certificate include? The learner’s full name, the course or qualification, the awarding or accrediting body if there is one, the training provider’s name, the completion date, the expiry date where the subject has one, the hours of learning and any CPD points or credits, and a unique reference that can be checked against the provider’s records.

Who issues the certificate for an accredited course? It depends on the qualification and the country. For a regulated qualification in England, the awarding organisation issues the qualification certificate under Ofqual’s rules. In Australia, the registered training organisation that assessed the learner issues it, within 30 calendar days of the assessment. A provider can still issue its own certificate of attendance on the day.

How long is a first aid certificate valid? It depends on the country and the course. In the UK, HSE guidance says first aid at work and emergency first aid at work certificates are valid for three years. Safe Work Australia’s code of practice says first aid qualifications should be renewed every three years and CPR refreshed every year. The American Red Cross says its CPR certification lasts two years.

What happens when a training certificate expires? The holder may no longer meet the requirement it was for. For UK workplace first aid, HSE guidance says a first-aider who does not requalify before the expiry date is no longer considered competent to act as one at work, and the employer should arrange retraining before certificates expire.

How do employers verify a training certificate? They check that it was issued by the provider to that person, that it is current and has not been withdrawn, and that the course meets their requirement. A unique reference and a link to the certificate in the provider’s system let them do that without contacting the provider.

What is the difference between CPD points and CPD hours? CPD hours are the time spent in active learning, excluding breaks. Most bodies that use CPD points, units or credits count one point as one hour, according to the CPD Certification Service, but a professional body’s own rules decide.

What are continuing education credits? Continuing education credits are the units professionals in North America use to record ongoing learning for a licence, certification or membership, much as CPD points or hours are used elsewhere. Each body sets its own unit and requirement. One IACET continuing education unit equals ten contact hours, and SHRM, for example, counts professional development credits towards recertification every three years.

How many hours is a CEU? One IACET continuing education unit (CEU) equals ten contact hours of participation in organised continuing education and training.

How long should a training provider keep certificate records? Long enough to answer the questions an employer, awarding body or regulator may ask, and no longer. HSE’s first aid guidance says training records, where they are kept, should be kept for at least three years after the assessment. Data protection law in the UK and EU requires a retention period you can justify, so set one per certificate type and state it in your privacy notice.

When should I contact learners about renewing a certificate? Start about six months before the expiry date, so an employer has time to approve the spend and you have time to schedule a date, and contact anyone still due again about a month before. Contact the person who booked for groups sent by an employer, and the learner when they booked for themselves.

Sources

Figures and quotations checked 8 October 2026 on the publishers’ own pages.

• Health and Safety Executive, L74: First aid at work
• Safe Work Australia, Model Code of Practice: First aid in the workplace
• American Red Cross, CPR certification
• St John Ambulance, First Aid at Work Requalification
• St John Ambulance Victoria, HLTAID011 Provide First Aid
• American Red Cross, CPR and first aid classes (class search for Washington, DC)
• The CPD Certification Service, What are CPD points, hours, units and credits?
• IACET, the continuing education unit
• Nursing and Midwifery Council, Continuing professional development
• SHRM, Recertification
• Ofqual, General Conditions of Recognition, Section I: Appeals and certificates
• ASQA, Practice Guide: Integrity of nationally recognised training products
• Information Commissioner’s Office, Storage limitation
• Cademy: regulated and accredited training, learning management system and pricing