FCC Declaration of Conformity

FCC Declaration of Conformity
The 'Declaration of Conformity' label
Standards Organization	Federal Communications Commission
Effective region	United States
Product category	Electronic equipment.
Legal status	Mandatory

The FCC Declaration of Conformity or the FCC label or the FCC mark is a certification mark employed on electronic products manufactured or sold in the United States which certifies that the electromagnetic interference from the device is under limits approved by the Federal Communications Commission. The FCC label is found even on products sold outside the US territory, because they are either products manufactured in the US and had been exported, or they are also sold in the US. This makes the FCC label recognizable worldwide even to people to whom the name of the agency Federal Communications Commission is not familiar.

The Federal Communications Commission established the regulations on electromagnetic interference under Part 15 of the FCC rules in 1975. After several amendments over the years, these regulation were reconstituted as the Declaration of Conformity and Certification procedures in 1998.

By the regulation, the FCC DoC certification mark is mandatory for devices classified under part 15 (IT equipment like computers, switched-mode power supplies, monitors etc., television receivers, cable system devices, low-power transmitters, un-licensed personal communication devices) and part 18 (industrial, scientific, and medical (ISM) devices that emit RF radiation) of the FCC regulations.

The certification mark is a stand-alone logo (as shown above) for the part 18 class of devices while, for the part 15 class, along with the logo, the label should display other data viz, the trade name of the product, the model number, and information whether the device was tested after assembling, or assembled from tested components.

As of January 2012, there are 279 test firms worldwide, accredited with the Commission who are qualified to issue the declaration of conformity certificate.

Even though most of the nations exporting electronic equipment into the US market have their own standards for EMI as well as independent certification and conformity marks (e.g.: The CCC certification mark for China, the VCCI (Voluntary Council for Control of Interference) mark for Japan, the KCC mark by the Korea Communications Commission for South Korea, the ANATEL mark for Brazil, and the BSMI mark for Taiwan), most of the products still sold in these markets hold the FCC label. Electronic products sold in parts of Asia and Africa hold the FCC label even though it holds no legal significance, and also without any means to verify whether they actually conform to the specified standards or not.