How to Check if a Course Certificate Is Real, for Recruiters and Students

By Pooja Goenka · Published 2026-10-14

To check a course certificate, open the issuer's own verification page, either by scanning the QR code or by typing the certificate number on the issuer's website, and confirm that the name, course, date and issuer shown there match the document in front of you. If the certificate has no verification page, contact the issuer using an email or phone number you found yourself on their official website, never the one printed on the certificate.

The rest of this post is the detail behind those two sentences:

  • The PDF proves nothing on its own. What counts is the record the issuer keeps.
  • A QR code is only a link. Check where it goes before you trust what it shows.
  • When there is no verification page, you have to ask the issuer, and some never answer.
  • For Indian degrees, DigiLocker's National Academic Depository is the official route, and it needs the student's consent.

I work on an exam platform that issues certificates, so I spend a lot of time on the other side of this check. I wrote a separate post for institutes on how to make certificates verifiable. This one is for the person holding a certificate and wondering whether to believe it.

The step-by-step check

Most of this takes a couple of minutes once you have done it a few times. The slow part is step 5, when there is no page to check.

  1. Find the verification route on the certificate: a QR code, a short URL, or a certificate number with "verify at" next to it.
  2. Before opening anything, work out the issuer's real website on your own, by searching the institute's name or using a domain you already know. Do not start from the link on the certificate.
  3. Open the verification page and confirm it sits on that same domain.
  4. Compare every field: full name, course or exam title, issue date, result or grade, and the issuer's name and logo. One mismatch is enough to stop.
  5. If there is no page, email the issuer at an address from their website, attach the certificate, and ask them to confirm it in writing.
  6. Write down what you checked and when. If the certificate is revoked later, you will want to know what the page said on the day you looked.

Step 2 is the one people skip, and it is the one that catches the better forgeries.

How to tell a real verification page from a look-alike

A forger who can edit a PDF can also put up a web page that says "Valid certificate" in green, on a domain that looks close enough to the real one.

Look at the address bar, not the page. The domain should match the issuer's main website or a subdomain of it, such as verify.example-institute.in. A page on a free website builder, a URL shortener that you cannot expand, or a domain with one letter changed are all reasons to stop and check another way.

Big platforms make this easier because their verify links follow a fixed pattern. Coursera, for example, prints a verify URL of the form coursera.org/verify/ followed by a code on its verified certificates. If you know the pattern, a link that breaks it stands out.

A real verification page also tends to show less than you might expect, because it is protecting the holder's privacy. A page that shows the holder's phone number, address or full marksheet to anyone who scans it is unusual, and I would be more suspicious of that than reassured by it.

What a QR code proves and what it does not

A QR code is a URL drawn as a picture. Anyone can generate one for any address in a few seconds with a free tool. So the code itself proves nothing. It only saves typing.

When you scan, most phone cameras show the URL before opening it. Read it. If it points to the issuer's domain and the page shows a record matching the certificate, you have something. If it opens an image of the same certificate, or a PDF hosted somewhere else, you have learned nothing, because the forger controls that file too.

A QR code is most useful when a student pastes a certificate into a slide deck or a résumé and you cannot easily copy the number. Treat it as a shortcut to the lookup, and still do the domain check from step 2.

Certificates with no verification page: what to do

Plenty of genuine certificates have no online check, especially older ones and those from local coaching institutes, so a missing page is not evidence of a fake.

Your options, in rough order of effort:

  1. Email the issuer from an address you found on their official site and ask for written confirmation of the name, course and date.
  2. Call the institute's listed number and ask the same.
  3. Ask the candidate to request a confirmation letter from the institute, sent to you directly.
  4. Weigh it lightly. A certificate you could not check is still a claim the candidate made, and you can test the skill in the interview instead.

For hiring, option 4 is often the sensible default. Most recruiters do not have time to chase a reply, and the skill can be tested directly.

Red flags on Indian course certificates

None of these proves forgery on its own. Two or three together justify a phone call before you trust the document.

  • The issuer's name does not match the name on its website, or there is no website at all.
  • The only contact details are a mobile number and a Gmail address printed on the certificate.
  • It says "certificate of completion" with no mention of an exam, a score or a pass mark, yet the candidate describes it as a qualification.
  • The issue date falls before the course end date, or the course length is impossible (a "six-month diploma" issued three weeks after enrolment).
  • The QR code opens a file, not a record page.
  • For degrees, the institution appears on the University Grants Commission's list of fake universities, published on the UGC website. Check the current list there, since it is updated.

DigiLocker, university and background verification routes for degrees

Degrees and university marksheets have an official route that course certificates mostly do not. The National Academic Depository on DigiLocker holds academic awards that institutions lodge themselves. Its FAQ says only the academic institution can upload an award and students cannot add their own, which is why a record there carries weight.

It is also consent-based. The NAD FAQ says verifiers such as employers can only view a record with the student's permission, and the student gets a request to approve or reject. So the practical flow for an employer is to ask the candidate to share the record, or to send a request and wait for them to approve it.

When a university has not joined NAD, its controller of examinations office usually handles verification requests directly. Many larger employers hand all of this to a background verification firm, which follows the same routes on your behalf.

What students should ask their institute for

If you are a student, you can make your own certificate much easier to trust. Before you pay for a course, or at least before you finish it, ask the institute:

  1. Is there a public page where anyone can check my certificate without logging in?
  2. Does the certificate have a unique code, and does the page show what I was assessed on?
  3. Will the page still work in three years if you change software?
  4. Can I hide my name on the public page and still let an employer confirm it?

An institute that can answer yes to the first two has done most of the work. The checklist in our post for institutes goes further if they want ideas.

What a LogicWiz certificate shows

Certificates issued through LogicWiz Exams carry a unique 12-character verification code, a certificate number and a QR code. The code or QR opens a public page on exams.logicwiz.ai that needs no account. It shows whether the certificate is valid, expired or revoked (with the reason), the issuing institute's own name and logo, what was awarded and for which exam, the result, the issue date, and whether the exam was proctored.

The holder can choose to hide their name on the public page. For that case there is a "Check a name" box: a recruiter types the name the candidate gave them, and the page answers yes or no without revealing the name.

You can see this on the free GenAI certification exam that goes with our GenAI course. It is 60 questions, proctored, with a 70% pass mark, and every certificate from it has a public verification page. The course itself is completely free.

Common questions

Can a QR code on a certificate be faked?

Yes. A QR code is just a link, and anyone can make one that points anywhere. Read the URL when you scan it and confirm it belongs to the issuer's official domain.

Is a certificate without a QR code fake?

No. Many genuine certificates, especially older ones, have no QR code or online check. Contact the issuer through details from their official website to confirm it.

How do employers verify online course certificates in India?

For online courses, they use the platform's verification link or ask the issuer directly. For degrees, they use DigiLocker's National Academic Depository with the candidate's consent, the university's examination office, or a background verification firm.

Can I verify a certificate without the student's permission?

If the issuer runs a public verification page, yes, because that is what the page is for, though the holder may have hidden their name. DigiLocker NAD records need the student's consent. Asking the candidate first is courteous either way.

What if the verification page is down?

Try again later and do not treat it as a fail. On LogicWiz Exams, the error page says plainly that an outage says nothing about whether the certificate is valid. If it stays down, email the issuer.

Does a verified certificate prove the person can do the job?

It proves the issuer awarded it to that name. How much it says about skill depends on the assessment behind it, so check whether it was a proctored exam with a pass mark or a completion certificate.

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