The Keymark system is a pan-European certification system demonstrating conformity with certain European Standards developed by CEN and CENELEC.
It was established in the context of a resolution of the European Council, inviting the European Standards Organizations to 'continue their discussions on a possible harmonized expression of conformity with European standards'. It is a fully-fledged third- party certification scheme Type 5, as defined in ISO/IEC 17067 'Conformity assessment - Fundamentals of product certification and guidelines for product certification schemes'.
CEN and CENELEC are the two co-owners of the Keymark system, which is also a registered trademark, but the certification schemes are operated by professional and qualified certification bodies, who are all accredited against ISO/IEC 17065 by members of the European co-operation for Accreditation (EA).
The Keymark was successfully developed for some product groups through Keymark schemes, especially in the construction sector, and offers opportunities for market penetration in other sectors (see also next section).
The Keymark system is described in the CEN-CENELEC Internal Regulations Part 4: Certification (currently available at: https://boss.cenelec.eu/reference-material/refdocs/pages/), as revised from time to time (hereinafter: the 'Internal Regulations - Part 4').
Since November 2013, the co-owners outsource the operation and daily management of the Keymark system to an external organization which acts as the Keymark Management Organisation (KMO). The KMO operates as a contractor for the Keymark co-owners.
The current contract with the organization acting as the KMO will be coming to an end on 31 December 2025. This call for tender (the 'Call') is therefore launched:
- to select a contractor to be the KMO under a new contract for an initial term of two (2) years starting 1 January 2026, renewable automatically on a yearly basis for a one-year term, and for a maximum of three (3) consecutive terms (i.e. until 31 December 2029) unless either party terminates the contract with a 12 months’ prior written notice, and also
- to assess the interest of tenderers in potentially acquiring the Keymark system (excluding the standards) (see section 5 below).
Application deadline: 2025-06-02
