Refrigerant handling certificate: which French category to choose

The attestation d’aptitude is not a universal licence to handle refrigerants. It states an activity category, and that category then determines the scope of the company’s capacity certificate. Choosing the wrong one means either paying for a scope you never use, or resitting the test six months later.

The principle: a personal certificate with a defined scope

The personal certificate is provided for by article R. 543-106 of the French Environment Code. It covers an individual, whereas the capacity certificate covers the company. It is issued by an assessment body (organisme évaluateur), itself certified for that purpose by an accredited certification body, after a written and a practical test.

This distinction shapes the whole process: a company can only obtain its capacity certificate by evidencing staff who hold the personal certificates matching the activities carried out. Individual competence is the condition of existence of the collective authorisation. This is developed in our guide on obtaining the capacity certificate.

The categories under the historical regime

The French scheme traditionally distinguishes four categories covering refrigeration, air conditioning and heat pumps, plus one dedicated to vehicles.

Category	Scope of work
I	The widest scope: leak testing, commissioning, maintenance and servicing, refrigerant recovery, with no charge limit
II	A scope restricted by the equipment’s charge, including leak testing
III	Refrigerant recovery on low-charge equipment
IV	Leak testing only
V	Vehicle air conditioning

This table comes with a methodological warning. The charge thresholds separating categories II and III sit in the regulatory text and have changed across successive versions of the European framework. Before enrolling an employee for an assessment, have the assessment body confirm the exact category matching your equipment base. The tables circulating on commercial websites are not all up to date, and an undersized category is paid for with a second sitting.

Choosing without over- or under-shooting

Three lines of reasoning help.

Start from actual activity, not aspirational activity. A firm that only leak-tests an existing base does not need to send its whole team to category I. The cost and the preparation time are not the same, and an unused scope earns nothing.

But anticipate the commercial trajectory eighteen months out. Conversely, a growing firm that confines its technicians to narrow categories ends up turning down jobs or always mobilising the same person. If heat-pump commissioning is on the development plan, the category must follow.

Spread the categories across the team. It is rarely useful for everyone to hold category I, and always dangerous for only one person to hold it. The departure of the sole certified employee in the category carrying the business immediately undermines the company’s capacity certificate — and the holder must inform the approved body without delay of any change in the initial conditions.

The assessment: written and practical

The certificate is obtained after a test of theoretical knowledge and a verification of practical skills. The theory covers the regulatory framework, refrigerant properties and thermodynamic principles; the practical covers the trade’s actual operations — connection, evacuation, charging, recovery, leak detection, depending on the category concerned.

The underestimated part is the practical test. An experienced technician can fail on an operation they perform differently day to day, or on a testing protocol they have never formalised. That is precisely the value of preparation: it aligns field practice with the assessment framework.

Category V: a separate world

Vehicle air conditioning deserves a paragraph of its own, because it is regularly forgotten in company planning.

Garages, body shops and vehicle fleets that service air-conditioning circuits handle refrigerants exactly as a refrigeration firm does, and are subject to the same logic: certified staff, and a capacity certificate in the company’s name. The category concerned is nonetheless distinct from those covering fixed installations, and holding category I does not confer it.

The practical consequence for a mixed business — a firm servicing both buildings and vehicles — is that two separate category streams must be maintained within the team. Funding arrangements also differ between the two streams, which is worth checking with the funder before planning enrolments rather than after.

Funding: what the RS5638 listing changes

The refrigerant handling certificate is listed in France compétences’ répertoire spécifique — the national register of short-form professional certifications — under number RS5638, with the ministry for ecological transition as awarding body.

That listing is what opens the door to the compte personnel de formation (CPF), France’s individual training account. It carries two practical consequences.

For an employee or a sole trader: preparation may be CPF-eligible, but the terms depend on the category concerned and on the funder approached. These rules change — check them with the funder before building a training plan, rather than relying on a commercial brochure.

For a training provider, the consequence is more structural: funding through the CPF and through pooled funds requires Qualiopi certification. This is the only point of contact between the refrigerant world and the vocational training world, and it is often misunderstood in both directions.

Towards new categories: what the reform prepares

The I-to-V split is changing. Regulation (EU) 2024/573 of 7 February 2024, in force since 11 March 2024, repealed Regulation (EU) No 517/2014 and widened the scope of certified competence to natural refrigerants — carbon dioxide, ammonia — and to hydrocarbons.

In France, two orders of 21 November 2025 draw the consequences for both the capacity certificate and the personal certificate. A revised category nomenclature progressively replaces the historical split, and a periodic knowledge update is introduced for current holders.

This widening is not cosmetic: it accompanies a technical shift in the market. A study by Tang and co-authors, published in 2018 in the International Journal of Refrigeration, experimentally assessed propane (R290) leakage in a split-type household air conditioner and ways of reducing the associated risk (see the study). These refrigerants are climate-friendly but flammable: the required competence changes in nature, not merely in breadth.

Take action

Take stock of your team’s certificates: who, in which category, for which work. Compare that picture with what the company actually does and actually sells. Then ask your assessment body about the target category and the update timetable applying to each person. The scheme page summarises the categories, conditions and ongoing duties.