Refrigerant capacity certificate or Qualiopi: telling them apart

These are two French certificates, both mandatory in their field, both issued by third-party bodies — and they have nothing to do with one another. The confusion is nonetheless common, particularly among refrigeration companies developing a training arm, and among training providers building a technical workshop. Here is the dividing line.

Two objects, two worlds

	Refrigerant capacity certificate	Qualiopi
What is certified	A company’s capacity to handle refrigerants	A training process
Legal basis	Environment Code, art. R. 543-99	Labour Code, national quality framework
Issued by	A body approved by the ministers for the environment and industry	An accredited or authorised certification body
What it unlocks	Buying and handling refrigerants	Access to public and pooled funds
Duration	Five years maximum	A certification cycle with audits
Who it covers	Refrigeration firms, installers, garages, technical services	Skills-development providers

The table says the essential thing: one is an authorisation to practise a technical trade, the other a condition of access to funding. They answer different questions and never substitute for one another.

What the capacity certificate actually does

The capacity certificate covers the company — the opérateur within the meaning of the Environment Code. It is issued by an approved body for a maximum of five years, subject to two cumulative conditions: employing staff holding the personal certificates matching the activities carried out, and holding suitable tooling in sufficient quantity.

Its practical effect is immediate: without it, a distributor may not sell refrigerant to the company. It comes with ongoing duties — an annual refrigerant movement declaration, an inspection visit by the approved body — whose breach can lead to withdrawal. The detail is on the scheme page and in our guide on obtaining it.

Nothing in that scheme bears on teaching, on public information or on learner follow-up. That is not its purpose.

What Qualiopi actually does

Qualiopi certifies a provider’s conformity with the French national quality framework, on criteria covering public information, service design, adaptation to audiences, resources deployed, trainer qualifications, embedding in the professional environment, and continuous improvement.

Its function is financial before it is commercial: it conditions access to public and pooled funds. It says nothing about anyone’s environmental compliance and waives no sector authorisation.

Three misleading similarities

What sustains the confusion is that the two schemes look alike from a distance. Three resemblances are worth undoing.

“Both are issued by an accredited third party.” True, but the chains of trust are separate. The body approved for refrigerants derives its approval from the ministers for the environment and industry. A Qualiopi certification body sits in an entirely different accreditation or authorisation circuit. No body issues both under a single authorisation, and neither certificate is ever enforceable against the other authority.

“Both renew with an audit.” Both do involve a mid-cycle check, but they look at different things. The approved body’s visit covers tooling, staff certificates and the consistency of declared refrigerant movements. The Qualiopi audit covers process evidence: public information, positioning, follow-up, feedback collection. The two evidence files have nothing in common.

“Both can be withdrawn.” Correct, but the consequences differ in kind. Withdrawal of the capacity certificate cuts off access to refrigerant, hence the technical activity itself. Withdrawal of Qualiopi cuts off public funding, not the right to train. A company can keep selling training without Qualiopi; it cannot keep charging a heat pump without the capacity certificate.

The single point where they meet

There is one point of contact, and one only.

The refrigerant handling certificate is listed in France compétences’ répertoire spécifique under number RS5638, with the ministry for ecological transition as awarding body. That listing makes it eligible for the compte personnel de formation (CPF), France’s individual training account.

And funding through the CPF and pooled funds requires the provider delivering the preparation for that certificate to hold Qualiopi certification. Hence the dividing rule:

• a refrigeration company training its own staff in-house does not need Qualiopi;
• a provider — or a refrigeration company developing that activity — selling this preparation to third parties with public funding does.

That is all. No other bridge exists between the two schemes. The subject is developed in our article on the framework for providers preparing candidates for the refrigerant certificate.

The case that catches training providers out

A technical training provider building a live refrigeration workshop can cross, without noticing, into the Environment Code. If it genuinely handles refrigerants on teaching installations — charging, recovery, leak testing — it is an operator within the meaning of the regulation and falls under the same duties as businesses in the sector.

This is a point to have settled by an approved body rather than assumed. A provider may thus need both certificates: Qualiopi to fund its courses, the capacity certificate to run its workshop.

Why both requirements exist

They answer two different failures.

On the refrigerant side, the problem is measurable. A study by Francis, Maidment and Davies published in 2016 in the International Journal of Refrigeration analysed 1,464 maintenance records from two major UK supermarket chains, documenting the real nature and location of leaks (see the study). The regulator does not check competence for its own sake: it is trying to keep the refrigerant inside the circuit.

On the training side, the logic is protecting public money: a pooled funder cannot audit every provider, so it delegates verification to a third-party certifier.

Two problems, two answers, two schemes. The only mistake would be to think one covers the other.

Take action

Ask the questions in the right order: does your company handle refrigerants? Then the capacity certificate is mandatory, whatever your position on Qualiopi. Do you sell training to third parties with public funding? Then Qualiopi is added, without removing anything. Find the detailed requirements on the scheme page and the full overview on the certifications hub.