Process, Requirements & Fees
The Process: What To Expect & How To Prepare
- The B Impact Assessment will be your main tool for B Corp Certification.
- Many people at your company will likely need to be involved to collect information for the B Impact Assessment. Learn how to add your team members to the B Impact Assessment.
- Expect the process to take at least 12 months. There are ways to make sure you’re ready for each stage of the process and anticipate what you need. To help, we’ve created a few B Corp Certification readiness guides.
- Use this checklist to make sure you’re ready. If you scored between 80 and 85 points, we recommend reviewing this resource.
- For more information on how to choose a track in the B Impact Assessment, please see use this guide. If your company has been operating fewer than 12 months, please refer to our Pending B page. If your company has one or more complex structures (e.g. having operations in more than one country or revenue over $100MM) visit this page for more certification information.
Requirements
Verify Your Social & Environmental Performance Every Three Years
Complete the B Impact Assessment, achieve a verified score of 80 points or more, and pass the disclosure questionnaire review.
The verification process will happen after you have submitted your assessment.
Mission Lock Your Company
Your company must adopt a legal framework that accounts for all stakeholders. This varies by country and state/province. Please use our legal requirement tool to determine the right path for your company.
Embrace Transparency
Publish your B Impact Report in our B Corp Directory. This will be done as a final step right before certification.
Pay Your Annual Fee
You are expected to recertify your company every three years, but you must pay an annual fee based on your gross revenue. See our fee table for more details.
B Corps must recertify every three years. For more information, please see our guide to recertification.
Verify Your Social & Environmental Performance Every Three Years
Complete the B Impact Assessment, achieve a verified score of 80 points or more, and pass the disclosure questionnaire review.
The verification process will happen after you have submitted your assessment.
Mission Lock Your Company
Your company must adopt a legal framework that accounts for all stakeholders. This varies by country and state/province. Please use our legal requirement tool to determine the right path for your company.
Embrace Transparency
Publish your B Impact Report in our B Corp Directory. This will be done as a final step right before certification.
Pay Your Annual Fee
You are expected to recertify your company every three years, but you must pay an annual fee based on your gross revenue. See our fee table for more details.
B Corps must recertify every three years. For more information, please see our guide to recertification.
Timeline
Before you certify, here are some of the steps your company should follow:
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1 Understand the Business Case for B Corp Certification and the Legal Requirement
Learn more about the value of certifying and amending your legal documents with the B Corp Legal Framework.
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2 Create a Team
Rally people from across your company, including Legal, Human Resources, Procurement, Facilities & Leadership. Once they get on board, the process for collecting information for the assessment will be more efficient.
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3 Complete the B Impact Assessment
Use the bookmark feature to save questions to come back to later to update. Collect any missing answers from your team and identify opportunities for improvement.
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4 Submit for Verification
Once you’ve reached at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment, submit your assessment for review. A one-time non-refundable fee is due at the time of submission. See our fee table below for more details. And see our submission fee FAQ to learn more.
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5 Reach Out
If your company is over $100M USD in annual revenue, please read through this page on how to certify companies with complex structures and reach out to certify@bcorporation.net before submitting your assessment.
What To Expect During the Review Process
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1 Certification Readiness
After submitting your B Impact Assessment, make sure all of your documentation is available and ready to share with our team. During this time you can also learn more about ways to engage with the B Corp community through our articles & resources.
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2 Evaluation
In this step, an Evaluation Analyst will confirm your company’s business operations and Impact Business Model points and track.
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3 Verification
A Verification Analyst will then verify additional questions through documentation and by engaging your team directly. At this point, your score may change and that’s okay!
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4 Sign the B Corp Agreement
Your team will then sign our B Corp agreement and the Declaration of Interdependence and pay the first year of annual certification fees. View our fee structure below.
Level
Our Level program aims to build additional models of engagement and support for businesses led by Black, Indigenous, or other People of Color who also identify as women. If you are interested in learning more or participating in the program, read more.
Fee Structure
Annual Certification Fees
Each year B Lab will collect your gross annual revenue to determine the pricing tier for your company’s invoice.
$0 to Less Than $5 Million
| Annual Sales | Fee |
|---|---|
| $0 – <$4.9M | $2,000 |
$5 Million to Less than $50 Million
| Annual Sales | Fee |
|---|---|
| $5M – $7.4M | $3,000 |
| $7.5M – $9.9M | $3,750 |
| $10M – $14.9M | $6,000 |
| $15M – $19.9M | $8,500 |
| $20M – <$29.9M | $12,000 |
| $30M – <$49.9M | $16,000 |
More Than $50 Million
| Annual Sales | Fee |
|---|---|
| $50M – $74.9M | $20,000 |
| $75M – $99.9M | $25,500 |
| $100M – <$174.9M | $30,000 |
| $175M – $249.9M | $35,000 |
| $250M – $499.9M | $40,000 |
| $500M – $749.9M | $45,000 |
| $750M – $999.9M | $50,000 |
| $1B+ | Based on size & complexity of the business |
Submission Fee Structure
Once you’ve reached at least 80 points on the B Impact Assessment, submit your assessment for review. A one-time non-refundable fee based on your company’s annual revenue is due at the time of submission.
Annual Revenue
| Annual Revenue (in USD) | Submission fee (in USD) |
|---|---|
| $0 - $500K | $150 |
| $500K - $4.9M | $250 |
| $5M - $49.9M | $500 |
| $50M - $99.9M | $700 |
| $100M + | $900 |
Additional Fees
Some complex and/or large companies might be subject to additional Certification processes or requirements, which can incur their own fees. Please see here the fee breakdown for these additional services. If you are unsure if these will apply to your company, please refer to this page.
Large Enterprise Approach
Companies in the Large Enterprise Approach are subject to a separate set of fees. Please see here the Large Enterprise fee breakdown.
Equity Discount
U.S. or Canada-based entrepreneurs facing systematic barriers to business ownership can receive a 40% discount on certification fees. Learn more about our equity discount.
Certification Readiness
There are many things you can do after you submit your B Impact Assessment for B Corp Certification. While you wait to be paired with an analyst, please review some of our certification readiness resources.