Guatemala
Oficina Guatemalteca de Acreditación
OGA
OGA is Guatemala's only ILAC MRA-signatory accreditation body listed in this backbone.
OGA's power to accredit certification bodies comes directly from a 2005 law — but as of this verification, the public register does not list any certification body among its live accreditations. The legal authority and the current register are two separate facts.
How this body's authority is structured
Created by law as part of Guatemala's National Quality System
Decreto Número 78-2005 (Ley del Sistema Nacional de la Calidad), published in the Diario de Centro América on 8 December 2005, sets out five components of the national quality system (art. 2) and establishes OGA — the Oficina Guatemalteca de Acreditación — as one of them (art. 23-24). Its stated purpose under article 23 is to accredit conformity assessment bodies operating in Guatemala. Decisions on accreditation policy sit with the Consejo Nacional de Acreditación, not with OGA's staff alone (art. 36). Article 25(d) gives OGA its own legal duty to 'create and keep updated the register of accredited bodies in the country' — the public search tool's legal basis.
Official source ↗Verified:
Accreditation is voluntary — in the law's own words
The decree's own reasoning states plainly: 'la acreditación es también una actividad voluntaria' — accreditation is also a voluntary activity. This is the law characterising itself, not this site drawing a conclusion. Article 48 gives accredited-body certification a preference in public procurement, and article 77 separately notes that a 'reglamento técnico' (technical regulation) is a different, mandatory instrument — 'cuya observancia es obligatoria'. Voluntariness attaches to accreditation itself; specific technical regulations that reference it can still be mandatory.
Official source ↗Verified:
The power to accredit certification bodies exists — the current register does not show one
Article 39(a) of the decree lists the types of conformity assessment body OGA may accredit, including certification bodies. But OGA's own public register (organismos-acreditados, no login required) currently lists four live categories, all under the COGUANOR NTG prefix — none of them a certification body, as verified on 2026-08-23. A separate section of the same register publishes suspended and withdrawn accreditations, a transparency feature not every national register offers. The legal power and the register's present contents are two different facts; only the register should be relied on for 'is this specific body currently accredited'.
Official source 1 ↗ · Official source 2 ↗Verified:
International recognition — one confirmed scope, dated
OGA holds an IAAC (Inter American Accreditation Cooperation) MLA certificate covering ISO/IEC 17025 (testing) and ISO 15189 (medical laboratories), approved 12 March 2008. IAAC is the regional cooperation body for the Americas; its own MLA framework is what carries international weight here, not a claim by OGA alone. Note: as of 1 January 2026, IAF (the global federation) ceased operations and transferred its functions to Global Accreditation Cooperation Incorporated (Global ACI); any 'IAF MLA' claim for OGA needs a fresh, dated check against Global ACI's own registry rather than being assumed to carry over unchanged.
Official source ↗Verified:
How to verify a certificate instead
Memberships and mutual recognition
- ILAC MRA signatory
What this body's recognition means
This body is one of Global ACI's ILAC MRA-signatory bodies, a status that carried forward when IAF and ILAC merged on 1 January 2026; IAF MLA and ILAC MRA marks stay valid through the transition period running to December 2028. What that recognition means →
Official source
Last verified:
This page is for information only; it is not legal advice. It records what an accreditation body publishes about itself and does not accredit, certify or endorse any organisation.