OEKO-TEX tests the product. GOTS audits the chain that made it.

1 October 2026 8 min readApolyth

Two textile certificates are easy to confuse. OEKO-TEX STANDARD 100 is built around laboratory tests of an article for harmful substances. GOTS, the Global Organic Textile Standard, audits every company that turned an organic fibre into the thing you are holding. They answer different questions, and each says plainly what it does not answer.

STANDARD 100: a test against limits

OEKO-TEX describes STANDARD 100 as "a label for textiles tested for harmful substances", and says every component is tested against a list of more than 1,000 of them. Its factsheet names banned azo colourants, PFAS, cadmium and lead. GOTS prohibits azo dyes and PFAS too: its version 7.0 bans the azo dyes that release "arylamines with carcinogenic properties", and version 8.1 says what PFAS, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are used for in finishing: "oil, water, stain repellency". STANDARD 100 lets the institute fit the tests to each article, and most renewals get a reduced programme.

STANDARD 100 states the pass mark plainly: "Any value measured in the laboratory must be below the specified limit to obtain the certificate." It is a test against limits, not a claim that nothing is there.

The limits are set by use and are strictest in STANDARD 100's product class I, for babies and children up to 36 months. Classes II to IV cover things worn largely against the skin, things with little skin contact, and decoration such as curtains.

Every component counts. OEKO-TEX's own example is a T-shirt: "Not just the fabric, but also the sewing threads, buttons and all other components must be tested." The standard names one exception: when a component weighing less than 1 per cent of the article cannot be tested for lack of material, the institute decides whether the test can be dropped. Certificates last one year. Factories are inspected at least every three years and can be visited unannounced, except that a factory holding OEKO-TEX's STeP certificate needs no inspection visit for STANDARD 100.

Fibre is not the question: the standard's own examples of how a certificate records composition include cotton/polyester and recycled polyester.

What STANDARD 100 says it is not

The standard's own document says the mark "is not a quality label", and it "says nothing about other properties of the product such as e.g. fitness for use, reaction to cleaning processes". Nor does the mark declare anything about substances of very high concern, SVHC, that are not on its own lists. For socially acceptable production it points to a separate OEKO-TEX certificate for factories, STeP.

A certified product loses the right to the label once it is "professionally physically or chemically altered or treated", which the standard says includes washing and chemical cleaning. The word professionally points to processing by a business after certification, not washing at home. And a certificate for a part cannot be borrowed for the whole: "Promoting ingredient labelling (referencing STANDARD 100 certified components when the entire product is not qualified) is never allowed." A shop may show the label, but only for the exact product that is certified.

GOTS: an audit of the chain

GOTS covers processing, not growing. Its standard says so in a footnote: "GOTS does not certify the organic fibre production." Version 7.0 has applied since 1 March 2024. Version 8.1, released in June 2026, governs audits from 1 March 2027, and early adoption is "permitted and encouraged".

The fibre must already be certified under a standard in the IFOAM Family of Standards, a group of recognised organic farming standards that includes the EU organic regulation and the USDA National Organic Program. GOTS takes over at the first processing step, which for cotton is ginning, where the fibre is separated from the seed. From there every company that spins, weaves, dyes or sews the goods must be certified on an annual cycle of on-site inspections, though shops selling to the public need not be. Certification bodies issue transaction certificates as goods move from one certified company to the next.

There are two label grades. "Organic" means at least 95 per cent certified organic fibre. "Made with organic materials" means at least 70 per cent, and the label states the figure. Under version 7.0 the rest is restricted: conventional cotton may not be blended in, virgin polyester and acrylic are prohibited, recycled synthetics including polyester are allowed up to 20 per cent, and virgin elastane or nylon only within a 10 per cent allowance shared with regenerated fibres such as viscose.

Chemical inputs must be approved before use, wastewater must be treated, and finished goods must pass residue limits and technical tests. Under version 7.0 a knitted garment may change size by up to 8 per cent after washing at 40°C, and a woven one by 3 per cent; version 8.1 tightens knits to 5 per cent, measured after five washes. GOTS is candid that compliance is not purity: "Even if produced in compliance with this Standard, textiles may carry traces of residues."

Its social criteria, from forced and child labour to health and safety, working hours and pay, apply to the certified companies and stop short of the field. "While GOTS does not cover the farm level of production," the standard says, companies must ensure the fibres were produced respecting its criteria, "recognising its limited direct monitoring and assurance possibilities."

When the paperwork was forged

That boundary, between the field and the first factory, is where GOTS itself found fraud. In October 2020 it announced that audits had uncovered fake transaction certificates for raw cotton from India: trade documents passed between companies, not labels on garments. Made with templates from the government's export authority, APEDA, they carried "fake QR codes which led to a cloned APEDA website to pretend the TCs were authentic". GOTS said it had "assured knowledge" of 20,000 tonnes of fake material, banned 11 companies and ended its contract with one certification body.

In February 2022 The New York Times reported that "much of this growth is fake", citing Indians who source, process and grow organic cotton, and described "an opaque certification system rife with opportunities for fraud". GOTS replied that it "is not a farm standard and therefore does not certify cotton", and that "Consumers can be confident that the cotton in a GOTS-certified product is organic." We have not found an independent count of how much falsely certified organic cotton reached the shops, under any label.

GOTS's integrity page describes further checks at that join: a farm registry, already applied in India and extended to all fibre producers by version 8.1, a 500 km limit between farm and gin, tests of seed cotton for genetically modified organisms, and yearly residue tests on certified products bought from shops.

What neither one says

Neither certificate says a garment is free of chemicals: one tests against limits, the other admits traces. Neither says much about how long a garment will last, though GOTS sets minimum wash tests. And neither relieves the seller of its own duty. In the United States, the FTC's Green Guides state: "Third-party certification does not eliminate a marketer's obligation to ensure that it has substantiation for all claims reasonably communicated by the certification."

Checking a number

OEKO-TEX's labelling guide says a STANDARD 100 label must show the certificate number and the testing institute, or a QR code. The number can be entered in the Label Check on oeko-tex.com exactly as printed, since numbers are case sensitive. According to Hohenstein, one of the OEKO-TEX institutes, the result shows whether the certificate is valid, its product class, its scope and the certificate holder. The scope is the part to read. A certificate for a fabric is not a certificate for the shirt.

A GOTS label must carry the logo, the label grade, the certification body and the certification number of the certified company. The Certified Suppliers Database on global-standards.org can be searched by certification number or company name. The number may belong to the maker or to the brand that bought from it. The database currently warns that certification bodies "are still in the process of updating their data", so a missing entry is a question for the certification body, not proof of fraud. Companies banned from GOTS are listed publicly.

The forged certificates of 2020 had QR codes too. They opened a copy of the real site.

Sources

Everything above that is a claim about the world rather than about us is checkable here. If we have got something wrong, we would like to know.