What Happens When Credentials Expire?

If you are an issuer and your credentials are set to expire, here are the important things you need to know about the 'credential expired' status.

What happens when a credential expires?

When a credential is expired, the credential remains available to view on credential.net; however, it will then be visually identified as expired to anyone viewing it. It can no longer be verified.

The credential data will also be available to view in your Accredible dashboard after the credential has expired.


Are the recipients notified when their credentials expire?

If you have email notifications turned on for the group your credentials were issued from, your recipients will receive email notifications when their credentials are expired.


Can expired credentials be re-instated?

Expired credentials can be reinstated. This can be done by changing the expiry date in the credential information or using the 'Expire' function at the top of the credential list to set a new expiry date for multiple credentials in one go. 

If the expiry is updated to a future date outside of the billing year that the credential was originally published, this will cost an additional credit from your plan allowance as this counts as re-issuing the credential.

For more guidance on how to update credentials' expiry dates, check out this article: How Do I Update the Expiry Date on Credentials?


When I want to revoke credentials, what's the difference between deleting a credential and expiring a credential?

Expiring a credential will keep the data for the credential available. You, as the issuer, can view the expired credential on your Accredible Dashboard, and recipients can still view their expired credentials on credential.net.

Deleting credentials completely removes the credential data from Accredible's system. The data will no longer be available on the Issuer Dashboard or credential.net. Deleting a credential cannot be undone, so only delete credentials if you are sure that you do not need this credential data anymore.


What happens if I delete and re-issue a credential?

If you delete and re-issue a credential to a recipient using the same email address, the new credential will have a new credential ID and a new unique URL.

Important: If the recipient does not have any other credentials issued to them within the current billing year, deleting and re-issuing their only credential will cost an additional credit.


Has this article helped you? Let us know!

If you would like to tell us about any improvements you feel could be made to this page, you can email us at support@accredible.com.