Compliance and transport documentation for lithium cells
Six questions come up on every export order: which standard applies, what document the buyer actually receives, and how to tell whether a certificate covers the model in the box. One page each, written for procurement rather than for auditors.
UN 38.3
What UN 38.3 covers, the eight tests it puts a cell through, and why the test summary is the document buyers actually receive.
Read the page →IEC 62133
What IEC 62133-2 covers, which applications it is written for, and when IEC 62619 applies instead.
Read the page →UL 1642 & UL 2054
UL 1642 covers cells, UL 2054 covers packs, and the file number is what lists the models actually covered.
Read the page →IEC 62619
IEC 62619 covers lithium cells and batteries for industrial applications, including stationary storage and UPS duty.
Read the page →MSDS / SDS
What the safety data sheet has to contain for lithium cells, and how it connects to the UN number used on the shipment.
Read the page →Air & sea transport
How lithium-ion consignments are packed and declared for air and sea freight, and the state-of-charge and marking rules carriers enforce.
Read the page →The distinction that gets confused
Transport clearance is not product safety
UN 38.3 clears a cell to travel. IEC 62133, IEC 62619 and UL 1642 are safety regimes with separate documents and separate scopes. A supplier holding one is not holding the others, and a buyer asking for "the certificate" usually needs two or three different ones.
The second distinction is portable versus industrial. A pack carried by a person and a pack bolted into a cabinet are assessed against different standards, and a report against the wrong one does not answer the question the end customer asked.
Third: the document has to name the model. A certificate covering a family does not automatically cover a variant added later, and a battery-level document does not cover the loose cells inside it.
Scope
What this section does not cover yet
Market-specific product regulations — including the European Union battery regulation with its carbon footprint and digital battery passport requirements — are not covered here. Those obligations are staged by date and by battery category, and publishing a summary before the applicable text has been checked against the official source would be worse than publishing nothing.
They get their own pages when the requirement and its dates can be stated exactly. Until then, ask per destination market and the answer is what applies to that shipment.
This page describes how each standard is applied in practice when lithium cells are bought and shipped. It is a summary for procurement, not the standard text itself, and it does not replace your carrier's acceptance check or your own compliance review.
Tell us the destination and the end use
Which documents apply follows from those two facts. We will say what is held and what would have to be obtained.