Overview

Credential Engine is a nonprofit organization that provides a suite of web-based services to create a clear and consistent centralized Credential Registry (also known as Credential Finder). The Registry houses up-to-date information about credentials, a common description language to enable credential comparability, and a platform to support customized applications to search and retrieve information about credentials. Credential Engine offers a way for job seekers, students, and workers to collect, search, and compare these credentials that is both universally understood and maintained.

Produced by Credential Engine, the Counting Credentials 2025 report (a fifth in a series of annual reports) provides insights into the evolving credential landscape by counting the total number of unique credentials available in the U.S. and describing the rigorous process of accounting for each credential category. The report identifies 1,850,034 unique credentials in seven distinct credential categories, 134,491 providers of these credentials, with total annual expenditures of $2.34 trillion across the full ecosystem. For each credential category, the report provides the credential type definition, typical credential provider, and the method by which the credential was counted. Each section includes a brief discussion of the state of the credential type, as well as suggestions for future research. The report uses credential categories that include similar types of credentials, regardless of credential provider. In prior Counting Credentials reports, credentials were grouped by education or training provider type. This 2025 report organizes credentials into credential types that are more intuitive to understand and easier to navigate for those interested in more detailed subcategories. The report includes a state-by-state breakdown of credentials offered by state-based entities. The seven credential categories:

• Degrees – 264,099 Title IV, non-Title IV, and degrees from foreign universities
• Certificates – 486,352 certificates of completion, academic certificates, and apprenticeships
• Certifications – 6,892 certifications
• Micro-credentials – 3,384 micro-credentials
• Licenses – 14,331 occupational licenses
• Secondary School Diplomas – 52,948 secondary school seals and endorsements, public school diplomas, private school diplomas, alternate diplomas, and equivalencies.
• Badges – 1,022,028 badges

Credential Engine offers a number of web-based services, including:

• Scaling and maintaining a web-based Credential Registry that collects, connects, and maintains up-to-date credentialing data.
• Developing and maintaining the Credential Transparency Description Language (CTDL), which provides the common language and “rules of the road” for how credentials, credentialing organizations, quality assurance information, and competencies are described both in the Registry and on the Web.
• Guiding the future development and use of the registry through stakeholder advisory groups representing the higher education, business, certification and licensure, quality assurance, and technical communities.
• Providing search engine applications such as: 
  • Credential Finder, a prototype search application to demonstrate all the information that could be pulled from the Registry and show how it could be presented and organized.
  • Customizable applications that can be built or used through the Open Applications Marketplace, using the Registryʼs data to provide tailored credentialing information.
  • Credential Engine's Registry is part of the Open Competency Framework Collaborative (OCF Collab)

Credential Engine also offers fee-based services, including: 

• Services for states and regions.
• Credential publishing services.
• Competencies and skills publishing services.
• Pathways publishing services.
• Transfer value publishing services.
• Learning and employment record services.
• Technical services.
• Project management and implementation services.
• Product developer services.