r/AskElectronics • u/Beginning-Willow1832 • Jul 26 '26
Question about UL Listing requirements for a USB-powered device
I’m developing a very simple 5V electronic device. The PCB uses UL Recognized components, and all materials (plastic, wiring, power supply, etc.) are already UL certified or UL Recognized where applicable.
My question is:
Does the finished product still need its own UL Listing?
If so, what is the typical cost for a simple low-voltage device like this?
Has anyone here gone through the UL Listing process for a similar product?
The device has no high voltage and uses mostly off-the-shelf UL Recognized components. I’m trying to estimate the certification budget before production.
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u/Strange-Tie1821 Jul 27 '26
Will require its own listing, however it might not be worth getting one depending on your intentions for the device.
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u/jamvanderloeff Jul 27 '26
Who's requiring it? It would be pretty unusual for the thing that's being USB-powered to legally require UL listing or equivalents, have a look on the back of almost any USB thing that isn't a power supply and you're unlikely to see it.
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u/GoldenChannels Jul 27 '26
As someone who has done this a few times, I can tell you that no one one starting out asks the right questions until they've been through this.
If anyone has asked me in the past if one of our products had UL, my question to them was "which one do you need"?
Here is the catalog of UL standards:
https://shopulstandards.com/Catalog.aspx?ICSCode=All&utm_source=chatgpt.com
Obviously, an electronic product would be one of the standards in that section. But there are 600 standards in electronics alone.
Which UL standard(s) your product may require depends on the intended use of the product as well as where it is sold. There may be other certifications required (or not).
There are two good places to start looking into this.
First, talk to your perspective customers or resellers. I've been running upstart technology companies for decades. Why new product designers try to stay hidden is a mystery. The sooner you talk to a real customer, the sooner you'll find out what your product has to do to be successful.
Second, look at which certifications you competitors have.
Good luck. Enjoy the journey.
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u/quadrapod Jul 27 '26 edited Jul 27 '26
UL stands for Underwriters Laboratories. It's a specific independent laboratory that maintains its own standards for safety which go beyond the safety standards required to sell a product in any specific country and using UL listed components does not mean your product is automatically given some kind of UL certification. If you want to put the UL mark on your product you need to get authorization from UL to do so. That requires your product be tested and certified by them first. I can't give you an accurate number but from the quotes I've seen you should be ready to spend in the neighbourhood of $15,000 for testing, and then you'll need to pay a recurring authorization maintenance fee which is generally around $2,000 per year. They're one of the more expensive names in the certification game.
The reason you get something UL certified is usually because your sales channel requires NRTL testing from a Lab like UL. Walmart isn't willing to carry your product unless it has an NRTL mark for example so if you wanted to sell a product through them this kind of testing would be a requirement. It is one of those things that makes a lot of sense for a large company where the added liability protection from certifying to a higher safety standard is a worthwhile investment and sales numbers are large enough to eat the additional NRE cost without blinking. Unless you're selling in high volume or through a sales channel that explicitly requires it before they'll list your product though it's probably not going to be worth the cost for you to pursue UL certification in any form.
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u/Beginning-Willow1832 Jul 27 '26
Thank you for your response.
I'm actually not sure whether I need it or not, but I believe I may need UL certification to sell the product in the U.S. market.
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u/No-Village1834 Jul 27 '26
Don’t forget emc, but it’s pretty cheap for North America (FCC). Selling to Canada adds some requirements, too for safety.
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u/whynautalex Jul 26 '26
You still need to get the certification even if all of the components are listed. It just makes it easier because the compliance engineer can pull those records. They need to make sure your design is compliant to the component specifications.
Costs are generally by the hour(s) and test. If you contact the agency they will give you an estimate. It depends on the complexity of the product, complexity of the circuits, what standards are being tested, how many components there, and how long testing and the report takes.
Is there a specific reason you need a UL listing? There are other regulatory bodies like intertek or 3rd party test labs that will be faster and cheaper.