How /compare counts

The compare page does the one thing the section above says a certification count cannot: it puts two catalogues on a single scale. It can only do that by pricing every certification at its own body's published threshold and being explicit about what that buys, so five rules govern it.

Every figure is a floor. A Platinum single in the UK means at least 600,000 units; it could be 1,190,000 and nobody would know until it reached 2×. So the page says “at least”, and never says “sold”. It is a floor for both sides under identical rules, which is what keeps the comparison honest rather than precise.

Today's threshold, at every body. 13 of the 28 bodies changed their levels inside the window these certifications span, and most raised them. Every certification is priced at the level the body publishes today — the figure a reader can check against the body's own page — with one exception marked ¶, below, and wherever that body raised its levels, the page marks the figure with a “‡” and says so: a certification awarded before the rise may have cleared a lower bar than today's figure implies. A South African Platinum single is priced at RiSA's current 40,000 units; one earned in 2022 needed 20,000. One body — IFPI Greece — publishes no current level at all. Its certifications are priced at the last level ever published for it: IFPI's own International Certification Award levels list, updated June 2013 (singles Gold 3,000 / Platinum 6,000; international-repertoire albums the same), and every such line carries a “¶” that says so, because the body now certifies from its streaming Digital Singles chart and states no ratio — a certification awarded today may sit on a different bar. Poland's singles are priced at the level its body prints today, in złoty of revenue, divided by 2 zł a single — the rate its own single tables used until the end of 2024 — and those lines carry a “¶” too, for the rate rather than the level. The alternative — pricing at the lowest level each body has applied since 2015 — was established for every body and is kept in the data, but it would understate every certification earned after a rise by as much as it protects the earlier ones, and it prices against numbers no body publishes any more. One refinement holds either way: for a body that keys thresholds to release date, the band a record actually fell in is the one that applies.

One plaque per release per country, at its current tier. Gold → Platinum → 2× Platinum is the same sales recertified, not three sales. A release's own upgrades are never added together.

Units are not a common currency, so some certifications cannot be priced. Of the 28 bodies whose certifications appear here, 27 can price a single: 16 publish the threshold in sales-equivalent units, one is priced at a historic level (¶), one publishes it in złoty (¶), one is a label's own figure (Turkey, where no body certifies), and 8 publish it in streams. 6 of those publish their own download-equivalence, which is what this site converts with — France at 150 streams to a download, Denmark and Norway at 100, the Netherlands at 215, Czechia at 222, Slovakia at 217. Two — Sweden and Mexico — publish their levels in streams and no ratio at all; their certifications are converted at 100 streams to a unit, the ratio Denmark and Norway publish for the same measure, and every such line carries a “§” that says so. It is the one place the page applies a ratio a body did not set, and it is there because a certification that cannot be summed is one that goes unseen. Sweden counts capped streams, so its figure is a floor twice over. It is no longer the only departure from a body's own published figure: Greece is priced at IFPI's June 2013 level — the last one ever published for it — and marked “¶”. Poland sets its single levels in złoty of revenue — Gold is 125,000 zł — and its current rules state no rate, so they are divided by 2 zł a single, the rate its own single tables used from 2017 to the end of 2024: a Gold single is 62,500 units, and those lines carry a “¶” too. What remains cannot be converted at any ratio: Colombia publishes no threshold. Those certifications are listed and never summed — and never folded out of sight — because scoring them zero in silence would penalise whoever holds more of them.

Nigeria is separated by default. TCSN's register is request-based — absence from it proves nothing about a record, only that nobody applied — so a gap between two artists there can measure paperwork rather than sales. It is counted on its own line, never deleted, and folded in automatically when both artists hold most of their certifications there or when one of them holds none anywhere else. Whenever that happens the page says so, in a sentence, on screen.

Which bodies raised their thresholds, and when

Wherever a figure on the compare page carries a “‡”, the body behind it raised its levels since 2015. This is the record, body by body; the lower levels each body applied are kept in the data.

• 🇨🇿 ČNS IFPI (Czechia) — ČNS IFPI's stream thresholds have not moved, but its download equivalence fell from 225 to 222 subscription streams on 9 March 2026, so the same threshold is worth slightly more units today than in 2025. Priced at today's ratio. Before July 2025 Czech certification ran on CZK revenue — a different measure.
• 🇫🇷 SNEP — SNEP raised its single levels on 27 April 2018 from 10, 20 and 35 million équivalent streams to 15, 30 and 50 million — 66,666 / 133,333 / 233,333 units to 100,000 / 200,000 / 333,333 at its 150:1 ratio. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before then may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇩🇪 BVMI — BVMI raised its single levels on 30 June 2023 from 200,000 / 400,000 / 1,000,000 to 300,000 / 600,000 / 1,500,000. Albums moved the other way on the same date, keyed to release date: Gold 100,000 / Platin 200,000 for albums first released 1 January 2003 to 29 June 2023, 75,000 / 150,000 for releases from 30 June 2023 — the table prints the newer band, and no German album certification is on the site. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before then may have cleared the lower bar. BVMI keys bands to release date and every German single here was released 2016 or later.
• 🇭🇺 MAHASZ — MAHASZ raised singles from 1,500 / 3,000 to 5,000 / 10,000 and international albums from 1,000 / 2,000 to 2,000 / 4,000 inside the window, keying the changes to release date. Priced at today's level; a certification on an earlier release may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇮🇹 FIMI — FIMI raised its single levels three times from week 01/2020 — 15,000 / 30,000 / 300,000 to today's 100,000 / 200,000 / 2,000,000. Albums never moved. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before 2020 may have cleared a bar as low as a seventh of this.
• 🇲🇽 AMPROFON — AMPROFON raised album levels from 30,000 / 60,000 / 300,000 to 70,000 / 140,000 / 700,000, and single levels from 9.3 / 18.6 / 93 million to 22 / 44 / 220 million audio streams, for releases from 1 November 2020. Priced at today's level; a certification on an earlier release may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇳🇱 NVPI — NVPI's singles were 15,000 / 30,000 units before mid-2016 and are 10, 20 and 50 million streams at 215 streams per sale today — 46,511 / 93,023 / 232,558 units. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded under an earlier regime may have cleared a lower bar.
• 🇵🇱 ZPAV — ZPAV raised its single levels on 1 August 2021, from 20,000 / 40,000 / 200,000 zł to 50,000 / 100,000 / 500,000 zł, and on 1 January 2025, to 125,000 / 250,000 / 1,000,000 zł; foreign-repertoire albums rose from 10,000 / 20,000 / 100,000 to 15,000 / 30,000 / 150,000 on the same 2025 date. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before a rise may have cleared a lower bar.
• 🇵🇹 AFP — AFP/Audiogest raised its single levels from 5,000 / 10,000 / 100,000 to 12,000 / 25,000 / 250,000 on 1 January 2024. Albums did not move. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before 2024 may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇸🇰 ČNS IFPI (Slovakia) — ČNS IFPI's Slovak stream thresholds have not moved, but its download equivalence fell from 240 to 217 subscription streams on 9 March 2026, with two unarchived revisions between, so the same threshold is worth more units today than in 2025. Priced at today's ratio. Until 2022 the Slovak certifications ran on euro revenue — a different measure.
• 🇿🇦 RiSA — RiSA roughly doubled its thresholds for sales after 1 January 2024 — singles Gold 10,000 → 20,000, Platinum 20,000 → 40,000; albums Gold 15,000 → 25,000, Platinum 30,000 → 50,000 — and prints both regimes side by side. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before 2024 may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇪🇸 Promusicae — Promusicae raised its song thresholds in April 2025 from 20,000 / 40,000 to 50,000 / 100,000. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before then may have cleared the lower bar.
• 🇸🇪 IFPI Sverige — IFPI Sverige raised its song levels on 1 January 2024 from 4 and 8 million streams to 6 and 12 million — 40,000 / 80,000 to 60,000 / 120,000 units at 100 streams to a unit. Priced at today's level; a certification awarded before then may have cleared the lower bar.

Wherever a figure carries a “¶”, it rests on something the body published once and no longer prints — the level itself, or the rate its level is converted at. The record:

• 🇬🇷 IFPI Greece — IFPI Greece publishes no current level. Priced at IFPI's own International Certification Award levels list, updated June 2013 — the last figure ever published for Greece (singles Gold 3,000 / Platinum 6,000 unit sales; international-repertoire albums the same). The body now certifies from its streaming Digital Singles chart and states no ratio, so a certification awarded today may sit on a different bar.
• 🇵🇱 ZPAV — ZPAV sets single levels in złoty of revenue — Gold 125,000 zł, Platinum 250,000 zł, Diamond 1,000,000 zł — and its current rules state no rate. They are converted at 2 zł a single, the rate its own tables used from 2017 to the end of 2024, printing every single level in units and złoty side by side, so a Gold single is 62,500 units. The same 2025 rules raised the album rate from 20 zł to 35 zł, so the units behind a złoty level may differ.

Every threshold the compare page uses

Today's published level at each of the 28 bodies, in units. A dash means the body does not award that tier; a row that says listed is a body whose certifications appear on the page but are never priced, for the reason given. A row marked “¶” for Greece is not today's level but the last level the body ever published (IFPI, June 2013), because the body publishes none now. Poland's single figures are today's złoty levels divided by 2 zł a single — the rate its own single tables used until the end of 2024 and no longer state — and each carries a “¶”. Turkey has no certification register: its single certifications are issued by record labels, and the one level any label has published is Sony Music Türkiye's — 75,000 units for a Diamond single. Turkish Gold and Platinum levels are unpublished, so those cells are blank for that reason, not because the tier is not awarded.

The RIAA's Latin programme certifies at 6% of the standard scale — Oro 30,000, Platino 60,000, Diamante 600,000 — and the three Latin certifications on the board are priced on it and marked.

How dates are filed

The calendar holds only records that carry their own day, each filed on the date its own source prints: a certification on the date its body's register gives it, a chart peak on the issue that first carried it, a show on the night itself. A record known only by its year stays off the calendar until its day is read.