What Are Digital WAEC Certificates? - WAEC Certificate Digitization

When you confirm a certificate through the API, the platform looks up the candidate’s record in the WAEC database and returns a structured confirmation object. This page explains the shape of that data so you know what to expect and how to use it.

Confirmation result object

Each entry in a confirmation response contains a result object when a match is found, or null when no record exists for the supplied details.

Field	Type	Description
`id`	string	Unique identifier for this confirmation record.
`country`	string	ISO 3166-1 alpha-2 country code (e.g. `"NG"`).
`country_name`	string	Full country name (e.g. `"Nigeria"`).
`status`	string	Match outcome. `"Match Found"` when the record was located.
`candidate_number`	string	The candidate number from the request.
`year`	string	The examination year from the request.
`certificate`	object	The full certificate details (see below).
`created_at`	string	ISO 8601 timestamp of when this confirmation was created.

Certificate object

The certificate field inside a result contains the candidate’s full examination record.

Field	Type	Description
`surname`	string	Candidate’s surname.
`firstname`	string	Candidate’s first name.
`othernames`	string	Candidate’s other names.
`candidate_number`	string	The WAEC candidate number.
`year`	string	Examination year.
`dob`	string	Date of birth in `YYYY-MM-DD` format.
`gender`	string	Candidate’s gender (e.g. `"FEMALE"`, `"MALE"`).
`center`	string	Name of the examination centre.
`exam_title`	string	Full examination title.
`results`	array	Subject results — each entry has a `subject` (string) and `grade` (string).

Example certificate object

{
  "surname": "AYANTUNJI",
  "firstname": "ELIZABETH",
  "othernames": "BUNMI",
  "candidate_number": "4251212052",
  "year": "2022",
  "dob": "2003-10-04",
  "gender": "FEMALE",
  "center": "ISIU SENIOR GRAMMAR SCHOOL, ISIU",
  "exam_title": "WASSCE (SC) 2022",
  "results": [
    { "subject": "ENGLISH LANGUAGE", "grade": "D7" },
    { "subject": "GENERAL MATHEMATICS", "grade": "E8" },
    { "subject": "ECONOMICS", "grade": "C6" },
    { "subject": "CHRISTIAN RELIGIOUS STUDIES", "grade": "E8" }
  ]
}

Not-found results

If no matching record is found for a given candidate, the result field is null and the entry’s message is "Certificate not found!". The overall request still returns 200 OK.

{
  "is_error": false,
  "request": { "country": "NG", "candidate_number": "4010144000", "year": "2017" },
  "message": "Certificate not found!",
  "result": null
}

Always iterate through every entry in the data array and check result individually. A single not-found entry does not cause the whole request to fail.

Next steps

See the Confirm Certificates guide for a walkthrough of confirming certificates in bulk.
See the POST /certificate/confirm reference for the full request and response schema.