The Shilajit Buyer's Checklist: 9 Things to Verify Before You Buy
Last reviewed September 2026 · 9 min read
The shilajit market has almost no mandatory pre-market testing requirements in the United States. Brands can make broad claims with minimal accountability unless they have voluntarily sought third-party verification. This checklist covers the nine verifiable signals that separate genuinely transparent products from those relying on marketing copy alone — the same criteria used to grade every product in this database.
A public Certificate of Analysis exists — and you can access it without contacting the brand
A COA is the foundational document. Without one, every other quality claim is unverifiable. The distinction between "publicly available" and "available on request" matters: if you have to email the brand to get it, it is not truly public, and most consumers never see it.
✓ COA linked directly from product page or scannable QR on label
✗ "COA available on request" or no mention of testing
The testing laboratory is named and independent
"Third-party tested" is one of the most abused phrases in the supplement industry. In-house labs, unlicensed contractors, and summary certificates covering multiple products all technically qualify. A COA is credible when the laboratory is named and you can independently verify its existence and accreditation status.
✓ Named lab (e.g. Eurofins, NSF, A2LA member) with ISO 17025 accreditation
✗ "Independent third-party laboratory" with no name given
Heavy metals are tested with numeric results — not just a pass/fail stamp
Lead, arsenic, mercury, and cadmium should all be tested individually with actual concentration values. A "PASS" stamp tells you the product met some threshold — but you cannot verify which threshold was used or by how much it passed. The specific numbers matter.
✓ Pb: <0.5 ppm, As: <1.5 ppm, Hg: <0.3 ppm, Cd: <0.3 ppm (or similar numeric results)
✗ "Heavy metals: PASS" with no numeric values
The COA includes a microbial panel
Shilajit is collected from rock and processed by hand, so contamination is not only a heavy metals question. A complete COA also tests for total bacteria, yeast and mould, E. coli and Salmonella. Don't treat an advertised fulvic acid percentage as a substitute: fulvic acid is sold as a standalone additive, labs measure it with different methods, and a high figure proves neither authenticity nor safety — which is why it earns no points in our grading.
✓ Total plate count, yeast & mould, E. coli, Salmonella with numeric results
✗ "80% fulvic acid" as the headline claim, with no microbial results
The COA references the finished product batch, not just the raw material
A COA for the raw shilajit extract tells you about the ingredient before formulation. The product you are buying may have been diluted with fillers, mixed with other ingredients, or changed in other ways since that extract was tested. The COA should reference a specific batch number that you can match to the lot number on your product.
✓ COA batch number matches lot number on product label
✗ Single generic COA used across all batches, no batch number
Manufacturing country is publicly stated
US manufacturing is subject to FDA 21 CFR Part 111 GMP requirements. This does not guarantee quality, but it establishes a regulatory framework with inspection authority. Brands that do not disclose their manufacturing country have no accountability to any known regulatory standard.
✓ "Manufactured in the USA" clearly stated on label and website
✗ No manufacturing country disclosed anywhere
GMP certification is verifiable, not just claimed
"GMP certified" can mean an FDA-registered facility with documented manufacturing controls, or it can mean the brand put a badge on their website. Look for certification from a recognised body (NSF, UL, SGS, or similar) rather than self-declaration.
✓ NSF GMP Registered, UL certified, or FDA-inspected facility with certificate number
✗ "GMP Certified" badge with no certifying body named
The form is as close to whole resin as you can use
Resin is the least processed form and the closest to the material used in clinical studies. Powders are extract dried at high temperature, capsules and tablets are made from that powder, and gummies reheat it into a sugar and gelatin base at a fraction of a clinical dose. A clean COA cannot undo that processing, so our grading caps the grade by form: resin A+, liquid extracts A, powders, capsules and tablets B, gummies, honey sticks and blends C.
✓ Purified resin with a finished-product COA
✗ Gummies chosen as the "premium" option
The COA is recent — dated within the past 24 months
A COA from five years ago tells you about a batch from five years ago — not about what is in the product currently being sold. Suppliers change, formulations change, and contamination risk is batch-specific. A brand that updates its COA regularly is demonstrating ongoing commitment to testing. A brand whose public COA is undated or years old is not.
✓ COA dated within the past 12–24 months with a verifiable batch reference
✗ Undated COA, or COA more than 3 years old
How This Maps to Our Grading
These nine criteria correspond to the signals we assess for every product in the ShilajitDB database. No product earns an A or A+ without meeting criteria 1, 2, and 3, and none earns an A+ unless it is resin. Criteria 4–7 and 9 further differentiate products within the upper grades.
Of the 243 products in the database, only about 1 in 10 has a verified COA from a named independent laboratory with numeric heavy metal results. The checklist is not a high bar — it is the minimum for meaningful transparency.
Run this checklist on any product in the database
Every product is assessed against these criteria. Filter by COA status and quality tier to find products that meet the full checklist.
Editor's picks → · Best third-party tested → · Buying in the UK →