The short version of GOTS vs OEKO-TEX: they answer different questions. GOTS (Global Organic Textile Standard) certifies that a textile is made from organic fibre and that the whole processing chain — spinning, weaving, dyeing, cut-and-sew — meets defined environmental and social criteria. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifies that the finished article and its components have been tested for harmful substances and stay within set limits. GOTS is about how the product is made and what it’s made from; OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is about what ends up in the product you can touch. They aren’t rivals — many textiles carry both.
If you’re sourcing printed apparel or home textiles for a brand, knowing which label proves what saves you from asking the wrong supplier the wrong thing. Here’s what each one covers, where the lines are, and what to request.
What GOTS certifies
GOTS applies to textiles made from a minimum share of certified organic natural fibres. It’s a supply-chain standard, so certification follows the product from field to finished goods: only businesses whose processing and trading steps have been independently certified can put GOTS on a labelled product. Its scope spans two broad areas — ecological criteria (restrictions on the chemical inputs used in processing, wastewater treatment requirements) and social criteria (working-conditions requirements based on core labour standards).
In practice, GOTS is the label to ask for when a buyer’s priority is organic fibre plus responsible processing across the chain. It is a claim about the whole journey, not a single test at the end.
What OEKO-TEX Standard 100 certifies
OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is a product-level certification for textiles tested against a list of regulated and non-regulated substances of concern. Every component that makes up an article — the fabric, but also threads, prints, buttons and other accessories — is tested, and the whole article has to stay within defined limits to be certified. The limits are stricter for products designed for closer or longer skin contact, so items for babies and young children are held to the tightest thresholds.
Crucially, Standard 100 is a safety-of-the-finished-item claim. It tells a buyer the certified article has been tested for harmful substances — it does not, on its own, say the fibre is organic or describe how the supply chain was managed.
What Made in Green adds
OEKO-TEX Made in Green is a traceable product label that combines two things: the article is tested for harmful substances and it has been made in facilities audited for environmentally responsible and socially responsible conditions. Each Made in Green label carries a unique product ID a buyer (or an end customer) can look up to trace where the article was made. Think of it as the finished-goods label that ties product testing together with facility-level responsibility — broader than Standard 100 alone, but distinct from GOTS’s organic-fibre requirement.
GOTS vs OEKO-TEX: the comparison at a glance
The single most useful thing for a buyer is knowing what each label does not cover, so nobody over-reads a certificate.
| Certification | What it covers | What it does NOT cover |
|---|---|---|
| GOTS | Organic-fibre content plus environmental and social criteria across the whole processing and trading chain, from fibre to finished product. | It is not a per-article harmful-substance test result; it doesn’t apply to non-organic or synthetic textiles. |
| OEKO-TEX Standard 100 | The finished article and every component tested for harmful substances against defined limits, with stricter limits for baby and children’s items. | It doesn’t certify that the fibre is organic, and it isn’t a whole-supply-chain environmental or social audit. |
| OEKO-TEX Made in Green | Harmful-substance testing plus production in audited, more responsible facilities, with a traceable unique product ID. | It doesn’t require organic-fibre content the way GOTS does. |
What a brand buyer should actually ask for
Certifications only help if you match them to what you’re trying to prove. A few practical prompts:
- If your claim is “organic”: ask for GOTS on the specific product, and check the certificate is current and covers the finished item — not just the yarn upstream.
- If your priority is a tested, safe finished product: ask for OEKO-TEX Standard 100, and note that the tightest limits apply to babywear and kidswear.
- If you want traceability plus facility-level responsibility: ask for Made in Green and use the product ID to trace it.
- If you make a printed product: confirm the print, not only the base fabric, is covered — Standard 100 tests components, so a certified print matters.
- Always ask for the certificate itself (with number and validity dates), rather than accepting a logo on a spec sheet.
At Fabrixa, organic cotton is the default base, and our reactive print bonds the colour inside the fibre rather than sitting on the surface as a coating — which is one reason it feels like unprinted cotton and holds up in the wash. Our textiles are made across Portugal, Spain and the Netherlands on a short European supply chain, and we work with certifications including GOTS, OEKO-TEX Standard 100 and Made in Green. You can see how we frame this on our full guide to textile certifications, alongside our approach to eco-friendly materials.
What the strictest class means for kidswear
OEKO-TEX Standard 100 sorts articles into product classes by how much skin contact they have, and the limits get tighter as the contact gets closer. Class I is the strictest of them — the class defined for articles intended for babies and toddlers. A tee for a three-year-old and a curtain are tested against very different thresholds, even when the base cloth is the same.
For a brand putting a children’s range into production, that turns into three concrete questions to put to a supplier:
- Which class is the certificate issued for? A Standard 100 certificate is not a single grade. Ask which class the article is certified in, not merely whether it is certified.
- Does the certificate cover the print? Standard 100 tests components, and on an all-over printed garment the print is a component. A certificate on the base cloth alone does not carry to the finished, printed article.
- Where does the organic claim start and stop? GOTS follows the fibre through spinning, weaving, dyeing and cut-and-sew. A certificate that covers the yarn but not the maker who sewed the garment does not back an organic claim on the finished item.
Our own kidswear is a worked example of how those answers should read. The range is sized 2 to 14 years — we do not make babywear — and it is GOTS-certified from seed to finished garment on an organic cotton base, reactive-printed, and certified to OEKO-TEX Standard 100 Class I. The GOTS documentation ships with each order, so it can be passed on to your own customers.
Which certification matters for which product category
The fibre decides which certification can apply at all: GOTS exists only for natural-fibre textiles with organic content, while OEKO-TEX Standard 100 can certify any article, synthetic or natural. That single fact maps the decision for most printed product ranges.
| Product category | Certification to ask for | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Kidswear | GOTS-certified organic cotton base + OEKO-TEX Standard 100, Class I | Class I carries the strictest harmful-substance limits — the class for products designed for babies and toddlers. |
| Apparel (tees, hoodies, dresses) | GOTS-certified organic cotton base + OEKO-TEX Standard 100 | Backs an organic claim on the fibre and a tested-article claim on the finished garment, print included. |
| Cotton home textiles (bedding, curtains, table linen) | OEKO-TEX Standard 100; GOTS where the base is organic cotton | Skin-contact items justify the tested-article claim; organic cotton bases add the GOTS route. |
| Technical & polyester products (bath mats, beach towels, rugs) | OEKO-TEX Standard 100 | GOTS cannot apply to synthetic fibres — the honest label for polyester articles is the harmful-substance test. |
| Fabric by the metre | The base cloth’s certificates carry: OEKO-TEX Standard 100 (Class I on cotton bases) and GOTS-certified organic cotton | If the metres end up in babywear, ask for Class I on the base before you cut. |
This is exactly how the certifications behave across a made-to-order range like ours: cotton reactive-print products carry OEKO-TEX Standard 100 (Class I) with GOTS-certified organic cotton bases, while sublimation-printed polyester products carry OEKO-TEX Standard 100 — and claiming more than the fibre allows would be greenwashing, not marketing. Browse the product catalog to see certifications listed per product.
A note on honest sustainability claims
A certificate proves a specific, audited fact — it isn’t a licence to call a whole operation “sustainable” or “carbon neutral”. The honest framing is narrower and more useful: reactive, print-to-order production with a minimum order quantity of one reduces overproduction, and a short EU supply chain avoids long-haul freight. Those are measured reductions with real limits, not a claim of zero impact. We set out the detail — and what we don’t claim — on our sustainability page.
How to check a certificate is real and current
Both standards issue certificates that can be looked up, which means a buyer never has to take a logo on a spec sheet at face value. The check takes a minute, and it is the difference between a claim you can defend and one you cannot.
Ask your supplier for the certificate document itself, then read four things off it:
- The number. Every GOTS and OEKO-TEX certificate carries a unique identifier, and both standards run public databases where that identifier can be checked against the issuing body’s record.
- The validity dates. Certificates are issued for a fixed term and have to be renewed. An expired certificate proves what was true last year.
- The scope. A certificate names the products or product groups it covers. Check that the article you are buying falls inside that scope, rather than assuming a company-level certificate covers everything the company sells.
- The certified party. GOTS certifies businesses along the chain. Confirm the certificate belongs to the party that actually made your finished item, not only to a supplier further upstream.
For a Made in Green article there is a shorter route: each label carries a unique product ID that traces back to where the item was made, so the trace is built into the label rather than kept in a filing cabinet.
FAQ
Is GOTS or OEKO-TEX better?
Neither is “better” — they certify different things. GOTS proves organic fibre plus responsible processing across the chain; OEKO-TEX Standard 100 proves the finished article was tested for harmful substances. Many products sensibly carry both.
Does OEKO-TEX mean a product is organic?
No. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 is a harmful-substance test on the finished item and its components. It does not certify organic-fibre content — for that you want GOTS.
What is the difference between OEKO-TEX Standard 100 and Made in Green?
Standard 100 tests the article for harmful substances. Made in Green adds production in audited, more responsible facilities plus a traceable unique product ID, so it also covers where and how the item was made.
Should a printed product’s print be certified too?
Yes. OEKO-TEX Standard 100 tests components, so ask your partner to confirm the print — not just the base fabric — is covered by the certificate.
Can a polyester product be GOTS certified?
No. GOTS applies to textiles made from natural fibres with certified organic content — polyester has no organic version in that sense. A polyester article (a bath mat, a microfibre beach towel, a rug) proves its safety with OEKO-TEX Standard 100 instead. A supplier offering “GOTS polyester” is misreading one of the two standards.
What does GOTS certified mean?
It means an independent certification body has verified that the article is made from a minimum share of certified organic fibre, and that the businesses in its processing chain meet defined environmental and social criteria. It is a statement about fibre and process — not a harmful-substance test result on the finished item.
Which certification should a kidswear range carry?
Ask for a GOTS-certified organic cotton base to back the organic claim, and OEKO-TEX Standard 100 in the strictest class for the tested-article claim, and confirm the print sits inside the certificate scope. Check as well which ages a supplier actually produces for: a range that starts at age 2 is not the same as one that covers newborns.
How do I verify a GOTS or OEKO-TEX certificate?
Ask for the certificate document rather than a logo, check the unique number against the standard’s public database, confirm the validity dates have not passed, and read the scope to see that your specific article is covered.
Match the certification to your range
The practical takeaway on GOTS vs OEKO-TEX: use GOTS to back an organic claim, use OEKO-TEX Standard 100 to back a tested-and-safe finished product, and use Made in Green when you want traceability. If you’re planning a printed range on organic cotton, order a Sample Pack to see how reactive print resolves across different bases — its cost is credited against your first order — or talk to our team and we’ll walk you through which certificates apply to your specific products.
