Certificate of participation maker
Printable certificates of participation for an event, competition, club or workshop. The wording is filled in below: name the event, paste the participants, print.
Certificate of participation templates
Eight of the 24 designs, with this certificate's wording. Choose one to use it in the maker below; every design takes your list of names, your logo and signatures.
1Wording
2Recipients 3
Pasted from a spreadsheet? Column A = name, column B = award. A first row of column titles (Name, First name / Last name, Award) is read and skipped.
No names: Print makes one certificate with an empty name line to write on by hand.
3Design and paper
Heritage gold · A4 · Landscape
Images stay in your browser. PNG, JPG, WebP (or SVG for the logo), under 2 MB.
4Date and signatures
Today · Ms. Rivera
All pages
3 certificates
When to give a certificate of participation
A participation certificate thanks and recognises everyone who took part, whatever the result: a science fair where only a few projects win, a spelling bee, a charity run, a hackathon, a conference workshop or a term of after-school club. It is often given alongside winners' awards, so everyone goes home with something.
What to put on it
- The event's name and date, written into the reason line: “for taking part in the Spring Science Fair, 14 March 2026”.
- The participant's name, from your registration list.
- The organiser: school, club or company name and logo, and the organiser's or teacher's signature.
- Optionally a role or team, such as “Team Blue” or “Speaker”, as a personal line for that person.
Certificate of participation wording examples
- Science fairPresented to · Name · for taking part in the Spring Science Fair with a project on plant growth
- Spelling beeThis certificate is presented to · Name · for representing Year 5 in the school spelling bee
- HackathonAwarded to · Name · for building and presenting a project at Code Weekend 2026
- Charity runWith thanks to · Name · for running 5 km in the Riverside Charity Fun Run
- ConferenceThis is to certify that · Name · attended the workshop “Accessible Design Basics” (2 hours)
- After-school clubWell done · Name · for a great term at Chess Club – 10 sessions
Winners and participants from one list
Use the same design for everyone and give the winners their own line: Sam Lee | 1st place – Spring Science Fair. Everyone else gets the participation line from the Wording section. Pasting two columns from a spreadsheet, or importing a CSV file with the columns Name and Award, works the same way.
More wording, whole lists and printing
The wording guide has 13 more certificate of participation wording examples, each with a link that fills it in here. To make one for every name on a class, team or staff list, see how to make certificates in bulk from Excel or Google Sheets. For the last week of the school year there is also an end-of-year awards list with an award for every child. Before printing on card, read how to print certificates for paper weights and print settings.
Frequently asked questions
What is the difference between participation and achievement certificates?
Participation recognises taking part; achievement recognises a result. Many events give a participation certificate to everyone and an achievement or winner's certificate to a few.
Where do I put the event name and date?
In the Award or reason line, for example “for taking part in the Spring Science Fair, 14 March 2026”. You can also hide the separate date by leaving the Date field empty.
Can winners get a different line on the same certificate design?
Yes. Add a tab, “|” or comma after a winner's name and type their result. People without their own line get the general participation wording.
How many participation certificates can I print at once?
Up to 100 per batch, one page per name. For a bigger event, split the list into batches of 100.
Related templates
All 17 are on the certificate templates page, grouped by occasion, in 24 designs.