Certificate authorities

For publicly trusted certificates, Cloudflare partners with different certificate authorities (CAs). Refer to this page to check what CAs are used for each Cloudflare offering and for more details about the CAs features, limitations, and browser compatibility.

Availability per certificate type and encryption algorithm

Certificate	Algorithm	Let’s Encrypt	Google Trust Services	SSL.com	Sectigo	DigiCert
Universal	ECDSA RSA (Paid plans only)	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	❌ ❌	N/A N/A	✅ Deprecating soon ✅ Deprecating soon
Advanced	ECDSA RSA	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	N/A N/A	✅ Deprecating soon ✅ Deprecating soon
Total TLS	ECDSA RSA	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	N/A N/A	❌ ❌
SSL for SaaS	ECDSA RSA	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	N/A N/A	✅ Deprecating soon ✅ Deprecating soon
Backup	ECDSA RSA	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	✅ ✅	❌ ❌

Features, limitations and browser compatibility

Universal SSL

For Universal certificates, Cloudflare controls the validity periods and certificate autorities (CAs), making sure that renewal always occur.

Universal certificates issued by Let’s Encrypt, Google Trust Services, or SSL.com have a 90-day validity period. Cloudflare no longer uses DigiCert for newly issued Universal certificates and, for existing ones, the validity period is being adjusted from one year to 90 days.

---

Let’s Encrypt

• Supports validity periods of 90 days.
• DCV tokens are valid for 7 days.

Limitations

• Hostname on certificate can contain up to 10 levels of subdomains.
• Duplicate certificate limit of 5 certificates ↗ per week.

Browser compatibility

Warning

This section summarizes commonly requested client support information. For the complete and most up-to-date certificate compatibility, refer to Let’s Encrypt documentation ↗.

The main determining factor for whether a platform can validate Let’s Encrypt certificates is whether that platform trusts the self-signed “ISRG Root X1” certificate. As Let’s Encrypt announced a change in its chain of trust for 2024, devices that only trust the cross-signed version of the “ISRG Root X1” certificate will be impacted. Refer to Let’s Encrypt chain update for details.

You can find the full list of supported clients in the Let’s Encrypt documentation ↗. Older versions of Android and Java clients might not be compatible with Let’s Encrypt certificates.

Other resources

Let’s Encrypt Root CAs ↗: For checking compatibility between chain and client. As explained in Certificate pinning, you should not use this list for pinning against.

---

Google Trust Services

• Supports validity periods of 14, 30, and 90 days.
• DCV tokens are valid for 14 days.

Limitations

• Punycode domains are not yet supported.

Browser compatibility (most compatible)

Warning

This section summarizes commonly requested client support information. For the complete and most up-to-date certificate compatibility, refer to Google Trust Services documentation ↗.

By cross-signing with a GlobalSign root CA ↗ that has been installed in client devices for more than 20 years, Google Trust Services can ensure optimal support across a wide range of devices.

Currently trusted by Microsoft, Mozilla, Safari, Cisco, Oracle Java, and Qihoo’s 360 browser, all browsers or operating systems that depend on these root programs are covered.

You can use the root CAs list ↗ for checking compatibility between chain and client but, as explained in Certificate pinning, you should not use this list for pinning against.

---

SSL.com

• Supports validity periods of 14, 30, and 90 days. Enterprise customers using advanced certificates can also choose a validity period of one year.
• DCV tokens are valid for 14 days.

Limitations

SSL.com DCV tokens are specific for RSA certificates and ECDSA certificates. This means that, for cases where you have to manually perform DCV, you will have to place two validation tokens per certificate order. To avoid management overhead, consider using a full setup, or setting up Delegated DCV.

Browser compatibility

Warning

This section summarizes commonly requested client support information. For the complete and most up-to-date certificate compatibility, refer to SSL.com documentation ↗.

SSL.com is highly compatible, being accepted by over 99.9% of browsers, tablets, and mobile devices.

SSL.com certificates are cross-signed with Certum ↗ and the CA that cross-signs intermediates ↗ is from 2004.

Other resources

Acceptable top level domains (TLDs) and current restrictions ↗

---

Sectigo

• Only used for Backup certificates.
• Backup certificates are valid for 90 days.

Browser compatibility

Refer to Sectigo documentation ↗.

---

DigiCert (deprecating soon)

• Supports validity periods of 14, 30, and 90 days.
• DCV tokens are valid for 30 days.

Limitations

Due to sanctions imposed by the United States, DigiCert is legally prohibited or restricted from offering its products and services to specific countries or regions. Refer to Embargoed countries and regions ↗ for details.

Browser compatibility

Refer to DigiCert documentation ↗.

Other resources

Status page ↗

DigiCert Root CAs ↗: For checking compatibility between chain and client. As explained in Certificate pinning, you should not use this list for pinning against.

---

CAA records

A Certificate Authority Authorization (CAA) DNS record specifies which certificate authorities (CAs) are allowed to issue certificates for a domain. This record reduces the chance of unauthorized certificate issuance and promotes standardization across your organization.

If you are using Cloudflare as your DNS provider, then the CAA records will be added on your behalf. If you need to add CAA records, refer to Add CAA records.

The following table lists the CAA record content for each CA:

Certificate authority	CAA record content
Let’s Encrypt	letsencrypt.org
Google Trust Services	pki.goog; cansignhttpexchanges=yes
SSL.com	ssl.com
Sectigo	sectigo.com
DigiCert	digicert.com; cansignhttpexchanges=yes