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New Jersey Scale Certification & Weights and Measures

✓ Sources checked July 11, 2026; office details updated October 9, 2026
Start here: Every county has its own Office of Weights & Measures (plus five city offices). Enter your county to find who to call. Find your county office →

New Jersey uses a combined model: state inspectors cover much of the state, while county or city sealers handle inspections in their own jurisdictions. If you operate a commercial scale in New Jersey — at a warehouse, farm, recycling yard, retail store, or truck stop — here is who regulates it, what the law requires, and exactly who to contact.

Who inspects commercial scales in New Jersey?

Hybrid system: the State Office of Weights and Measures plus 21 county W&M offices and 5 municipal W&M offices (Camden, East Orange, Elizabeth, Newark, Trenton) all field credentialed inspectors; county/municipal offices perform routine annual device testing while the State OWM handles large-capacity devices, metrology, licensing and device registration. Owners contact their county/municipal OWM for inspections (phone list on the state OWM sticker-search portal) and the State OWM for registration.

What New Jersey requires of scale owners

By statute, all commercially used weighing and measuring devices must be tested/inspected and registered at least once a year; the State OWM maintains the device database and mails annual registration renewals. Persons who install or repair weighing/measuring devices must hold a state repairer license, and device dealers/sellers are also licensed by the State OWM.

Devices used to buy or sell by weight must comply with NIST Handbook 44 — in practice this means an NTEP-certified, legal-for-trade scale. Confirm requirements for your device class with the office listed here.

Getting a scale into service — 4 steps

  1. Buy a legal-for-trade (NTEP-certified) scale appropriate for your application and capacity.
  2. Confirm your jurisdiction — call the state program at 732-815-7800 to learn whether a state inspector or your county/city sealer covers your location.
  3. Arrange compliant installation and calibration. Where required, placing-in-service must be done by a licensed or registered service company.
  4. Stay compliant. Pass required inspections, keep calibration current, retain service records.

Common questions

What is NTEP certification?
NTEP (the National Type Evaluation Program, administered by the National Council on Weights and Measures) evaluates a scale model's design against NIST Handbook 44 requirements and issues a Certificate of Conformance. Nearly every state requires an NTEP-certified device for commercial (legal-for-trade) weighing; confirm the rules for your device with the office listed on this page.
Where do I find official forms and fees?
Use the licensing and forms links in the office panel, or contact the office directly — fee schedules change and some are published only in application documents.

Need calibration, repair, or installation in New Jersey?

Browse companies listed as serving New Jersey in the ScaleRegistry directory and contact them directly, and check the official licensing and registration information for New Jersey. Listings are not ranked or endorsed, and ScaleRegistry does not route requests to any company.

Find companies in New Jersey
Sources: njconsumeraffairs.nj.gov/owmtag-search/ | www.nj.gov/dep/enforcement/docs/weightsandmeasures.pdf | www.nj.gov/dep/enforcement/docs/ust-seminar-owm.pdf | www.njconsumeraffairs.gov/OWM/Pages/offices.aspx