Purpose:The purpose of the paper is to review the problems of performance enhancement of safety certification standards and to suggest directions for improvement in order to rationalize safety certification standards for future industrial development and environmental changes. Method: The problems and limitations of the safety certification system are summarized through literature review and interview with manager, and the status of safety certification standards is classified into design standards, performance standards, and detailed standards, and the status analysis is performed. In addition, by synthesizing the results of the investigation and analysis, improvements are suggested to improve the performance of the safety certification standards. Result: Through the survey, the problems and limitations of safety certification could be grouped into six categories: government-led certification system operation, standardized certification standards, long time required to improve certification, poor certification standards preparation system, and lack of reflection of industry opinions. And, as a result of analyzing the certification standards by dividing them into performance and design standards, in the case of machinery, equipment, and protection devices, the design standards were high at 69.7% and 64.9%, whereas in the case of protective equipment, the performance standards were high at 61.1%. In order to improve the performance of safety certification standards centered on design standards, it is necessary to determine the possibility of performance enhancement of the certification standards and determine the feasibility of the inspection test method. In order to improve performance, it was reviewed that it was necessary to establish a systemic foundation and infrastructure, such as strengthening the Product Liability Act, systematizing market monitoring, etc., distributing certification test tasks, and participating in the preparation of certification standards by the private sector. Conclusion: Through this study, the problems and limitations of Korea's safety certification system were summarized and the necessity for performance improvement was reviewed. Performance improvement of safety certification standards is a matter that requires preparatory work, such as legislative revision and infrastructure construction, and requires mid-to-long-term promotion. In addition, rather than improving the overall safety certification standards, the performance requirements for each item subject to certification should be reviewed and promoted, and details should be specified through additional research.