A single certification is the certification that the RIAA awards to singles based on their sales. It is estimated that there have been about 2,550 combined single certifications.

Recently, digital singles have begun to be certified due to the increase of the digital market and decrease of the physical commercial singles market. Although digital downloads have been around since 2003, they weren't considered to be significant until 2005, when they were first counted towards the Hot 100. Because of this, it is important to distinguish between singles that came out before and after the change (as singles after the change sold in higher quantities at a faster rate, while the older singles took longer to reach levels of certification).

In 2004, it would usually take over a year for a digital single to exceed sales over 100,000. Whereas In 2006, Shakira's "Hips Don't Lie", sold over 260,000 digital tracks in just a week and became Platinum later.