The company has extremely strict policies and high standards… and a reeeealy long waiting list

Photos: Yitzy Kasowitz

Making or breaking a Guinness World Record always seems like a huge celebration, but behind the scenes, it’s not all fun and games. The company has extremely strict policies and high standards… and a reeeealy long waiting list. They receive about 1,000 emails every week from around the world, and it can take about 16 weeks until they respond to you. And don’t get excited -- that first correspondence is just a really long list of rules!

Record titles need to fulfill all of the following:

Can it be measured objectively?

Can the record be broken?

Is it possible to create a set of parameters and conditions that all challengers can follow?

Is there evidence to prove it really happened?

If your record suggestion is new, then Guinness World Records will set a challenging minimum requirement for you to beat.

They do not accept any records that could cause harm to people or animals, encourage overeating (although they do have records like the fastest time to eat three cream crackers…), waste food, or involve anything illegal.

Breaking a Record

The Process

Step 1: Send Guinness a proposal of what you plan to do. The folks at Guinness review your proposal against their extremely large database of records. They need to check if there’s a standing record, and if so, what it was and are they still accepting submissions for that challenge. You’ll either be a. informed that you’ve been accepted under your chosen title, b. given a different record that’s similar, or c. rejected. If you’re accepted, you’ll be given a set of guidelines to break the record and the type of evidence needed in order to verify your attempt.

(If you don’t want to wait 16 weeks to get a reply — and possibly a rejection — you could opt to fill out a Priority Application, which will get you a response within five working days. It “only” costs $800!)

Once you have your guidelines, read them super carefully. You can always email a question, but it takes about two weeks for Guinness to reply to each question….

Step 2: Go ahead and make your attempt. But be sure to video it, because if you can’t prove you did it, even if your 3,000 neighbors and friends sing your praises and describe how amazing you were, how are the Guinness people supposed to know what really happened?

Step 3:  Submit your evidence, and wait another few months for the Guinness board to review it. (Or, again, pay another few hundred bucks for Priority Evidence Review.) Once the Guinness board agrees you’ve made or broken the record, you’ll be notified. You’ll spread the news… and be eligible to receive one free printed certificate from Guinness World Records that will arrive by mail. Then you’ll hang it up in your house/shul/store, because what’s the point of breaking a record without letting everyone know about it?

What’s it like to break a Guinness World Record? For that, we can check in with one of our very own celebrated Jr. columnists for a recent personal account. In December 2022, Yitzy Kasowitz of Build it up/Jbrick helped break the official Guinness World Record when he designed and created the world’s largest menorah out of LEGO® bricks!