No. You can have an item certified without offering it for sale.
All submitted items are evaluated under the same certification standards and current marketplace acceptance criteria, whether or not the owner intends to sell.
That said, The Realest can only validate and secure an item while it remains within our chain of custody. When a Certified item is sold through The Realest, we verify it is the exact item we certified, maintain its security protections, and deliver it to the buyer with an unbroken custody record. Items sold outside The Realest cannot carry those protections, and their active Certified status lapses until the item is returned for re-certification.