The preservation of research data to enable replication and reuse is critically dependent on efficient, effective and sustainable data stewardship by the research communities. The certification of trustworthy data repositories (TDRs) custodian organizations that ensure data stewardship and longterm preservation by means of a standard such as the CoreTrustSeal is an established and recognized procedure to support long-term access to reusable data. Likewise, the FAIR Guiding Principles and the developing FAIR metrics have largely codified the contemporary discourse and policies on research data management and stewardship. The proximity of objectives between the CoreTrustSeal certification of TDRs and the implementation of FAIR Principles calls for a close examination of their overlaps and complementarities. In particular, the concept of FAIR data cannot be detached from the characteristics of the data infrastructure, the environment in which FAIR data objects reside. It is therefore necessary to examine, under which circumstances the assessment of FAIRness should be carried out at collectionor repository-level, and to what extent CoreTrustSeal certification can be considered positioning TDRs as enabling FAIR data.