ISO 17025 Checklist

An ISO 17025 checklist is used to assess whether a testing or calibration laboratory meets the requirements of ISO/IEC 17025:2017, the international standard for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories. Its purpose is a structured, evidence-based review of the laboratory against each clause, so gaps are found and closed before an accreditation body assesses the laboratory. It is a readiness and internal-assessment tool, not a general workplace inspection.

Working through the general requirements, the structural and resource requirements, the process requirements and the management system, the checklist records the conformity status of each requirement, the documented information that demonstrates it, and any corrective action needed. Because the specific evidence depends on the laboratory's scope and methods, the checklist covers the requirement topics of the standard and lets you record what applies, rather than assuming fixed thresholds or intervals.

Laboratories often prepare for ISO/IEC 17025 with a management-system checklist borrowed from ISO 9001, which misses the parts that matter most for a laboratory: metrological traceability, measurement uncertainty, method validation and the validity of results. The gaps stay hidden until an accreditation assessor raises them, when they are expensive to fix and can delay accreditation.

An ISO 17025 checklist built around the standard's own clauses fixes that by assessing the general, structural, resource, process and management-system requirements together, recording evidence and gaps as it goes. The laboratory sees where it stands against the real requirements and can close gaps before the assessment rather than during it.