The accreditation is the recognition of a quality system that includes all activities uniformly and controlled; meeting the rules is binding for official food control laboratories (Real Decree 1397/95).

The accreditation determines the technical competence of a laboratory and assures impartiality, independence and integrity of the test performance. The norm ISO/IEC 17025 describes the requirements which the test and calibration laboratories have to meet if the wish to show their quality management, their technical competence and the capacity to produce technically valid results.

ENAC (National Accreditation Entity) is the accrediting organism that evaluates by means of audits.