ISO/IEC 17025 General requirements for the competence of testing and calibration laboratories is the main ISO standard used by testing and calibration laboratories.

In most major countries, ISO/IEC 17025 is the standard for which most labs must hold accreditation in order to be deemed technically competent.

In many cases, suppliers and regulatory authorities will not accept test or calibration results from a lab that is not accredited.

Originally known as ISO/IEC Guide 25, ISO/IEC 17025 was initially issued by the International Organization for Standardization in 1999.

There are many commonalities with the ISO 9000 standard, but ISO/IEC 17025 is more specific in requirements for competence, and applies directly to those organizations that produce testing and calibration results and is based on somewhat more technical principles [1].