Clause 7.8.1d of ISO/IEC 17011 requires: “The accreditation body shall provide information on the accreditation to the accredited conformity assessment body that shall identify the following: d) locations of the accredited conformity assessment body and, as applicable, the conformity assessment activities performed at each location and covered by the scope of accreditation.”
Based on EA 3/01 and ILAC P8, it is RvA policy that the laboratory is just only accredited for the specific tests that are mentioned for that specific location. And if a laboratory is (also) accredited for that specific test on the location of the client, that is explicitly mentioned in the scope.
One of our accredited laboratories (with other accredited “sister-laboratories” elsewhere in the world) has the opinion that in other European countries laboratories are allowed that, if a laboratory is accredited for a specific test in the permanent facility of the laboratory, to refer to accreditation for that same test that is performed on the location of the client (even if that isn’t mentioned explicitly in the scope).
Our question: Do other EA-members have the same policy as the RvA or are there indeed EA-members that allow laboratories to refer to accreditation for tests that are performed on the location of the client, while in the scope that test is just only mentioned at the permanent facility of the laboratory?
(Remark: RvA has checked several scopes of other laboratories in Europe and it seems that they have the same policy as RvA, but the concerning laboratory is convinced that the RvA is more strict (too strict) to this item compared to other European countries.)
March 2026
Clause 7.8.1 d) of ISO/IEC 17011 requires that “the accreditation body shall provide information on the accreditation to the accredited conformity assessment body, that shall identify the locations of the accredited conformity assessment body and, as applicable, the conformity assessment activities performed at each location and covered by the scope of accreditation.”In addition, EA-3/01 M:2025 states that, whenever an accredited CAB operates from several sites among which at least one has not been granted accreditation, only those accredited sites shall be entitled to use the accreditation symbol or make claims of accreditation status.
Therefore, the scope of accreditation shall clearly identify the locations at which the accredited laboratory activities are performed, and if the activities are performed on site, when these activities are intended to be covered by the accreditation.
Taking all this into account, only those activities performed by the accredited CAB, at the locations explicitly included in the scope of accreditation, or on-site activities that are included within that scope of the accreditation, shall be considered as covered by the accreditation and shall be reported as such.