Is Your Egyptian Inspector Really ISO 17020 Accredited?
Last updated: 4 September 2026 · By the FoodGate Audit inspection team (ISO 17020 accredited) · Get a free quote in 24h →
You can settle this yourself in about five minutes, without asking the provider for anything. Egypt's national accreditation body, EGAC, publishes a register of the bodies it accredits, showing the accreditation number, the current status and the date it was granted. The International Laboratory Accreditation Cooperation then publishes which accreditation bodies are peer recognised, activity by activity, and inspection under ISO/IEC 17020 is a separate entry from laboratory testing. A provider you cannot find in both places is not accredited in the sense that matters the day a report is contested.
Key Takeaways
Five checks change a decision here, and they run in the order a buyer can actually perform them.
| Point | Details |
|---|---|
| The register outranks the certificate | The accreditation body publishes live status. A certificate shows the day it was issued and nothing after. |
| Match the scope to the job | Accreditation is granted for named fields of inspection. Outside them, the same body is doing unaccredited work. |
| Check the accreditor, activity by activity | ILAC recognition is signed per activity. EGAC has been recognised for inspection since 2 April 2014, separately from its testing recognition. |
| A 2012 edition line is a date, not a fault | ISO/IEC 17020:2012 was withdrawn when the third edition published in March 2026. Certificates issued before then name the older edition. |
| Type A is the line about independence | It means a third party with no stake in the goods. The 2026 edition keeps Type A and folds the other two categories into Type non-A. |
Table of Contents
- Start with the register, not the certificate
- Then check the accreditation body itself
- What Type A means, and what changed this year
- A real accreditation can still be the wrong one
- Where this sits in an inspection you buy
- Recommended
- Frequently Asked Questions
- Sources
Start with the register, not the certificate
A certificate reaches you as an attachment to a proposal. It is accurate about the day it was printed and silent about every day since. The register kept by the accreditation body is the other way round: it shows the present state, and it is public, so the check costs nothing and warns nobody.
In Egypt that register belongs to EGAC, the Egyptian Accreditation Council. An entry for an accredited inspection body carries the legal name and address, the accreditation number, one of four statuses (accredited, suspended, withdrawn, expired), the date of accreditation, and downloadable copies of the certificate and the scope document. FoodGate Audit appears there under Inspection Bodies 032506, accredited on 31 October 2025.
| What you are checking | Register entry | Certificate PDF |
|---|---|---|
| Status | Live, and one of four values | The status on the day of issue |
| Accreditation number | The key the entry is filed under | Printed on the document |
| Scope | Scope document attached, downloadable | Summarised, annexed, or absent |
| Date granted | Displayed | Printed |
| Who publishes it | The body that did the assessing | The body being assessed |
The last row does most of the work. A register entry is published by the organisation that performed the assessment; a PDF is published by the organisation that passed it, or forwarded by whoever sent you the quotation.
Pro Tip: where the register entry and the certificate disagree on anything, status, scope or date, the register wins, and the disagreement is worth explaining before the inspection is booked rather than after the report is challenged.
Then check the accreditation body itself
An accreditation is only as portable as the body that granted it. What carries an Egyptian accreditation into a European or British file is the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement, under which accreditation bodies evaluate each other against a common set of rules and then accept each other's work. The arrangement is not signed once and for everything. It is signed activity by activity, and each activity carries its own date.
| Activity EGAC is recognised for | Signatory since |
|---|---|
| Calibration: ISO/IEC 17025 | 10 October 2009 |
| Testing: ISO/IEC 17025 | 10 October 2009 |
| Medical Testing: ISO 15189 | 2 April 2014 |
| Inspection: ISO/IEC 17020 | 2 April 2014 |
| Proficiency Testing Providers: ISO/IEC 17043 | 2 June 2019 |
Read from the ILAC signatory search on 4 September 2026. The line a produce buyer needs is the fourth, and the reason it matters is that recognition for laboratory testing does not carry over to inspection. Two dropdown selections separate the two. Choosing between kinds of provider is a different question from vetting a named one: the 2026 buyer's guide compares the four types operating in Egypt, and our own file carries the accreditation this article asks readers to check.
What Type A means, and what changed this year
Type A is the independence category. It means the body performing the inspection is a third party to the transaction: on a produce shipment there is a seller and there is a buyer, and a Type A body is neither, holds no interest in the goods, and does not trade them. That is the whole content of the label, and it is the reason the label appears on reports used with insurers and in arbitration.
The standard behind it moved this year. ISO/IEC 17020:2012 has been withdrawn and replaced by ISO/IEC 17020:2026, the third edition, published in March 2026 with a corrected English version in June 2026. ISO describes the main change as simplifying the independence categories from three types, A, B and C, to two: Type A and Type non-A. The revision also introduces risk based thinking, more flexibility in the requirements, and new provisions on data and information control.
Two things follow for anyone reading a certificate this season. A document naming the 2012 edition was issued while that edition was the one in force, which is a date rather than a defect: FoodGate Audit's accreditation is dated 31 October 2025, months before the new edition existed. And the distinction you were trying to read has become easier, because the question is no longer whether a body is A, B or C, but whether it is A or not. The glossary entry on ISO 17020 covers what the standard requires of an inspection body beyond independence.
A real accreditation can still be the wrong one
The failure a buyer is most likely to meet involves no dishonesty whatsoever. The number checks out, the register says accredited, the date is recent, and the scope document, which is the file nobody downloads, covers something else entirely.
EGAC accredits inspection across a taxonomy that runs from bulk cargo and draft survey to medical devices, environmental safety, metrology, pre-shipment inspection with labeling and marking, food technology covering fruits and vegetables, and grain sampling. A body accredited for draft survey on bulk cargo is properly accredited and squarely outside its scope on the morning it grades a pallet of table grapes. Nothing in the register flags that for you, because nothing is wrong with the accreditation. What is wrong is the match between the accreditation and the job.
The scope document is therefore the file that settles it. FoodGate Audit's scope covers pre-shipment inspection including labeling and marking, and food technology covering fruits and vegetables, which is stated in our buyer FAQ and attached in full to the register entry. Read the discipline lines against the work you are about to commission, not against the name of the company.
Where this sits in an inspection you buy
Accreditation does not examine a single carton. It is a statement about how a body is organised and what it is held to: impartiality, independence, the technical competence of the inspectors, the equipment, the working procedures, the reporting and the handling of complaints. A report produced under that system can be examined by someone other than the two parties arguing about it, and that is what makes a finding usable with an insurer or in a dispute.
On a produce shipment, that report is produced during a pre-shipment inspection: grade, condition, packing, marking, temperature, and sampling where a residue question is open. FoodGate Audit is an ISO 17020 accredited inspection body working only on Egyptian fruit and vegetables. Its output is a finding, not a certificate, and it holds no commercial interest in the consignments it examines. For the choice between a global group and a specialist, the SGS comparison sets out where each is the better tool.
Run this article's check on FoodGate Audit before running it on anyone else. The number is 032506, the register is EGAC's, the status is public, and the scope document is one click from the entry. A body that asks buyers to verify accreditation has no business being hard to verify.
Recommended
- Food inspection companies in Egypt: the four types of provider operating in Egypt and the seven questions that separate them.
- ISO 17020 in the quality glossary: the short definition, for pasting into a supplier questionnaire.
- SGS vs FoodGate Audit: a side by side comparison for buyers weighing a global group against a produce specialist.
- Independent pre-shipment inspection in Egypt: what independence means once the inspector is standing in the packhouse.
Shipping from Egypt this season? Put independent eyes at the packhouse.
Get a Free Quote →Frequently asked questions
Does an accreditation granted in Egypt count in the European Union?
It does, through the ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement, provided the granting body is a signatory for the right activity. EGAC has been an ILAC signatory for inspection under ISO/IEC 17020 since 2 April 2014, which is the entry that makes an Egyptian inspection accreditation acceptable to parties who assess it from outside Egypt. Recognition is between accreditation bodies, so the check is on EGAC, not on the inspection body.
My provider's certificate names ISO/IEC 17020:2012. Is it out of date?
Not by itself. The 2012 edition was in force until the third edition published in March 2026, so any certificate issued before that names it correctly. What tells you an accreditation is current is the status shown in the accreditation body's register, which is updated when an accreditation is suspended, withdrawn or allowed to expire.
Is a certification body's accreditation the same document as an inspection body's?
No. They are separate accreditations, granted against separate standards, and the register files them under different categories. ISO/IEC 17020 covers bodies that inspect items and report what they find; certification against a scheme such as BRCGS or GLOBALG.A.P. is a different activity governed by its own accreditation standard. A provider active in both holds two accreditations, and a buyer verifying one has verified nothing about the other.
Is a laboratory result covered by the inspection body's accreditation?
No. Laboratory testing sits under ISO/IEC 17025 and is accredited separately, which is visible in the ILAC arrangement as its own activity with its own signing date. When residue analysis is part of an inspection, the sampling is the inspection body's work and the analysis is the laboratory's, so ask which laboratory receives the sample and what that laboratory is accredited for.
What should I do if a provider will not give me an accreditation number?
Treat the refusal as the answer. The number is published by the accreditation body, not by the provider, so there is nothing confidential about it and nothing to withhold. A provider who describes itself as working to a standard rather than accredited to it is telling you, accurately, that no accreditation body has assessed the claim.
Sources
- EGAC, Egyptian Accreditation Council, register of accredited conformity assessment bodies, entry for Food Gate Audit, Inspection Bodies 032506, accredited 31 October 2025, consulted 4 September 2026: https://egac.gov.eg/en/entity-details/?tc=apAtggxdeHRVKtBoK2XMa4gf9Nxk6utnXfHjE9mI
- ILAC Mutual Recognition Arrangement signatory search, entry for the Egyptian Accreditation Council, five recognised activities and their signing dates, consulted 4 September 2026: https://ilac.org/signatory-search/
- ISO/IEC 17020:2026, Conformity assessment, Requirements for bodies performing inspection, third edition published March 2026, corrected English version June 2026: https://www.iso.org/standard/86292.html
- ISO/IEC 17020:2012, Conformity assessment, Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection, withdrawn: https://www.iso.org/standard/52994.html
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