# ISO/IEC 17020

> ISO/IEC 17020 (Conformity assessment: Requirements for the operation of various types of bodies performing inspection) is the standard to which inspection bodies, including NDT and in-service inspection companies, are accredited by NATA, IANZ and other national bodies.

- Source: https://amps.global/glossary/iso-iec-17020/
- Type: Glossary
- Published: 2026-09-05
- Tags: accreditation, quality

## Key facts

- Type A: independent third-party inspection body; Type B: in-house body serving its parent organisation; Type C: mixed
- Requires documented impartiality, personnel competence records, equipment control and calibration, inspection methods and procedures, and controlled reports
- Accreditation is granted for a defined scope and reassessed periodically by the accreditation body
- Often paired with ISO 9001 and, for testing activities, with ISO/IEC 17025

Also known as: ISO 17020, ISO/IEC 17020:2012, inspection body accreditation.

## What assessors look for

Evidence that every inspector is qualified for what they sign, that equipment is calibrated and traceable, that procedures are approved and current, that reports are complete and controlled, that complaints and non-conformances are handled, and that management reviews and internal audits happen. Most of that evidence is records.

## ISO/IEC 17020 and AMPS

AMPS is software and holds no accreditation itself; what it does is keep the records an assessor asks for in one place: personnel and equipment certificates with expiry flags, calibration documents, a report folder per job and a history of every action. Documents saved through AMPS live in your own OneDrive, SharePoint or Google Drive, not on AMPS servers, so an existing QA folder structure keeps working unchanged and everything stays yours if you ever stop using AMPS.

## Related pages

- [ISO/IEC 17025](https://amps.global/glossary/iso-iec-17025/)
- [NATA](https://amps.global/glossary/nata/)
- [IANZ](https://amps.global/glossary/ianz/)
- [Internal audit](https://amps.global/glossary/internal-audit/)

## Sources

- [ISO/IEC 17020:2012 at iso.org](https://www.iso.org/standard/52994.html)
- [NATA - National Association of Testing Authorities, Australia](https://nata.com.au/)
- [IANZ - International Accreditation New Zealand](https://www.ianz.govt.nz/)