Capillary Electrophoresis (CE) has demonstrated its wide potential to solve many analytical problems. Recent developments in CE with contributions for sample preparation, improvements in detection and aspects associated with ap- plication and productivity requirements in routine laboratories are reviewed and discussed. Although these capabilities of CE, the transference of CE methods to routine analytical work is very limited. The main contributions and advantages of CE with respect other instrumental separation techniques are summarized in this article, and also the scarce use in routine laboratories is critically discussed. After this balance, the arguments to identify the 'analytical niche' of CE in applied analytical laboratories are reported. Routine laboratories must connect to real world, giving answers to client information needs. This task must be car- ried out through the development and implementation of analytical processes connecting real world with analytical information. Validation assures the reliability of the analyti- cal process, and the traceability of analytical results. There- fore, method validation is the basis for representativeness (fitness for purpose). This strategy is well supported by in- ternational norms, such as norm ISO 17025, used as a refer- ence for the accreditation of laboratories. Although more in research domain, Capillary Electrophoresis (CE), and its corresponding analytical methods, can be the basis of ana- lytical processes, with capabilities to be used in routine labo- ratories. About 40000 scientific articles can be retrieved from the Science Finder data base (1) using capillary elec- trophoresis as key term. This number is significantly lower when compared with the scientific publications related to liquid chromatography (more than 197000) and gas chroma- tography (more than 133000). On this basis, CE, commer- cially introduced in the late 1980s, should no longer be de- fined as new, recent or emerging technique. Based on the bibliographic revision of Pinero et al. (2), the use of CE in different fields of applied analytical science and research (petrochemical, neuroscience, botanic, agriculture, toxico- logical, veterinary, forensic and quality control) is currently well established, whereas in other areas (food, clinic, phar- maceutical, genetic and chemical) CE is receiving great at- tention. Although, CE is characterized by its high efficiency, flexibility, low cost, wide field of application, and low envi- ronmental effects, it is difficult to transfer it to routine