Anion chromatography with conductivity detection was chosen as the analytical technique for the development of a cleaning validation method for clean-in-place (CIP) detergents. The method was developed and validated for the determination of traces of the detergent CIP-200. It was shown to be linear with a squared correlation coefficient (r2) of 0.9999 and the accuracy experiments presented average recoveries of 88.2% (area response factor) from stainless steel surfaces. The repeatability was found to be 1.6% and an intermediate precision of 1.9% across the range. The method was also shown to be sensitive with an average Detection Limit (DL) of 0.23 ppm and a Quantitation Limit (QL) of 0.70 ppm based on the amount of phosphate in the detergent sample. The phosphate signal was well resolved from typical ions encountered in water samples or any other interference presented from swabs and surfaces. The method was applied to cleaning validation samples and proved to be suitable for rapid and reliable quality control.