We initiate the study of property testing problems concerning equations in permutations. In such problems, the input consists of permutations σ 1 , . . . , σ d ∈ Sym(n), and one wishes to determine whether they satisfy a certain system of equations E, or are far from doing so. If this computational problem can be solved by querying only a small number of entries of the given permutations, we say that E is testable. For example, when d = 2 and E consists of the single equation XY = YX, this corresponds to testing whetherWe formulate the well-studied group-theoretic notion of stability in permutations as a testability concept, and interpret all works on stability as testability results. Furthermore, we establish a close connection between testability and group theory, and harness the power of group-theoretic notions such as amenability and property (T) to produce a large family of testable equations, beyond those afforded by the study of stability, and a large family of non-testable equations.Finally, we provide a survey of results on stability from a computational perspective and describe many directions for future research.