A fast method for the separation and determination of the food additive propyl gallate has been established by using capillary electrophoresis. The effects of several factors such as the applied potential and detection running buffer were investigated in order to obtain the optimum conditions, and the assay results were satisfactory. The limit of detection for the analyte was 10-6 mol/L. This approach has remarkable advantages with respect to other methodologies involving separations and electrochemical detection including minimal sample consumption, higher analysis speed and lower cost. In order to demonstrate the capabilitiy of the method, the determination of additive in a commercial food sample is also presented.