Contaminated areas are a relevant topic in the Swedish environmental policy, represented by the Non-toxic environment quality objective. Risk assessment is a tool used to evaluate the hazard posed by a contaminated area, in which the authorities will base their decisions to determine the management of the contamination. Former wood impregnation facilitiesrepresent suspected contaminated areas due to the use of creosote in the process. Creosote is a coal tar derivative and is composed mainly by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). The standard approach used in risk assessment of PAH-contaminated areas is to perform a hazard characterization using chemical analysis of a set of 16 PAHs determined as priority pollutants. The aim of this study was to evaluate if the use of the 16 priority PAHs solely can characterize the hazard posed by a creosote contamination. To accomplish this objective, five soil samples from a former wood impregnation facility in Sweden were analyzed using the PAH-CALUX bioassay. The bioanalytical equivalent concentrations derived from the bioassay analysis (BEQbio) were compared with bioanalytical equivalent concentration based on chemical analytical data (BEQchem) of the 16 priority PAHs using iceberg modelling. The results of this study are aligned with the hypothesis and corroborates with other studies that the 16 priority PAHs cannot characterize the extent of the hazard posed by a PAH contamination and that such analysis provide an underestimated evaluation of the contamination, which is not compliant with the non-toxic environment quality objective. The biological activity detected in the samples revealed between 47,52 and 82,01% of activities that could not be explained by the 16 priority PAHs targeted in the chemical analysis. The unexplained bioassay effects are suggested to be caused by untargeted PAHs and other polycyclic aromatic compounds (PACs) like heterocyclic compounds, as they are indicated in the literature as significant co-contaminants in PAHs contaminated areas. Moreover, bioanalytical analysis is suggested to be included in the regulations regarding PAHs contaminated areas as to offer the basis for a more comprehensive risk assessment.