Hemagglutination (HA) activity was recovered from the aqueous phases of commercially and experimentally prepared oil-emulsion (OE) Newcastle disease virus (NDV) vaccines using two methods: aqueous partition and freeze-thaw. Quantitation of the HA activity retrieved by the aqueous partition technique was directly related to the degree of protection conferred to chickens against a strain of velogenic viscerotropic (VV) NDV in nine of the ten vaccines analyzed. One of the ten vaccines yielded high levels of retrieved HA activity but induced low hemagglutination-inhibition (HI) antibody levels and low levels of protection. Therefore, the retrieval and quantitation of HA activity from OE NDV vaccines using the partition technique provides a useful adjunct to vaccine testing methods that doesn't require vaccination and challenge trials. The freeze-thaw method did not yield measurable HA titers for all vaccines with high efficacy, so its use should be restricted to only those vaccines for which it has been demonstrated to be suitable.