The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is the standard used by Federal statistical agencies in classifying business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistical data related to the U.S. business economy. It was developed to allow for a high level of comparability in business statistics among the three North American countries. NAICS is based on a production-oriented concept, meaning that it groups establishments into industries according to similarity in the processes used to produce goods or services.

In this Section

1. NAICS Structure
2. Sector Definitions
3. Codes Not Covered
4. Additional information on NAICS is available at: https://www.census.gov/naics

NAICS uses a hierarchical structure. A "hierarchy" is the relationship of one item to a particular category.

The organization of NAICS is as follows:

• Sector: 2-digit code
  • Subsector: 3-digit code
    • Industry Group: 4-digit code
      • NAICS Industry: 5-digit code
        • National Industry: 6-digit code

Note: Three sectors are represented by a range of 2-digit codes. These include Manufacturing (31-33), Retail Trade (44-45) and Transportation and Warehousing (48-49).

Example

Note: Some Economic Census tables also display data at the 7- and 8-digit levels. Although these codes are NAICS-based codes, they are not included in the official classification system.

There are twenty sectors included in the NAICS. All sectors, except 92, have full or part representation in the economic census.

The following NAICS codes are not covered in the economic census.

Those industries marked with "CBP" are included in County Business Patterns and in Statistics of U.S. Businesses, which both use NAICS.

The economic census does not generally include government-owned establishments, even when their primary activity would be classified in industries covered by the economic census. Because of these exclusions, economic census data for industries in many sectors might appear to be incomplete.

In addition, certain industries dominated by government activity are excluded from the scope of the economic census.

At the same time, exceptions have been made to include certain governmental activities in the economic census:

• Hospitals
• Government-owned liquor stores
• University press publishers
• Federal Reserve Banks

In addition, the economic census does include the activities of private contractors that may be carrying out governmental functions on contract. For example:

• Highway construction contractors
• Privately operated prisons
• Private firms contracting to provide services to government
• Government-owned/contractor-operated (GOCO) plants

There is a separate Census of Governments, which provides some data on revenue, expenditures, and employment for various governmental functions, such as streets and highways, solid waste management, sewerage, electric power, transit, and local libraries. At the same time, these data are not reported on an establishment basis and are not classified by NAICS.