NACE - Classification of Economic Activities

Introduction - What is NACE?

The standard classification of industrial activity in Ireland is NACE, which is a statistical classification of economic activities* developed in the European Community. NACE is an acronym derived from the French title 'Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes'. The NACE classification of economic activities in the European Community is used for a wide variety of European statistics in the economic, social, environmental, and agricultural domains.

NACE Rev. 2.1 is here!

Since the last version of NACE, NACE Rev. 2, was published in 2006, the European economy has evolved significantly, leading to a need to update the NACE classification. NACE Rev. 2.1 has introduced new concepts at all levels of the classification, and has restructured a number of the existing headings. At the same time, major efforts have been made to maintain the structure of the classification in areas that did not explicitly require change based on new concepts.

NACE Rev. 2.1 entails several changes, including a number of new positions to reflect emerging forms of economic activity. Structurally, the most obvious change is that the previous Section J “Information and Communication” is now being split into two separate sections: Section J for “Publishing, broadcasting, and content production and distribution activities” and Section K for “Telecommunication, computer programming, consulting, computing infrastructure and other information service activities”. There are many other changes seen across all the lower structural levels of the classification (Division, Group and Class levels). Conceptually, significant changes occurred with the introduction of new concepts at all levels, revised rules for outsourcing and with the treatment of intermediation activities. A summary of the main changes is given in section 4 of Eurostat's NACE Rev. 2.1 introductory guidelines. Correspondence tables provided by Eurostat present detailed information on classes for which some activities move from a NACE Rev. 2 class to another NACE Rev. 2.1 class. 

The new version of NACE, NACE Rev. 2.1, can be accessed in the EU Official Journal and as Linked Open Data. 

During 2025 Eurostat finalised its NACE guidance documentation and the CSO Business Register completed work on updating the coding of enterprises to NACE Rev. 2.1. From 2026 onwards, CSO will begin implementing the new NACE version across statistical outputs. This implementation will be undertaken on a gradual basis, according to the timelines set out in EU regulations. From January 2026 onwards CSO statistical outputs will begin to be published using NACE Rev. 2.1, starting with Business Statistics and Labour Force Statistics, amongst others. Over time, NACE Rev. 2 will be replaced by NACE Rev. 2.1 in CSO statistical production. 

NACE Rev. 2.1 Documentation

Eurostat uses the online platform, Showvoc, for the dissemination of its main statistical classifications, metadata catalogues and code lists. Showvoc presents this information in both human-readable and machine-readable formats

As part of the transition to NACE Rev. 2.1, Eurostat has provided updated documentation, including:

• Explanatory notes detailing what is covered by each NACE Rev. 2.1 category;
• Correspondence tables defining into which NACE Rev. 2.1 class an activity classified in a particular NACE Rev. 2 class goes.

NACE Rev. 2.1 Manual and Guidelines (pdf)

NACE Rev 2.1 Structure and Explanatory Notes (xls 261kb)

Correspondence File NACE Rev. 2 - NACE Rev. 2.1 (xls 115kb)

Correspondence File NACE Rev. 2.1 - NACE Rev. 2 (xls 112kb)

More information on the development and legal background to NACE Rev. 2.1 provided by Eurostat:

Legal act establishing NACE Revision 2 Update 1 (NACE Rev. 2.1)

Thematic section on NACE Rev. 2.1

Statistics Explained background article on NACE

Background

The original version of NACE (NACE 70), introduced in 1970, replaced by NACE Rev. 1 in 1990, which in turn underwent a minor update in 2002 to establish NACE Rev. 1.1. This was updated with a new version of NACE - NACE Rev. 2. in 2006. The current version of NACE - NACE Rev. 2.1 was adopted by Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2023/137 of 10 october 2022 which established NACE Rev. 2.1 which will be used for the production of European statistics from Jan 1st 2025.

Correspondence tables showing the relationship between NACE Rev. 2 and NACE Rev. 2.1 are available on Showvoc, Eurostat's web-based metadata catalogue, or by contacting classifications@cso.ie

Classification structure

NACE consists of a hierarchical structure:

1. a first level consisting of headings identified by an alphabetical code (sections),
2. a second level consisting of headings identified by a two-digit numerical code (divisions),
3. a third level consisting of headings identified by a three-digit numerical code (groups);
4. a fourth level consisting of headings identified by a four-digit numerical code (classes).

NACE is part of a family of international statistical classifications designed to allow comparisons of economic activities at national, European, and global levels. NACE is derived from the United Nations’ International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities (ISIC), but is more detailed than ISIC. ISIC and NACE have exactly the same items at the highest levels, but NACE is more detailed at lower levels. NACE is also closely linked with the European Classification of Products by Activity (CPA) and PRODCOM, the European classification of goods used for statistics on industrial production in the EU.

Examples of usage

NACE is used in a wide variety of CSO and EU statistics, ranging from demographic to environmental statistics. Its main use is in business and macroeconomic statistics. National Accounts uses particular groupings or aggregations (labelled as A10, A21, A64, A88) based on NACE when publishing data. These groupings are set out in the European Systems of Accounts 2010.

National

• Enterprise statistics
• National statistics

EU

• Structural Business Statistics (SBS)
• Short-term Business Statistics (STS)

*An economic activity takes place when resources such as capital goods, labour, manufacturing techniques or intermediary products are combined to produce specific goods or services. Thus, an economic activity is characterised by an input of resources, a production process, and an output of products (goods or services). An activity as defined in NACE may consist of one uncomplicated process (for example weaving), but may also cover an entire range of sub-processes, each mentioned in various categories of the classification (for example, the manufacturing of a car consists of specific activities such as casting, forging, welding, assembling, painting, etc.). If the production process is organised as an integrated series of elementary activities within the same statistical unit, the whole combination is regarded as one activity. NACE coding is based on the 'principal activity' of a unit, where most of the gross value is added. Units should be classified to the category that best describes their activity e.g. for NACE Rev. 2, retail of shoes - 47.72 - 'Retail sale of footwear and leather goods in specialised stores'.