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Eurostat
Academia/Scientific organisation

NACE Rev. 2 (Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community, in French "Nomenclature générale des Activités économiques dans les Communautés Européennes") is the European standard classification of productive economic activities corresponding to ISIC Rev. 4 at European level. It is the subject of legislation at the European Union level[1], which imposes the use of this classification uniformly within all the Member States.

Objectives

  • European classification of economic activities based on international classification;
  • Code list ;
  • Eurostat standard

Owner

NACE Rev. 2 has been created based on ISIC Rev. 4 and adapted to the European circumstances by a working group of experts on statistical classifications from the Member States, candidate Countries as well as EFTA Countries, with the support and guidance of the classification section at Eurostat.

Intended audience

NACE has been developed in order to provide to all persons and organisations that may need to have a classification of economic activities such a tool. The main target was the statistical institutes or organisations that may need to create statistics on the topic. European Union Member States are as well targeted because they provide statistics to Eurostat thanks to this list. Indeed, the use of NACE is mandatory within the European Statistical System.

 

Long description

NACE is the European standard classification of productive economic activities. NACE presents the universe of economic activities partitioned in such a way that a NACE code can be associated with a statistical unit carrying them out.

 

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).

 

The comparability at world level of statistics produced on the basis of NACE is due to the fact that NACE is part of an integrated system of statistical classifications, developed mainly under the auspices of the United Nations Statistical Division. From the European point of view, this system can be represented as follows:

  • ISIC is the United Nations’ International Standard Industrial Classification of all Economic Activities;
  • CPC is the United Nations’ Central Product Classification;
  • HS is the Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, managed by the World Customs Organisation;
  • CPA is the European Classification of Products by Activity;
  • Prodcom is the classification of goods used for statistics on industrial production in the EU;
  • CN stands for the Combined Nomenclature, a European classification of goods used for foreign trade statistics.

 

NACE is derived from ISIC, in the sense that it is more detailed than ISIC. ISIC and NACE have exactly the same items at the highest levels, where NACE is more detailed at lower levels. Since the national economic structures vary considerably, there are economic activities appearing in NACE Rev. 2 which are not of importance or do not occur in all Member States (e.g. categories referring to agriculture, mining and quarrying, manufacture of spacecraft, etc).

 

NACE consists of a 4 digit code developed in a hierarchical structure:

i. a first level consisting of headings identified by an alphabetical code (sections), identical to ISIC;

ii. a second level consisting of headings identified by a two-digit numerical code (divisions), identical to ISIC;

iii. a third level consisting of headings identified by a three-digit numerical code (groups);

iv. a fourth level consisting of headings identified by a four-digit numerical code (classes).

 

Example: “Manufacture of fruit and vegetable juice” has the code “10.32” in NACE, which represents its class. “10.3” is its group, corresponding to “Processing and preserving of fruit and vegetables”. “10” is the division: “Manufacture of food products”. Last, the section is “Section C — Manufacturing”.

Known implementations

NACE Rev.2 has multiple national implementations:

 

History / Key milestones

NACE is an adaptation of United Nations’ ISIC created in 1986 at the establishment of Eurostat. It was updated in 1989, 1993 (rev. 1.1) and 2008 (Rev. 2).

Additional documents

 

[1] Regulation (EC) No 1893/2006 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 December 2006 establishing the statistical classification of economic activities NACE Revision 2 and amending Council Regulation (EEC) No 3037/90 as well as certain EC Regulations on specific statistical domains

 

Last update: 23/10/2019

Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community

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