Taxonomy · EU / international
NACE
Statistical Classification of Economic Activities in the European Community
The EU's official classification of economic activities. NACE is the backbone every national system in the Union anchors to at the 4-digit class.
NACE — Nomenclature statistique des activités économiques dans la Communauté européenne — is the EU standard for describing what a business does. It is used in every EU business register, in Eurostat's statistics, and in most national tax and social-security systems.
The structure is hierarchical: 21 sections (letters A–U) → 88 divisions (2 digits) → 272 groups (3 digits) → 615 classes (4 digits). NACE Rev. 2.1 is the current revision, published in 2025 and used from 2025 reference data onwards.
NACE is aligned with the UN's ISIC at the first two digits, so European data can be compared globally. National extensions (the 5th and 6th digits) belong to each member state's classification — CAE in Portugal, NAF in France, WZ in Germany, and so on.