NAICS stands for North American Industry Classification System. Implemented in 1997, it is updated every five years in order to account for new industries.

This system is used by U.S. government statistical agencies to classify business establishments for the purpose of collecting, analyzing, and publishing statistics related to the U.S. business economy. It is a hierarchical system representing 20 economic sectors, made up of two to six digits, with each level becoming more specific. Visit the US Census website to learn more about the organizational structure for 2022 NAICS codes.

There are several ways to find a NAICS code; some of them are described below.

1. Visit the US Census website to access the NAICS search engine. Enter the name of the industry you are researching (do not do company searches in this database). You will retrieve a list of codes that contain the keyword/s you used. Look through the list to find the one that looks relevant. Be sure to click on a link to read the description and verify that it is the correct code.
2. If you have the name of a company, use a database like Mergent Intellect to find it.

You can also use the tutorial below to learn how to find a code:

NAICS Tutorial