What is a NACE code?
Nomenclature of Economic Activities, or NACE, is the European Union's classification of economic activity. It groups businesses by what they do, using the type of activity and the main products of the business. Because every EU member state uses the same scheme, a code means the same thing in Dublin as it does in Lisbon.
What does a NACE code look like?
Four digits, arranged in a hierarchy. The first two digits give the division, the third gives the group and the fourth gives the class.
The current revision, NACE Rev. 2.1, applies to EU statistics from 2025:
| Level | Identifies | Rev. 2.1 | Rev. 2 | Format |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Section | 22 | 21 | Letters A to V |
| 2 | Division | 87 | 88 | Two digits |
| 3 | Group | 287 | 272 | Three digits |
| 4 | Class | 651 | 615 | Four digits |
Ireland's Central Statistics Office moved to Rev. 2.1 in January 2026, so datasets in circulation may carry either revision. Eurostat publishes the full classification.
What are NACE codes used for?
Governments use them to see how a sector is performing. A manufacturer and a wholesaler sit in different sections, so statistics can be collected per sector and compared across countries. That feeds macroeconomic accounting and economic policy.
Why does an address lookup return a NACE code?
Because for a business address, the sector is already known. If you capture a business address and want to know what that business does, asking the customer adds a field to your form and produces an answer you cannot rely on. A NACE code returned with the address is consistent, comparable and needs no extra input.
That matters most for segmentation, risk pricing and routing an enquiry to the right team, all of which normally require a manual sector field.
NACE codes apply to Irish addresses. The Eircode Address Database (ECAD) records a NACE code and category against commercial addresses, and our Eircode address search returns them as the nace_code and nace_category fields. Field details are in the ECAD documentation. Get in touch if you have any questions.