Trade data is reported using classification schemes that are set up either to measure economic activity (industry-based schemes) or to monitor and measure trade for specific products (product-based schemes). This page provides information about such internationally used classification schemes as well as the main schemes used in the United States, and links to sites that deal with the relationships between national and international schemes.

Code Schemes used by International Agencies

• United Nations Classification Systems
  Links on this site document a number of code structures. Key links are code profiles that describe the purpose of the code and link to drill-down lists showing detailed structure with explanatory notes for the codes.
  • International Standard Industrial Classification, ISIC (industry-based).
  • Commodity based codes, includes
    Standard International Trade Classification, SITC
    Harmonized Commodity Description and Coding System, (HS)
     
    
• International family of economic and social classifications
   
  

Code Schemes used by the United States

The United States uses its own product and industry coding structures for federal data gathering and reporting. Descriptions of these schemes and other trade-related coding schemes (not the actual code values) are located on the U.S. Classifications: The Basics page. Links to code lists in ascii format can be found on the Trade Codes page.

• Industry-based codes
  
  • North American Industry Classification System (NAICS)
    The industry classification system introduced in 1997. and used by many U.S. agencies for reporting national and international activity. It is also used by Mexico and Canada.
  • Standard Industrial Classification (SIC)
    Predecessor of NAICS and used in the United States between 1987 and 1997. This link gives information about SIC in tables that show how they correspond to NAICS.
  
  
• Commodity-based codes
  
  • Harmonized Tariff Schedule of the United States(HTS)
    Used for import data, this ten digit scheme is based on extending the six digits of the international HS system.
  • Schedule-B Export Codes
    Used for export data, this is a ten digit scheme with the first six digits corresponding to both the international HS scheme and the HTS scheme used for U.S. imports


• Interactive Tariff and Trade DataWeb
  This site contains a look-up feature for HTS (four digits), NAICS, SIC, and the Bureau of Economic Analysis' End-Use codes.

Comparing International and National Coding Schemes

• National Classifications
  Provides documentation about the coding schemes used within each country and how these schemes relate to the standard international schemes (ISIC, SITC, HS).

 
• UN List of Correspondence Tables
  This page contains links to lists that show the relationships between pairs of codes schemes.

 
• Jon Haveman's Industry Concordances
  This page offers comparisons among the international SITC and ISIC and country-specific (U.S. and Canada) industry based coding systems.