Glossary
NAICS
NAICS is North America's six-digit industry classification system, with wholesale trade at NAICS 42 in the United States and NAICS 41 in Canada. BEA, Statistics Canada and Data USA key their wholesale series to it, down to six-digit merchant-wholesaler levels such as NAICS 424.
What is NAICS?
NAICS - the North American Industry Classification System - is the six-digit scheme used by the US, Canada and Mexico to classify business establishments, nesting progressively finer industries under two-, three- and four-digit sectors. Wholesale trade illustrates the hierarchy: BEA's GDP-by-industry accounts state 'wholesale trade = NAICS 42' and publish NAICS 2-digit through detailed levels per table, while the merchant-wholesaler detail sits at NAICS 424. The same code family organizes Canadian data - Statistics Canada's Table 20-10-0074-01 cuts wholesale sales 'by geography x NAICS industry (to six-digit) x seasonal adjustment' under tag 'naics-41'. Data USA serves its profile at datausa.io/profile/naics/42, and the Census products behind it include 'U.S. Economic Census - Wholesale Trade (NAICS 424)' and the Monthly Wholesale Trade Survey - the spine of distributors data.
Why does NAICS matter when choosing a dataset?
The code is the join key between otherwise unrelated statistical programs, so its handling determines whether your datasets combine. Two-digit and six-digit selections describe very different populations: NAICS 42 is all wholesale, while 424 narrows to merchant wholesalers - mixing them changes denominators silently. Country offsets add another layer, since Canadian wholesale is NAICS 41 against the US 42, so pooled North American panels must reconcile the offset before aggregating. Vintage matters as well: codes are revised on cycles, and series keyed to different vintages need concordance. Teams that pin code level, country and vintage up front avoid the classic failure of industry panels whose totals drift apart for definitional reasons.
How do you evaluate NAICS coding in a data source?
- State the digit level of every figure. BEA publishes 2-digit through detailed levels per table, so a claim about 'NAICS 42' should say whether it covers all wholesale or only 424 merchant wholesalers.
- Apply the country offset. US wholesale is 42, Canadian is 41; Statistics Canada's table is explicitly tagged 'naics-41'.
- Check seasonal-adjustment separation. The Canadian cube splits by seasonal adjustment as its own dimension - keep it apart from code selection.
Related terms
Entries that sit next to NAICS in this glossary:
- nace — The EU statistical classification of economic activities, where wholesale trade is division G46.
- value-added — An industry's contribution to GDP, gross output minus intermediate inputs, published annually for US wholesale trade back to 1947.
- wholesale-trade — The distribution sector defined by NAICS 424 in the United States.
Related industry coverage: trading-companies-distributors data.
Frequently asked questions
What is the NAICS code for wholesale trade?
NAICS 42 in the United States and NAICS 41 in Canada. Within the US code, 424 designates merchant wholesalers - the level at which products like the Economic Census wholesale tables are scoped - and BEA's GDP-by-industry accounts state the equivalence directly.
How detailed does NAICS get?
To six digits. Statistics Canada's wholesale sales table cuts data by NAICS industry to six-digit detail, and US products similarly distinguish 2-digit sectors from detailed industries. The digit level you choose changes the population behind every statistic.
Do US and Canadian NAICS codes match?
The structure is coordinated but sector numbering differs: wholesale trade is 42 in the US and 41 in Canada. Pooled North American analysis needs that offset applied, plus attention to vintage revisions, before series from the two countries are combined.
Datasets containing this field
Datasets containing NAICS
6 datasets carry naics in the catalog. Open one, count the fields, judge for yourself.
Data.gov — Banking Datasets Catalog
DBnomics — The World's Economic Database
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