The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) uses a six-digit hierarchical coding system to classify all economic activity into 20 industry sectors. 5 sectors are mainly goods-producing sectors and 15 are entirely services-producing sectors.

NAICS allows for the identification of 1,170 industries compared to the 1,004 found in the SIC system. Both SIC and NAICS classify establishments by their primary type of activity.