The North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) is used by the U.S. Federal Government to organize different types of businesses economic analysis purposes, and while there are different types of numbering systems out there that do this, a lot of local municipalities have also started adopting it for their own business classification purposes. The NAICS codes and descriptions are revised every five years (latest: 2012; next: 2017), and while information is freely provided as PDFs or Excel spreadsheets and hosted by the U.S. Census Bureau, no machine-readable API exists for retrieving this data that can be easily used in applications.
Until now.
With the NAICS API, you can:
NAICS API is a product of Code for America’s 2013 Team Las Vegas, Lou Huang and Ryan Closner, with Michal Migurski, Richa Agarwal and Shaunak Kashyap. Source code on Github.
One NAICS Code ¶ |
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Retrieve available data for a single NAICS code from a given year, including title, description, cross references, and index text. Endpoint/v0/q Arguments
Response Dictionary ¶
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Definitionhttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year={year}&code={code}Example Requesthttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year=2012&code=519120Response{ "code": 519120, "title": "Libraries and Archives", "seq_no": 1475, "description": [ "This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in providing library or archive services. These establishments are engaged in maintaining collections and facilitating the use of such documents as are required to meet the informational, research, educational, or recreational needs of their user." ], "crossrefs": [ { "code": "512199", "text": "Providing stock footage to the media, multimedia, and advertising industries --are classified in U.S. Industry 512199, Other Motion Picture and Video Industries;" }, ... ], "index": [ "Archives", "Bookmobiles", "Centers for documentation (i.e., archives)", ... ] } |
Searching for a NAICS code ¶ |
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Search for NAICS codes by term, get a list of matching codes in approximate order of relevance. Endpoint/v0/s Arguments
ResponseList of matching NAICS codes. |
Definitionhttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/s?year={year}&terms={search terms}Example Requesthttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/s?year=2012&terms=InternetResponse[ { "code": 511, "title": "Publishing Industries (except Internet)", "description": [ "Industries in the Publishing Industries (except Internet) subsector group establishments engaged in the publishing of newspapers, magazines, other periodicals, and books, as well as directory and mailing list and software publishing.", ... ], ... }, { "code": 515, "title": "Broadcasting (except Internet)", ... }, { "code": 519130, "title": "Internet Publishing and Broadcasting and Web Search Portals", ... }, ... ] |
All NAICS information for a year ¶ |
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Complete information for a single year is available in one API request. The returned data will be large, up to 2.5MB for 2012 data. Endpoint/v0/q Arguments
ResponseList of NAICS codes for a year. |
Definitionhttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year={year}Example Requesthttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year=2012Response[ { "code": 11, "title": "Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting", "description": [ "The Sector as a Whole", "The Agriculture, Forestry, Fishing and Hunting sector comprises establishments primarily engaged in growing crops, raising animals, harvesting timber, and harvesting fish and other animals from a farm, ranch, or their natural habitats." ], ... }, { "code": 21, "title": "Mining, Quarrying, and Oil and Gas Extraction", "description": [ "The Sector as a Whole", ... ], ... }, ... ] |
Parent Codes ¶ |
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NAICS is a nested and hierarchical data set. For example, libraries and archives are a subcategory to information services. Retrieve a complete list of parent codes for a given code. Endpoint/v0/q Arguments
ResponseList of parent NAICS codes. |
Definitionhttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year={year}&code={code}&above=1Example Requesthttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year=2012&code=5191&above=1Response[ { "code": 51, "title": "Information", "description": [ "The Sector as a Whole", "The Information sector comprises establishments engaged...", ... ], ... }, { "code": 519, "title": "Other Information Services", "description": [ "Industries in the Other Information Services subsector...", ... ], ... } ] |
Descendant Codes ¶ |
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NAICS is a nested and hierarchical data set. For example, information services include news syndicates as a subcategory. Retrieve a complete list of descendant codes for a given code. Endpoint/v0/q Arguments
ResponseList of descendant NAICS codes. |
Definitionhttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year={year}&code={code}&below=1Example Requesthttp://naics.codeforamerica.org/v0/q?year=2012&code=5191&below=1Response[ { "code": 51911, "title": "News Syndicates", "description": [ "See industry description for 519110." ], "description_code": "519110", ... }, { "code": 519110, "title": "News Syndicates", "description": [ "This industry comprises establishments primarily engaged in supplying information, such as news reports, articles, pictures, and features, to the news media." ], ... }, ... ] |