Understanding ISIC Classification
What is ISIC?#
The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) is a United Nations system that provides a coherent and consistent classification structure for economic activities. It serves as a comprehensive framework for collecting and reporting economic data in a format designed for economic analysis, decision-making, and policy-making.Our API uses ISIC Revision 5, the latest version, to categorize companies, allowing you to perform detailed industry-level analysis and filtering.
The ISIC Rev. 5 Hierarchy#
ISIC organizes economic activities into a hierarchical, four-level structure of mutually exclusive categories. Each level provides a more granular classification than the one above it.This is the highest and broadest level, identified by a single alphabetical letter.
There are 22 sections in total in ISIC Rev. 5.
Example: Section C - "Manufacturing".
A breakdown of a Section, identified by a two-digit numerical code.
There are 87 divisions in total.
Example: Division 14 - "Manufacture of wearing apparel".
A breakdown of a Division, identified by a three-digit numerical code.
There are 258 groups in total.
Example: Group 141 - "Manufacture of wearing apparel, except fur apparel".
This is the most detailed level of the classification, identified by a four-digit numerical code.
There are 463 classes in total.
Example: Class 1410 - "Manufacture of wearing apparel, except fur apparel".
ISIC in the FinancialReports API#
Our API provides separate endpoints for each level of the ISIC hierarchy, allowing you to explore the structure and filter companies at any level of granularity.When you retrieve data from a detailed endpoint like /isic-classes/, the response object contains the full nested hierarchy. The official ISIC terminology corresponds to our API's field names as follows:| Official ISIC Term | API Field Name | Example Code |
|---|
| Section | sector | C |
| Division | industry_group | 14 |
| Group | industry | 141 |
| Class | (root object) | 1410 |
Example: Deconstructing an ISIC Class Response#
The following is an example response for a single ISIC Class from the GET /isic-classes/ endpoint. You can see how the hierarchy is nested within the industry object.{
"code": "1410",
"name": "Manufacture of wearing apparel, except fur apparel",
"industry": {
"code": "141",
"name": "Manufacture of wearing apparel, except fur apparel",
"industry_group": {
"code": "14",
"name": "Manufacture of wearing apparel",
"sector": {
"code": "C",
"name": "Manufacturing"
}
}
}
}
ISIC Class 1410 ("Manufacture of wearing apparel, except fur apparel")...
...belongs to ISIC Group 141 (the industry object)...
...which belongs to ISIC Division 14 (the industry_group object)...
...which belongs to ISIC Section C (the sector object).
/companies/ endpoint at any level.
🔗 Official Resources#
For a complete understanding of ISIC Revision 5, including detailed explanatory notes and the full classification structure, refer to the official United Nations documents:Modified at 2025-08-16 08:27:28
