NACE Rev. 2 to Rev. 2.1 correspondence table explained

The NACE correspondence table published by Eurostat shows, for every NACE Rev. 2 class, where its activities belong in NACE Rev. 2.1. It is the tool for converting old codes, but it does not hand you a single new code for every old one. Of the 615 old classes, 354 have a clean one-to-one match. For the rest you need to know which kind of link you are looking at.

What the correspondence table is

A correspondence table between two versions of a classification lists pairs of codes: an old heading and a new heading that takes over some or all of its content. Eurostat describes it as showing, for each NACE Rev. 2 heading, how the activities classified there should be classified in NACE Rev. 2.1. The tables exist in both directions, from Rev. 2 to Rev. 2.1 and back.

Each row is one link. If an old code appears in one row only, all of its activities move to one new code. If it appears in several rows, the class has been divided, and the row alone does not tell you which part of your business goes where. That information is in the explanatory notes of the new classes.

The four link types, with official counts

The NACE Rev. 2.1 manual groups all 615 classes of NACE Rev. 2 into four types (based on version 1.05 of the correspondence table):

The n-to-m group is the one that causes work. In these cases the combined scope of a set of old classes equals the combined scope of a set of new classes, but no single old class lines up with a single new one. Retail is the extreme case: NACE Rev. 2 class 47.91 (retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet) links to 32 classes in NACE Rev. 2.1, because online shops are now classified by the goods they sell.

We checked these figures against our own data. The German correspondence WZ 2008 → WZ 2025, reduced to the four-digit class, gives exactly 25 merged and 11 split classes, but 348 one-to-one and 231 n-to-m instead of 354 and 225. We have not traced the six differences to individual rows. For statistical work, use the Eurostat table itself.

Examples from the table

Note that “one-to-one” does not mean “same number”. 62.01 becomes 62.10 with an unchanged title. The IT examples are covered in more detail in NACE code for software and IT companies.

Converting codes: the forward view

If your task is to convert stored Rev. 2 codes, the official typology is less useful than a simpler question: does the old class have one target or several? Counted that way on the class-level links (again from the German table), the 615 old classes break down as follows:

• 372 keep their four-digit code and have no other target.
• 77 have exactly one target under a different number.
• 166 have two or more targets.

The first two groups, 449 classes, can be converted automatically in the forward direction. A merged class like 62.03 is harmless here: everything in it goes to 62.20. Only the 166 classes with several targets need a decision per company. The reverse direction is harder, because a new class such as 62.20 cannot tell you which of its two predecessors a company came from.

How to handle split classes

For a class with several targets, the old code only narrows the choice. The new code depends on what the company does today. A workable order:

1. List the candidate classes from the table for the old code.
2. Read the explanatory notes of each candidate, especially the “excludes” lines. They usually decide the case.
3. Compare them with a current business description, not with the old code title. A company filed under 63.11 in 2015 may be a pure hosting provider (63.10) or a video streaming service (60.20).
4. If the company does several things, apply the principal activity rule: the activity with the largest share of value added wins, determined top-down from section to class.
5. Store the old code, the new code and the reason, so the decision can be checked later.

If you have thousands of split cases, do not look them up by hand one at a time. Reclassify them from their descriptions and review the uncertain ones. The NACE Finder does exactly that for a single description. Official time series are handled differently: for many statistical domains, Eurostat and the national statistical offices publish backcast series for past periods instead of recoding company by company.

The national versions follow the same class-level links, with their own subdivisions below: NAF 2025 in France, ATECO 2025 in Italy and ÖNACE 2025 in Austria. INSEE (NAF rév. 2 → NAF 2025) and ISTAT (ATECO 2022 ↔ ATECO 2025) publish their own correspondence tables that include the national subdivisions.

Where to find the table

Eurostat publishes the NACE Rev. 2 – NACE Rev. 2.1 correspondence tables on ShowVoc, its platform for statistical classifications, linked from the correspondence tables page of its NACE site. ShowVoc also shows the explanatory notes for every class. For the full list of new sections and divisions, see the NACE Rev. 2.1 code list. The main structural changes are summarised in NACE Rev. 2 vs NACE Rev. 2.1: what changed.