NOGA codes in Switzerland: finding a company's code and segmenting a market

A NOGA code is the six-digit number the Federal Statistical Office (BFS) uses to classify a Swiss business by its main economic activity: 621000 for computer programming, 692000 for accounting and tax advice. The BFS gives one to every enterprise and every establishment in its Business and Enterprise Register (BUR), and does not publish it per company. A company sees its own code in the UID register after logging in. For any other company, you infer the code from what the company does.

To find the code for an activity, type a word that describes it into the Prospex NOGA code finder or into KUBB, the BFS's own coding tool. Both cover NOGA 2025, which the BUR has carried next to NOGA 2008 since 2026. The finder also accepts a NOGA 2008 code and shows the 2025 codes that continue it.

What a NOGA code is

NOGA stands for Nomenclature générale des activités économiques (in German, Allgemeine Systematik der Wirtschaftszweige). NOGA 2025 is the Swiss adaptation of the European classification NACE Rev. 2.1. Its first four levels are identical to NACE, and the fifth adds two digits for activities that matter in the Swiss economy (BFS, NOGA 2025 introduction).

Level	Format	Entries in NOGA 2025	Example
Section	1 letter	22	K Telecommunication, computer programming, consulting, computing infrastructure and other information service activities
Division	2 digits	87	62 Computer programming, consultancy and related activities
Group	3 digits	287	621 Computer programming activities
Class	4 digits	651	6210 Computer programming activities
Type	6 digits	798	621000 Computer programming activities

When a class has no Swiss subdivision, its type ends in 00, as 621000 does. Class 1051, manufacture of dairy products, has Swiss types: fresh dairy products (105101), cheese (105102) and other milk processing (105103). The full list, with labels in four languages and the notes on what each code includes, can be downloaded as CSV or JSON from the federal I14Y platform.

The BFS codes a company by the activity that adds the most value. Most Swiss SMEs report no value added by activity, so in practice the BFS takes the activity that employs the most people. A company has one NOGA code, and each of its establishments carries its own code as well.

How to find a company's NOGA code

Your own company

Log in to the UID register with the access details the BFS sent you by post. If you no longer have them, the UID hotline sends new ones. The BFS NOGA information service (noga@bfs.admin.ch) also gives a company its code by email, including the NOGA 2025 code: for now, the UID register shows logged-in users the NOGA 2008 code only (BFS NOGA FAQ).

The BFS changes a code in two cases: the company's main activity has changed, or the company was coded wrongly. The request goes through the NOGA code change request form, with whatever supports it. NOGA was built for statistics, but insurers and pension funds also use the codes on their own initiative, for example to set risk premiums, and the BFS takes no responsibility for that use.

Another company

The official code of another company is not public. The public search on uid.admin.ch shows a company's identity, address, register status and VAT status, and only authorised users see its NOGA code. Zefix and the cantonal commercial registers carry no NOGA code at all. What they publish is the purpose clause, the company's own legal description of its activity. To enrich a database with the official codes, the BFS refers you to the BUR, and fees may apply.

Only Geneva's cantonal register of enterprises, the REG, publishes a NOGA 2008 code for each company and establishment in the canton. Elsewhere, read the purpose and the company's website, decide what it mainly does, and look that activity up as in the example below.

Prospex assigns a NOGA 2025 code to Swiss companies with its own classifier, from the purpose in the register and the company's website, and for Geneva companies it converts the REG's 2008 code with the BFS correspondence table. These codes are Prospex's inference and can differ from the BFS's. On 20 October 2026, 143,852 of the 782,790 active companies in the commercial register had one, most of them down to the six-digit type.

Worked example: the code for an online toy shop

Suppose you need the code for a company that sells toys to consumers through its own web shop. Search for "toys" in the finder or in KUBB. Three six-digit types come back first:

• 476400 Retail sale of games and toys
• 464902 Wholesale of games and toys
• 324000 Manufacture of games and toys

The code depends on what the company does with the toys. Selling them to consumers is retail, selling them to shops is wholesale, and making them is manufacturing. The web shop sells to consumers, so its code is 476400. NOGA 2025 classifies retail by the goods sold, so a web shop and a toy shop on the high street share the same code.

Then read the notes on the type. 476400 also covers party supplies and toy drones. It excludes second-hand toys (477902) and video games on physical media (474000), so a shop that sells mostly used toys belongs in 477902.

Under NOGA 2008, the same company would have carried 479100, "Retail sale via mail order houses or via Internet", a class defined by the sales channel. In NOGA 2025, group 479 holds the intermediaries: platforms that bring buyers and sellers together for a fee without owning the goods.

NOGA 2008 vs NOGA 2025: what changed

The BFS published NOGA 2025 in January 2025 and recoded every unit of the BUR between September 2024 and 31 January 2026. Since 2026, every unit carries a NOGA 2025 code, and the BUR keeps the NOGA 2008 codes up to date until 2029. Each statistic that uses NOGA switches on its own schedule from 2026; the first figures on NOGA 2025 have the reference year 2025 (BFS, NOGA revision).

Both versions use the same code format, so a six-digit number needs its version next to it. Computer programming is 620100 in NOGA 2008 and 621000 in NOGA 2025. The section letters moved too: K is finance in NOGA 2008 and IT services in NOGA 2025, and M went from professional services to real estate. When a client, an insurer or a dataset hands you a code, ask which version it is.

The BFS correspondence table links the two versions. 429 types of NOGA 2008 match exactly one type of NOGA 2025, and the others merge, split or both: 479100 alone is spread over 46 types of NOGA 2025. A one-to-one code converts directly through the table. For a split code, the BFS conversion keys give the share of units, employees and full-time equivalents that moved to each new type. The keys are enough to convert counts of companies or employees; a list of named companies needs each company's code checked again. Every code page in the finder lists the 2008 codes it continues.

Using NOGA codes to segment a Swiss market

To size a market, BFS statistics such as STATENT publish enterprises and employees by NOGA code and canton; the guide on sizing a Swiss target market works one through for fiduciaries, NOGA 692000. A prospect list needs the six-digit type, and usually several of them, because a market seldom fits in one code.

Take a company that sells a code-security service to software firms in the cantons of Zurich and Zug. Its market spans at least two types:

• 621000 Computer programming activities: software written to order, including websites and apps.
• 582900 Other software publishing: companies that sell their own software, including cloud-based software.

622000, computer consultancy and facilities management, is worth adding if integrators who write code are buyers too. Each code page in the finder shows the official labels, what the code includes and excludes, and how many active Swiss companies Prospex counts under it, canton by canton. Its button starts the list in Market Builder. There, keep the two cantons, set a size band, and describe the ideal customer in a sentence, such as "software companies that release code every week". Market Builder ranks the companies by how well they match it.

A code records only the main activity, so a company whose secondary activity is the one you sell to sits in another code: an engineering firm with a large in-house software team, for example. Codes also group companies by what they produce, and two companies in different codes can buy the same product; the guide on finding companies like your best customers covers matching on what your customers have in common. Prospex's codes are inferred, so check the purpose of the companies at the edge of the list before you write to them.

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