The ISIC code: how a company’s activity is classified

On any company profile of this directory there is a line saying what it does, and next to it an odd code: a letter followed by several digits. That code is what makes it possible to answer questions like "how many hardware stores are there in Machala" or "what does the food sector move", and also what makes a business appear, or not, where it should. It is worth understanding.

What ISIC is

ISIC is the International Standard Industrial Classification, the United Nations nomenclature of economic activities; in Spanish it is called CIIU. Ecuador applies its fourth version, revision 4, adapted as the national classification by the Instituto Nacional de Estadística y Censos (INEC), the statistics institute. Being international is precisely its charm: it lets one country's productive structure be compared with another's without translating anything.

How to read a code

It reads left to right, and each character adds precision. The international structure has four levels, and the national adaptation adds its own below:

• Section. One letter, A through U: the 21 big sectors of the economy, such as agriculture, manufacturing, trade, construction, transport or financial services.
• Division. Two digits. It splits the section into large families.
• Group. Three digits.
• Class. Four digits. The last international level.
• National levels. The ones the INEC adds to descend to the concrete, already very specific activity.

This directory publishes five levels, from the 21 sectors down to the specific activity with the companies that declare it. Each level is its own page, and walking down the tree is the natural way to go from "trade" to "retail sale of hardware".

A detail that throws off first-time readers: the official names tend to be very long, because after the comma they carry the list of examples the INEC uses to bound the category. It is not a profile error; it is the class's full name.

Who decides the code

The company itself declares it when it registers and when it updates its RUC, choosing from the catalog. No inspector visits the business to assign it: it is a declaration, and as such it depends on the declarer choosing well. From there come most of the oddities visible in the registry.

That is why it pays to mind it from the start: the corporate purpose drafted when incorporating the company is what later guides the choice of code.

Main and secondary activities

A business rarely does one single thing. The RUC registry distinguishes the main activity (the one generating the most income) from the secondary ones, and each establishment can have its own. The classification a business appears under on this site's sector and activity pages rests on the main one, which is the one that represents it in the registry.

Why it does not always describe today

This is the limitation to keep in mind when using this data:

• Businesses change and the code does not update itself. A company that started as an importer and today builds software may stay classified as an importer until someone corrects it.
• The "closest" code gets picked. When no class fits fully, the most similar one is chosen, and very new activities end up scattered across generic categories.
• Group parents (holdings) and companies created only to hold stakes cluster under financial or management activity classes, even when their real businesses sit elsewhere.

None of that invalidates the classification: it works very well as a clue, and very poorly as proof. If you are verifying a specific counterparty, the code is one more data point within the full check. And if the business claims to do one thing and has something very different registered, ask why.

What it is for, in practice

• Sizing a sector: how many companies compete in a trade, where they are and how big they are.
• Finding suppliers or customers by activity and territory, instead of by name.
• Meeting requirements: there are obligations, permits and regimes that depend on the registered activity.
• Comparing over time and across countries, which is what the classification was invented for.

How to browse it in this directory

Start at the activities index, which lists the 21 sectors with each one's company count, and descend level by level to the activity you care about: each page shows the companies declaring it, their aggregate figures and the trade's largest. And if you are after a specific company, the search box takes a name, a trade name or a RUC.