The United Nations Standard Products and Services Code (UNSPSC) is a

taxonomy image:Hierarchical clustering diagram.png, 280px, Generalized scheme of taxonomy Taxonomy is a practice and science concerned with classification or categorization. Typically, there are two parts to it: the development of an underlying scheme o ...

of products and services for use in

eCommerce E-commerce (electronic commerce) refers to commercial activities including the electronic buying or selling products and services which are conducted on online platforms or over the Internet. E-commerce draws on technologies such as mobile comm ...

. It is a four-level hierarchy coded as an eight-digit number, with an optional fifth level adding two more digits. The latest release (August 14, 2023) of the code set is 26.0801. The third newest UNv24.0301 release contains 740 changes to the previous UNSPSC version UNv23.0701 which are 721 new items added, 12 existing items edited, 6 existing items moved, and 1 existing item deleted. The new UNv24.0301 release contains 157,116 total items. The changes include a new Segment 57000000 -Humanitarian Relief Items, Kits, or Accessories, requested by United Nation Global Marketplace (UNGM); additional codes were added to support the

United States Department of Agriculture The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is an executive department of the United States federal government that aims to meet the needs of commercial farming and livestock food production, promotes agricultural trade and producti ...

's Specialty Crops Inspection at the U.S. border. The UNSPSC competes with a number of other product and commodity coding schemes, including the European Union's Common Procurement Vocabulary, ECLASS, and GS1's Global Product Classification.

History

The UNSPSC was organized upon the signature of a Memorandum of Understanding signed on September 29, 1998, by John S. Svendsen, the director of the Inter-agency Procurement Services Office (IAPSO) of the

United Nations Development Programme The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) is a United Nations agency tasked with helping countries eliminate poverty and achieve sustainable economic growth and human development. The UNDP emphasizes on developing local capacity towar ...

(UNDP) and on November 1, 1998, by Lawrence M. Barth, a Vice President of the Dun & Bradstreet Corporation. The development of the first version was overseen by Peter R. Benson, who was also responsible for the design and development of the code management procedure as a modification of the Delphi statistical forecasting method. The process allowed for the rapid development of consensus without dominance or influence. The

ECCMA The Code Management AssociationUS-DE.BER:3031657 trading as the Electronic Commerce Code Management Association (ECCMA) is an international not for profit membership association founded in 1999 with the mission to champion the development and ado ...

, a non-profit membership association, was formed in 1999 to manage and promote the UNSPSC until March 2003, with the release of version 6.0315. The UNDP then appointed

GS1 US GS1 is a not-for-profit, international organization developing and maintaining its own standards for barcodes and the corresponding issue company prefixes. The best known of these standards is the barcode, a symbol printed on products that ca ...

as code manager in May 2003 and ECCMA developed the ECCMA Open Technical Dictionary (eOTD) and the international standards ISO 22745 and ISO 8000.

Description

The four primary levels of the code are: Segment, Family, Class and Commodity. Each level is coded in two decimal digits, with '00' treated specially to give segments, families and classes their own eight-digit codes. Thus 'Cats' are coded as 10101501, 'Dogs' are coded as 10101502 and 'Cattle' as 10101516. The class of 'Livestock' is 10101500; the family of 'Live animals' is 10100000, and all in the segment 10000000 of 'Live Plant and Animal Material and Accessories and Supplies'. Optionally, a further two digits can be added for the business function, such as 'retail' or wholesale.

Top levels

The first two levels are as follows. * UNSPSC ** Raw Materials, Chemicals, Paper, Fuel *** Live Plant and Animal Material and Accessories and Supplies *** Mineral and Textile and Inedible Plant and Animal Materials *** Chemicals including Bio Chemicals and Gas Materials *** Resin and Rosin and Rubber and Foam and Film and Elastomeric Materials *** Paper Materials and Products *** Fuels and Fuel Additives and Lubricants and Anti corrosive Materials ** Industrial Equipment & Tools *** Mining and Well Drilling Machinery and Accessories *** Farming and Fishing and Forestry and Wildlife Machinery and Accessories *** Industrial Manufacturing and Processing Machinery and Accessories *** Material Handling and Conditioning and Storage Machinery and their Accessories and Supplies *** Power Generation and Distribution Machinery and Accessories *** Tools and General ** Components & Supplies *** Structures and Building and Construction and Manufacturing Components and Supplies *** Manufacturing Components and Supplies *** Electronic Components and Supplies *** Electrical Systems and Lighting and Components and Accessories and Supplies ** Construction, Transportation & Facility Equipment & Supplies *** Building and Construction Machinery and Accessories *** Commercial and Military and Private Vehicles and their Accessories and Components *** Distribution and Conditioning Systems and Equipment and Components *** Land and Buildings and Structures and Thoroughfares ** Medical, Laboratory & Test Equipment & Supplies & Pharmaceuticals *** Laboratory and Measuring and Observing and Testing Equipment *** Medical Equipment and Accessories and Supplies *** Drugs and Pharmaceutical Products ** Food, Cleaning & Service Industry Equipment & Supplies *** Cleaning Equipment and Supplies *** Service Industry Machinery and Equipment and Supplies *** Food Beverage and Tobacco Products ** Business, Communication & Technology Equipment & Supplies *** Information Technology Broadcasting and Telecommunications *** Office Equipment and Accessories and Supplies *** Printing and Photographic and Audio and Visual Equipment and Supplies *** Published Products ** Defense, Security & Safety Equipment & Supplies *** Defense and Law Enforcement and Security and Safety Equipment and Supplies *** Humanitarian Relief Items, Kits, or Accessories ** Personal, Domestic & Consumer Equipment & Supplies *** Sports and Recreational Equipment and Supplies and Accessories *** Domestic Appliances and Supplies and Consumer Electronic Products *** Apparel and Luggage and Personal Care Products *** Timepieces and Jewelry and Gemstone Products *** Furniture and Furnishings *** Musical Instruments and Games and Toys and Arts and Crafts and Educational Equipment and Materials and Accessories and Supplies ** Services *** Financial Instruments, Products, Contracts and Agreements *** Bank offered products *** Securities *** Insurable interest contracts *** Governmental property right conferrals *** Farming and Fishing and Forestry and Wildlife Contracting Services *** Mining and oil and gas services *** Building and Facility Construction and Maintenance Services *** Industrial Production and Manufacturing Services *** Industrial Cleaning Services *** Environmental Services *** Transportation, Storage and Mail Services *** Management and Business Professionals and Administrative Services *** Engineering and Research and Technology Based Services *** Editorial and Design and Graphic and Fine Art Services *** Public Utilities and Public Sector Related Services *** Financial and Insurance Services *** Healthcare Services *** Education and Training Services *** Travel and Food, Lodging and Entertainment Services *** Personal and Domestic Services *** National Defense and Public Order and Security and Safety Services *** Politics and Civic Affairs Services *** Organizations and Clubs

Governance

The UNSPSC was jointly developed by the

(UNDP) and

Dun & Bradstreet The Dun & Bradstreet Holdings, Inc. (D&B) is an American company that provides commercial data, analytics, and insights for businesses. Headquartered in Jacksonville, Florida, the company offers a wide range of products and services for risk a ...

in 1998 and is currently managed by

, which is responsible for overseeing code change requests, revising the codes and issuing regularly scheduled updates to the code, as well as managing special projects and initiatives.

Availability and languages

The codeset is available in English, French,

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many countries in the Americas **Spanish cuisine **Spanish history **Spanish culture ...

Italian Italian(s) may refer to: * Anything of, from, or related to the people of Italy over the centuries ** Italians, a Romance ethnic group related to or simply a citizen of the Italian Republic or Italian Kingdom ** Italian language, a Romance languag ...

Japanese Japanese may refer to: * Something from or related to Japan, an island country in East Asia * Japanese language, spoken mainly in Japan * Japanese people, the ethnic group that identifies with Japan through ancestry or culture ** Japanese diaspor ...

Korean Korean may refer to: People and culture * Koreans, people from the Korean peninsula or of Korean descent * Korean culture * Korean language **Korean alphabet, known as Hangul or Korean **Korean dialects **See also: North–South differences in t ...

Dutch Dutch or Nederlands commonly refers to: * Something of, from, or related to the Netherlands ** Dutch people as an ethnic group () ** Dutch nationality law, history and regulations of Dutch citizenship () ** Dutch language () * In specific terms, i ...

Mandarin Chinese Mandarin ( ; zh, s=, t=, p=Guānhuà, l=Mandarin (bureaucrat), officials' speech) is the largest branch of the Sinitic languages. Mandarin varieties are spoken by 70 percent of all Chinese speakers over a large geographical area that stretch ...

, Portuguese, Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, and Hungarian. The latest

PDF Portable document format (PDF), standardized as ISO 32000, is a file format developed by Adobe Inc., Adobe in 1992 to present documents, including text formatting and images, in a manner independent of application software, computer hardware, ...

version of the codeset is available for download at no cost, though a user account is required and can be created (also at no cost). A version in

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format is available to members, who can also request changes and suggest additions to the code.

Notes

External links

* {{Official website, www.unspsc.org Dun & Bradstreet Product classifications Identifiers United Nations Development Programme