The short answer
An SBI code (Standaard Bedrijfsindeling, Standard Industrial Classification) is the five-digit code KVK gives each activity a business registers in the Dutch Handelsregister. CBS maintains the list. Its first four digits follow the European NACE classification, with few exceptions, and the fifth digit is Dutch. Since the weekend of 6 and 7 September 2025 the register uses SBI 2025, based on NACE Rev. 2.1, instead of SBI 2008, and KVK converted the existing codes itself. To find the right code for an activity, search the list at sbi.cbs.nl. To see another company's codes, use the KVK Bedrijvencheck, free 30 times a year, or order a KVK extract. For sales targeting, treat the code as a first cut only: companies describe their own activities, and 218 of the 934 old codes had more than one possible new code.
Facts below come from CBS and KVK pages and from CBS's own SBI 2025 structure file and SBI 2008 to SBI 2025 conversion table (version 2.0), read on 1 October 2026. The counts are ours, taken from those files.
What an SBI code is
SBI is a classification of economic activities. Every business that registers with KVK gets one or more SBI codes: you describe what the business does, and KVK assigns the matching code. CBS uses the codes for its statistics; insurers, banks, the tax authority and permit issuers use them too.
The classification is layered. The first two digits come from ISIC, the United Nations list. The first four follow NACE, the European list managed by Eurostat. The fifth level is Dutch detail added by CBS. Here is one full branch from the SBI 2025 structure:
Level | Code | Title | Shared with |
|---|---|---|---|
Section | A | Agriculture, forestry and fishing | ISIC, NACE |
Division | 01 | Crop and animal production, hunting and related service activities | ISIC, NACE |
Group | 01.1 | Growing of non-perennial crops | NACE |
Class | 01.13 | Growing of vegetables and melons, roots and tubers | NACE |
Dutch subclass | 01132 | Growing of vegetables in greenhouses | Netherlands only |
Counted from CBS's SBI 2025 structure file (version 2026): 22 sections, 87 divisions, 287 groups, 651 classes and 907 five-digit codes. Where a class has no Dutch subdivision, the five-digit code simply ends in 0: computer programming is class 62.10 and SBI code 62100.
SBI 2008 and SBI 2025
NACE is revised roughly every 15 years, and SBI follows. The previous version dated from 2008. The European revision, NACE Rev. 2.1, was legally approved in 2023, and CBS built SBI 2025 on it. The changes that matter most for list building:
Section letters moved. The old section J was split into J (publishing, broadcasting and content) and K (telecommunication, computer programming and information services). Every later section shifted one letter: financial services went from K to L, real estate from L to M, and so on.
Division 45 is gone. Trade in and repair of motor vehicles moved into wholesale (46), retail (47) and repair (95).
Retail no longer records the sales channel. The groups for market trading and for retail outside shops and markets disappeared. Codes now describe the products sold, not whether a company sells online.
Some codes merged. SBI 2008 had separate codes for IT consultancy (6202) and managing computer facilities (6203); both now convert to 62200.
When the switch happened. KVK moved the Handelsregister to SBI 2025 over the weekend of 6 and 7 September 2025, with its registers and data services offline from Friday evening, and published a conversion file for data users. New registrations get SBI 2025 codes. CBS is introducing SBI 2025 in its statistics step by step from 2026 to 2029, so for now many CBS figures are still on SBI 2008. CBS has since published a 2026 version of the SBI 2025 list.
How clean the conversion was. KVK did the reclassification largely automatically, and businesses did not have to do anything. CBS's conversion table lists 934 SBI 2008 codes. Of those, 716 have a single SBI 2025 successor and 218 have more than one. The spread is uneven: door-to-door selling has 60 possible successors, and mail-order and internet retail of food and drugstore goods has 17. Then, at the end of January 2026, KVK ran a recovery action and converted about 65,000 codes again, because seven codes had been missing from the CBS conversion schedule. The largest groups: about 32,000 interim managers moved from 70201 (organisational consultancy) to 70202 (management and business consultancy), and about 21,000 (online) marketing agencies moved from 73300 (PR and communication consultancy) to 73110 (advertising agencies).
How to look up an SBI code
The right code for an activity. Search sbi.cbs.nl, the CBS search tool for SBI 2025, which CBS says is still being developed. SBI 2008 is still searchable at sbi2008.cbs.nl. The full list is also available as Excel and PDF files.
Your own company. Log in to Mijn KVK. That is also where you change your activities if they no longer match.
Another company. Use the KVK Bedrijvencheck, free 30 times a year, or order an extract from the Handelsregister, which shows the registered activities. If you only have a name, start with finding the company's KVK number.
Many companies at once. The KVK open dataset is free, refreshed every working day, and contains SBI activities with the main activity marked. It covers only BVs and NVs, without name, KVK number or full postcode: it tells you how many companies sit under a code, not which ones.
Main and secondary activities
A business gets one SBI code for its main activity and a separate code for each additional activity. At registration KVK assigns at most three; more can be added afterwards. For a target list, decide first: filter on the main activity only and you miss companies whose relevant work is a sideline; filter on any activity and you pull in companies that registered something once and never grew it.
Why SBI codes are a weak targeting filter
They are self-described. KVK assigns the code from the company's own description. Keeping it current is the company's job, through Mijn KVK, and CBS cannot change a code itself.
They serve other purposes. The code decides insurance, permits and statistics, not how a buyer would describe the company, and it only changes when the company reports a change.
The 2025 conversion added noise. Where one old code had several successors, the code a company carries today may be KVK's best guess, and the January 2026 recovery shows how large a single missing mapping can be.
New activities have no code. There is no SBI code for "sells online" any more, and none for "does AI for logistics".
So use SBI as a coarse first cut, then narrow on something that reflects what a company does today: what its own website says, and how many people it employs. Building an ICP on filters that actually exist works through that translation field by field. In Bizzy, Dutch companies are covered through Creditsafe data: you can filter on official classification codes, including SBI, combine them with an employee count, and use Topic search over website content to keep only companies whose own site mentions what you sell. How that compares with other Dutch data sources is in the best B2B databases for the Netherlands, and turning a filtered list into conversations is covered in B2B leads in the Netherlands.
The Belgian counterpart: NACE-BEL
Belgium uses NACE-BEL. Both lists share the European four digits, so a class like 62.10 means the same thing in both countries, but the fifth digit is national and does not match across the border.
Netherlands: SBI | Belgium: NACE-BEL | |
|---|---|---|
Maintained by | CBS, together with KVK | Statbel |
New version in the register | SBI 2025, weekend of 6 and 7 September 2025 | NACE-BEL 2025, 1 January 2025 |
Old codes with more than one successor | 218 of 934 | 223 of 943 |
Codes per company | One main activity plus a code per additional activity | Several activity groups, registered by different bodies |
Look up one company | KVK Bedrijvencheck or extract | KBO Public Search, free |
The details, including the Belgian codes that were removed in January 2026, are in NACEBEL codes: how to look them up, and why yours may be wrong.
Frequently asked questions
What is an SBI code? The five-digit code KVK assigns to each activity of a business in the Handelsregister, from a list maintained by CBS.
How do I look up a company's SBI code? Use the KVK Bedrijvencheck, free 30 times a year, or order a KVK extract. For your own company, check Mijn KVK. To find the code for an activity, search sbi.cbs.nl.
When did KVK switch to SBI 2025? Over the weekend of 6 and 7 September 2025. A recovery action at the end of January 2026 converted about 65,000 codes again.
Is an SBI code the same as a NACE code? Up to four digits, with few exceptions, yes. The fifth digit is Dutch detail and does not match the Belgian NACE-BEL fifth digit.
Photo: the windmills of Kinderdijk, Michielverbeek, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons