NIGP Code

The NIGP Commodity/Services Code is a classification schema that was created in the mid 1980's as a result of efforts by public procurement officials in Texas, Oklahoma, Florida, Illinois and other states, cities and counties to provide a mechanism to classify the products and services that public entities procure. Led by Homer Forrestor, the Director or General Services in Texas, the group produced the initial codeset in 1983. The copyright for the data file was transferred to the National Institute of Governmental Purchasing and the NIGP Code was born.

The NIGP Code is structured as follows: Click here for a sample of the NIGP Code.

3-Digit Class Code The 3-Digit class Code has a brief general description. This level contains 209 Commodity (Product) Classes and 55 Service Classes totaling 264 Classes. The 3-Digit Code is primarily used to generate periodic expenditure history by department for fiscal planning, budget execution, and accounting.

5-Digit Class-Item Code The 5-Digit class-item Code is an expanded version of the 3-Digit class Code. Currently, it contains over 8,200 descriptions. This level categorizes vendors by class-item to allow your procurement software to automate bidder selection, produce no-bid response reports, vendor performance reports, and minority business and HUB reports by Code. Purchase history can be captured at this level as well.

7-Digit Class-Item-Group Code The 7-Digit Code provides an additional level of purchase description. It contains over 36,000 descriptions. It can be used to develop a specification file and is used with the 11-Digit Code to create a comprehensive purchase description.

11-Digit Class-Item-Group-Detail Code The 11-Digit Code is generally used to create, manage, and maintain line-item term contracts. It is also used to identify stock items in inventory. This level of the Code currently contains over 485,000 descriptions which provides a great amount of flexibility when creating contracts and tracking inventory.

The NIGP Code is in use by 33 states within the United States and thousands of political subdivisions in North America. A web search tool, the NIGP Living Code, facilitates searching and downloading of the Code for licensees. The NIGP Code is managed and licensed by Periscope Holdings, Inc., on behalf of NIGP under an exclusive licensing agreement. The firm offers phone support, training, and commodity coding services for the conversion of contract and inventory files.