How to find German companies by industry: NACE codes, German keywords and register data

If you want to sell into Germany, the first question is simple: which German companies actually do what your customers do? Germany has around 2.3 million active companies in its commercial, partnership and cooperative registers. Finding the few hundred that fit your ideal customer profile depends on two things: the right industry codes and the right German words. This guide shows how both work and how to combine them.

German industry codes: WZ and NACE

Germany classifies economic activities with the WZ (Klassifikation der Wirtschaftszweige), published by the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis). The WZ is the German version of the European NACE classification. Its levels are section (one letter), division (two digits), group (three digits), class (four digits) and, as a German addition, a five-digit subclass.

Two editions are in use. WZ 2008 is based on NACE Rev. 2. WZ 2025, in force since 1 January 2025, is based on NACE Rev. 2.1 and is gradually replacing WZ 2008; until the switch is complete, both are used in parallel (Destatis). If you compare codes from different sources, check which edition each one uses.

For a foreign sales team, the useful point is this: up to the four-digit class, a German WZ code matches the European NACE code. If your CRM already uses NACE codes for other EU markets, you can reuse them for Germany. The five-digit subclass is a German refinement.

Why the official code is hard to get

The official WZ code of a company is assigned by the statistical office of its federal state and recorded in the statistical business register, based on the company’s main activity (Destatis FAQ). Third parties generally cannot look it up. Statistik.NRW, for example, certifies a company’s code to the company itself, and to anyone else only with a current power of attorney (Statistik.NRW).

What is public is the business purpose (Unternehmensgegenstand). Every GmbH must state it in its articles of association (§ 3 GmbHG) and in its commercial register entry (§ 10 GmbHG); the same applies to the AG (§ 39 AktG). It is written in German. Data providers, including Implisense, derive industry codes from this text and other public sources.

Why German keywords beat English ones

German companies describe themselves in German, and many niches have no NACE class of their own. Label printers are a good example: in NACE they fall into the broad class 18.12 “Other printing”, together with almost every other print shop.

We tested this in the Implisense Platform: a search for “label printing” returned more than 1,000 companies, most of them matched only through the class “Other printing”. A search for the German term “Etikettendruck” returned 383 companies, and most of the top results were label printers. The code narrows the field; the German keyword finds the niche.

Step by step: building a German target list

1. Write down your ideal customer in your own words. What they make or do, where they are, how big they are, which legal forms, and whom to exclude (competitors, groups, existing customers).
2. Find the NACE class. Look up the activity on the German classification server or use the NACE code you already know.
3. Collect German keywords and synonyms. For label printers: Etikettendruck, Etiketten, Haftetiketten, Rollenetiketten. A German-speaking colleague or the companies’ own websites help.
4. Narrow by region. Germany has 16 federal states (Bundesländer). Postal code areas work well for regional cuts: the first digit or two of a German postal code roughly maps to a region.
5. Narrow by size and legal form. The EU SME size classes (micro, small, medium, large) are a practical first filter. A GmbH & Co. KG is a limited partnership whose general partner is a GmbH, a legal form often used by family-owned companies.
6. Check a sample by hand. Open 10 to 20 profiles and read the business purpose and the website. If many do not fit, adjust your keywords before you pull the full list.

With Implisense

• In the Platform, you search by company name, industry or description and filter by industry code, postal code, size and more. Search costs no Implicents. The free plan shows the first 20 results; Plus (€59 per month, excl. VAT) pages through up to 1,000 (pricing).
• Via the API, the search parameter industry accepts WZ 2008 codes or prefixes, several comma-separated (API documentation).
• As a ready-made list, we do the translation for you: you describe your ideal customer in English, we send a free sample of 20 matching companies, and you receive the full list as Excel. Lead lists start at €249 (Selling into Germany).

The honest limits

• Our industry code is not the official one. Implisense assigns WZ codes itself (currently WZ 2008, up to three per company); it does not take them from the statistical business register.
• Company descriptions are in German. Industry names are shown in English in the English interface, but business purposes and descriptions stay in German.
• Not every company has a business purpose on record. Sole traders and partnerships are not obliged to register one the way a GmbH is; companies without a register entry have none at all.
• Some criteria are not in any register. Which machines a company runs, or who its customers are, has to be researched per company, for example from websites and news.

Checklist

1. Ideal customer profile written down, including exclusions.
2. NACE class identified.
3. German keywords and synonyms collected.
4. Region (federal states or postal code areas) and size class chosen.
5. A sample of 10 to 20 companies checked by hand.
6. Full list pulled, with the code edition (WZ 2008 or WZ 2025) noted in your CRM.

Want to try it? Create a free account and search German companies by industry, or request a free sample list.