What are warehousing and support activities for transportation in ISIC Rev. 5?

Warehousing and support activities for transportation in ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, cover storing goods and helping transport operations run smoothly without themselves moving people or goods over a route. Warehousing stores goods in warehouses, cold stores and similar facilities. Support activities include operating terminals and stations, cargo handling, and other services that make a journey or a shipment possible. The distinction is between movement and the infrastructure and handling around movement, and both are essential to a transport system.

What work counts when nothing is travelling?

Warehousing and support activities for transportation in ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, cover storing goods and helping transport operations run smoothly without themselves moving people or goods over a route. Warehousing stores goods in warehouses, cold stores and similar facilities. Support activities include operating terminals and stations, cargo handling, and other services that make a journey or a shipment possible. The distinction is between movement and the infrastructure and handling around movement, and both are essential to a transport system.

The activities below on warehousing and support activities for transportation are described in ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, as part of this grouping. Read the list as a set of examples of the kind of work included, not as a complete code list, since the full publication gives the authoritative detail.

Activity	Note
Warehousing and storage of goods	Described in this grouping in ISIC Rev. 5
Operation of transport terminals and stations	Described in this grouping in ISIC Rev. 5
Cargo handling	Described in this grouping in ISIC Rev. 5
Other support activities for transportation	Described in this grouping in ISIC Rev. 5
Storage in specialised facilities such as cold stores where described in Rev. 5	Described in this grouping in ISIC Rev. 5

A list or a table cannot capture every case, so an activity that is not listed here may still belong in the grouping if the full class description covers it, and a listed activity may need closer checking in a mixed business.

How do a logistics firm and its landlord show the boundary in one building?

A logistics firm that stores goods, picks orders and loads lorries illustrates warehousing and support together. Goods arrive and are checked in, placed in racking or cold storage, picked against orders as customers buy, packed, and loaded onto lorries for onward delivery. Every step is a service performed on goods that belong to someone else, and the firm’s core work happens inside the warehouse and at the loading bay.

A landlord who simply lets a warehouse building to that firm illustrates a different activity, even though the same building is involved. The landlord provides the premises, collects rent, and maintains the structure, but does not store, pick, or load any goods. The building is the same, the address is the same, and the work is different, because one party operates storage services and the other only provides property. That contrast is the clearest way to see the grouping: operation of storage and handling, not mere ownership of a shed.

Cold stores add a further shade: a cold store operator keeps goods at controlled temperatures and releases stock in usable condition, which is storage with a technical service wrapped around it, while a firm that only rents out refrigerated space without operating storage is closer to property.

Where does support end and arranging begin?

Owning a warehouse and renting it out without operating storage services is closer to real estate, and a firm that only arranges transport without handling goods is closer to intermediation. The classification looks at whether storage or handling is actually operated, not merely whether a building exists. A terminal operator who runs the gates, the yards, and the loading equipment is doing support work. An agent who books space on a lorry or a ship without touching the goods is doing arranging work. Both help a shipment move, and they help in different ways.

How is this grouping organised inside Rev. 5?

For warehousing and support activities for transportation, the UN Statistics Division Rev. 5 structure narrows stepwise from broad sections to classes. A section such as the one discussed here gives the broad field, a division narrows it, a group narrows it further, and a class describes a specific kind of activity. So, for warehousing and support activities for transportation, read a code by taking each level in turn, rather than guessing from the section letter alone. National versions may add further detail below the class, but the international structure provides the shared frame for statistics.

Use this guide as orientation to ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, and treat its descriptions as background for a formal question, not as the answer to one. It is general information about a statistical classification only, and it does not settle any reader’s code, principal activity, or registration. For a code that will be recorded formally, confirm it with the national statistical institute or business register that holds the record.