What changed in Section H in ISIC Rev. 5?

Section H in ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, keeps land, water and air transport, warehousing and support, and postal and courier as its core, with updated descriptions that reflect intermediation, platform based arranging and modern logistics. Altogether, the revision behind section h contains 22 sections from A to V, 87 divisions, 258 groups and 463 classes, and it was endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2023. Across Rev. 5, 18 new intermediation classes were added, and transport arranging is part of that wider change. The Rev. 5 publication and national correspondence tables remain the authority for any detailed mapping, and this guide only sketches the direction.

What did Rev. 5 change for a reader who already knew the older transport headings?

Section H in ISIC Rev. 5, published by the UN Statistics Division, keeps land, water and air transport, warehousing and support, and postal and courier as its core. What changed is the wording around them, so that arranging work, platform based booking, and modern logistics are described more plainly than before. A ride booked through an app, a delivery arranged online, and a shipment consolidated by a forwarder are no longer awkward fits for headings written before those models were common. Taken as a whole, the revision behind section h holds 22 sections from A to V, 87 divisions, 258 groups and 463 classes, and it was endorsed by the UN Statistical Commission in March 2023.

Across Rev. 5, 18 new intermediation classes were added, and transport arranging is part of that wider change. That matters for Section H because arranging used to hide inside the transport it arranged. When arranging is described in its own right, a platform that books journeys and a company that drives them are no longer forced into the same description simply because a customer sees one brand on screen.

How should a platform that arranges rides or deliveries be read?

A platform that arranges rides or deliveries may look like a transport operator to a customer, but the classification asks who operates the movement. If the platform only matches passengers with drivers, takes bookings, and handles payment, while other operators drive the vehicles, then the platform’s work is arranging, not operating. If the platform itself operates vehicles with its own drivers, the picture changes, because operation is then part of what it does.

That single question, who operates the movement, does more work than any detail about the app interface, the brand, or the payment screen. Two platforms with similar looking apps can therefore sit in different descriptions when one operates vehicles and the other only arranges them. National guidance should be checked for platform cases, because countries apply the Rev. 5 descriptions to local platform models in their own statistical practice, and the Rev. 5 publication remains the authority for the international wording.

What did the warehousing and logistics wording gain?

Updated warehousing and logistics descriptions reflect how goods now move through chains of storage, handling, and onward dispatch rather than sitting in a single shed until collected. Support activity wording was refined in step, so that terminal operation, cargo handling, and other services that make a journey possible are described with clearer edges against the transport itself. Channel and platform descriptions for booking and delivery were updated too, which helps a reader who meets a service first through a website or an app and only later asks what kind of work sits behind the screen.

Why does a researcher need a correspondence table before comparing old and new figures?

A researcher comparing transport output across revisions should use the official correspondence table before concluding that arranging work grew or shrank. Part of any apparent change may be reclassification of arranging work that was previously grouped with the transport it arranged. Imagine a series that once counted a booking service inside passenger transport, and now counts it as intermediation. The booking service did not appear or vanish in the real economy. Its description moved, and the numbers move with the description.

The same caution applies in reverse. A fall in a transport total after a revision may reflect arranging work moving out of that total, not fewer journeys. Correspondence tables map the old descriptions to the new ones, so a careful reader can separate a real change in activity from a change in how activity is described.

Treat this guide as background on a revision, not as a ruling on any firm, platform, or time series. It is general information about a statistical classification only, and it does not determine any reader’s code, principal activity, or registration. For a formal mapping or a formal record, confirm the position with the national statistical institute or business register that holds the record, working from the UN Statistics Division classification detail and the ISIC Rev. 5 publication listed in the frontmatter.