PSC vs NAICS codes: what each one is and where each appears

PSC stands for Product and Service Code. The PSC Manual, prepared by GSA's Federal Acquisition Service, provides codes that describe the products, services and research and development (R&D) the federal government buys. The manual says the codes indicate what was bought for each contract action reported in the Federal Procurement Data System (FPDS), and that when one contract covers several products or services the code is chosen for the predominant one.

A PSC has four characters, and which characters depends on the kind of code. The manual has product codes, service codes and R&D codes. Product codes are four digits, apart from the information technology product codes in group 7, which put a letter second. Service codes begin with a letter. An R&D code is two letters and two digits and always begins with A, and the manual says products bought in support of research get a product code, not an R&D code. So a PSC is not always four digits.

GSA's Entity Management API document likewise describes a PSC as a four-character code.

A NAICS code names an industry: the kind of business that supplies something or, on a solicitation, the one industry that best describes the principal purpose of what is being bought. A PSC names the thing bought: a product, a service or research. One question is which industry, the other is what was purchased, and the answer to one is not the answer to the other.

They also come from two different lists. NAICS codes are updated by the Office of Management and Budget and are available from the Census Bureau, and the PSC Manual is GSA's.

SAM.gov's entity registration checklist lists both in the Assertions section of an All Awards registration, under Goods and Services: NAICS codes, and Product Service Codes marked optional. The checklist's list of sections to prepare for a Financial Assistance Awards Only registration does not include Assertions.

For a registration displayed publicly, the Entity Management API document lists the same two under goods and services: a primary NAICS code, a list of NAICS codes and a list of PSCs. What to have ready before you register lists what SAM.gov asks to have on hand, the codes included.

FAR 19.102(b)(1) says contracting officers assign one NAICS code and its size standard to a solicitation, with an exception in FAR 19.102(b)(2) for some multiple-award contracts. The contracting officer picks the one industry that best describes the principal purpose of the product or service being acquired. Primary consideration goes to the industry descriptions in the U.S. NAICS Manual, the descriptions in the solicitation, the relative value and importance of the parts of the requirement and the function of the goods or services, and a procurement is usually classified by the part that accounts for the greatest share of contract value.

GSA's API documents show the codes as fields of a notice. The Get Opportunities document lists a NAICS code and a classification code as separate fields, and GSA's Opportunity Management document labels the classification code Product Service Code (PSC). Not every notice carries both: an award notice in the Get Opportunities document's examples shows both empty. How to find federal contracts is the guide on looking for notices at all.

FAR 19.102(a)(1) says SBA establishes small business size standards industry by industry, and SBA says it assigns a size standard to each NAICS code. SBA also says size standards vary by industry and are generally based on the number of employees or the amount of annual receipts, and it publishes them in a table that 13 CFR 121.201 carries too.

That is why the NAICS code on a solicitation matters: the contracting officer assigns the code together with its size standard (FAR 19.102(b)(1)). The sources read for this guide tie size standards to NAICS codes and none to a PSC. Whether a particular business is within a size standard is decided under SBA's rules, and it is a question for a free counselor or an attorney; the card just below this guide names where to ask.

The sources give a business no step-by-step method for choosing its own codes. SBA says a business will generally have a primary NAICS code and can have more than one if it sells more than one product or service, and the registration checklist marks PSCs as optional.

What the FAR does describe is how a contracting officer picks a NAICS code for a purchase: by reading the industry descriptions and comparing them with what is being bought, its function and its value. A business can read the same way from the seller's side, comparing a code's title and description with what it actually sells. More than one description can fit, which is why a business can have more than one code.

Which codes to list, which one comes first and any consequence for size are the owner's decisions, not this guide's and not Firmenza's. A free APEX Accelerator, SBDC or SCORE counselor, or an attorney, can go through the descriptions with the owner; the card just below this guide names where to ask.

Firmenza's free code finder searches the NAICS and PSC lists by words or by number, with no account. In the contract matches, the NAICS and PSC codes in a profile you save are compared with the codes on each notice, and each match shows what was compared. Contract opportunities in Firmenza goes through the matches, and your capability statement can carry your codes.

A code describes; it does not decide. A NAICS code does not say a business is small, eligible or qualified, and a PSC does not say a business can do the work or will be chosen for it. A notice's codes describe the purchase and not the reader's business, so a notice that shares a code with a business has not been shown to fit it. The notice itself says what it asks.

A set-aside is a separate field of a notice, listed apart from the codes in GSA's API document, and set-aside codes on notices goes through them. The rules a notice names, not a code, say who may compete under one. SBA's small business programs says what four of SBA's programs are and who decides, and where a business starts with federal contracts names the identifier, the registration and free counseling.