NAICS code for automotive repair: 811111 and the other 8111 codes

This page is for shop owners and office managers putting a code on a loan or insurance form, SAM.gov or a fleet vendor portal, and for sellers who build lists of repair shops.

The automotive repair codes

Automotive repair sits in industry group 8111, Automotive Repair and Maintenance. The Census Bureau describes it as establishments whose mechanics diagnose and repair the mechanical and electrical systems of cars, trucks, vans and trailers, repair interiors, or paint and repair exteriors.

Car washes (811192) are the seventh code in the group, with their own car wash code page. Employees per establishment is our calculation from County Business Patterns.

The 2022 change most lookup sites miss

NAICS 2022 created 811114 by merging three 2017 codes: 811112 Automotive Exhaust System Repair, 811113 Automotive Transmission Repair and 811118 Other Automotive Mechanical and Electrical Repair and Maintenance. A transmission or muffler shop that registered years ago may still have 811113 or 811112 on file; update it. The same revision renumbered the retail codes that the repair codes point to: auto parts retailers moved from 441310 to 441330, tire dealers from 441320 to 441340, and gas stations from 4471 to 4571.

How to choose: the edge cases

The Census Bureau classifies a shop by the activity that brings in the most revenue. These cross-references settle the common cases:

Two rules cover the rest. A shop doing a wide range of work stays in 811111 even if brakes are its busiest job; 811114 is for specialists. And retail beats repair when the retail sale earns more, which is why tire chains and parts stores with service bays sit in retail. If you sell vehicles, the car dealership code page covers the 4411 codes, and if you sell fuel, see the gas station code page.

The SIC codes for auto repair

The 1987 SIC system put vehicle repair in Major Group 75, Automotive Repair, Services, and Parking. From the Census concordances:

So the SIC code for auto repair is 7538, and for a body shop 7532. Some keyword lookups offer SIC 7699, Repair Shops and Related Services, NEC, for "repair"; it covers locksmiths, septic tank cleaning and similar trades, not vehicles. The mapping isn't one to one in either direction: 811114 draws on three SIC codes, and SIC 7549 splits four ways. The NAICS to SIC converter shows every pair.

How many US repair shops use these codes

County Business Patterns 2023 counts 169,572 establishments in 8111, employing 992,292 people with $48.7 billion in annual payroll. General repair (811111) is 84,859 of them, with 403,389 employees and $21.4 billion in payroll, about $53,030 per employee. Body shops (811121) have 246,720 employees and pay about $60,720 per employee (both our calculations).

Census withheld the largest size class for both codes, so the bands sum to two fewer than the 811111 total and one fewer than 811121. The top states for general repair are California (9,799 establishments), Texas (6,340), New York (5,298), Florida (5,203) and Pennsylvania (4,533); for body shops, California (4,141), Texas (2,725), Florida (2,076), New York (2,004) and Illinois (1,534).

CBP counts locations with paid employees, not firms, and leaves out owner-mechanics with no staff. It uses NAICS 2017 codes, so the 811114 count is the sum of 811112, 811113 and 811118, and Census doesn't publish a size or state split for the merged code.

SBA size standards and federal work

From SBA's table effective 17 March 2023, still current in the eCFR on 28 October 2026, in average annual receipts over five fiscal years: 811111, 811114 and 811121 are $9.0 million, 811198 is $10.0 million, 811191 is $11.0 million and 811122 is $17.5 million.

Federal contract obligations under 811111 were $325.6 million in fiscal 2024 and $321.3 million in fiscal 2025, and the Defense Department placed $287.4 million of the 2025 total. Body and paint (811121) rose from $18.9 million to $54.2 million. Each solicitation carries one NAICS code chosen by the contracting officer, so a shop bidding for fleet work is judged against that code's standard.

Where the code is used, and what a wrong one costs

• Insurance and lending. Underwriters and lenders often benchmark you against shops in the same code, so a body shop filed as 811111 is compared with smaller mechanical shops.
• Tax returns. Schedule C uses shortened codes: 811110 for mechanical and electrical repair, 811120 for body, paint, interior and glass, and 811190 for other repair, oil change shops and car washes.
• Federal registration. A wrong primary code in SAM.gov hides you from buyers' searches, and a 2017 code such as 811113 no longer exists.

Finding repair shops by code

Public companies in this business file under SEC SIC 7500, Services-Automotive Repair, Services & Parking (EDGAR list for SIC 7500). The SEC code describes the company, not each shop, and one large operator files elsewhere:

Valvoline keeps a manufacturing SIC code though its 10-K describes a quick-lube retailer, so SIC-only lists miss it. Most shops are independent: state repair-facility licenses (California's Bureau of Automotive Repair has a public license search), local business licenses and franchise disclosure documents name them. Bebop finds independents from a description, such as collision shops with 10 to 49 employees in Texas.

Worked example

Illustrative example. The shop and its figures are invented; the counts and size standard are from Census and SBA.

Northgate Auto Care (northgate.example) earned $1.9 million last year: $1.05 million from general repair and diagnostics, $0.55 million from selling and fitting new tires, and $0.30 million from oil changes.

1. Primary code. General repair is 55.3% of revenue ($1.05 million of $1.9 million), so the code is 811111, not 441340. If tire sales grew past repair, the shop would become a tire dealer.
2. SIC. Its insurer's form asks for SIC, and 811111 traces to 7538.
3. Size. Average receipts of about $1.7 million are far under the $9.0 million standard, so Northgate can bid small business set-asides for base fleet maintenance.

A seller of shop management software uses the same codes the other way: 811111 and 811121 together have 16,299 establishments with 10 to 49 employees (8,037 plus 8,262), the shops big enough to run several bays and a service advisor.

Next step: see how codes map across systems in the NAICS to SIC converter, or look up any other code in the NAICS code lookup.