SCI NAF code: 68.20A or 68.20B, which one fits yours?

Which NAF code for your SCI?#

The NAF code, also called APE code, is assigned by Insee, the national statistics office, based on the activity you declare. It "then corresponds to the activity declared in these business filings" (Insee). Here is the code for each activity.

Buying to resell gets 68.10Z. But according to Service-Public (the French government's public information site), "commercial activities, such as buying and reselling, are forbidden. To carry on this type of activity, you should choose a suitable commercial structure, such as a SAS (a French simplified joint-stock company) or a SARL (a French limited liability company)." Furnished rental is a separate case: it is allowed, but it changes the tax treatment (see the section on taxes).

Does your SCI rent out both housing year-round and commercial premises? It has only one code. For businesses with multiple activities, Service-Public defines the main activity as the one that generates the most revenue: "the main activity is the one with the highest revenue". Compare the rent from your housing with the rent from your commercial premises: the larger total determines your code. If in doubt, describe both activities to Insee in your request. A studio rented out seasonally does not count as year-round housing: it falls under the "short stays" row.

Does your SCI only hold the family house, without renting it out? No official rule gives its code, and the guides contradict each other. According to Insee, 68.32B covers structures that manage real-estate assets without producing anything, such as an indivision (joint ownership of undivided property). Describe your situation to Insee or to your accountant to check your code.

To learn what a NAF code is for in general, read NAF code or APE code: what it is for and how to find yours.

How do you check and correct your SCI's code?#

Getting a wrongly assigned code corrected costs nothing. Here are the first two steps, then the three possible cases.

Does the NAF code change the SCI's taxes?#

No. According to Service-Public: "The APE code has no legal value. It cannot be used to justify applying or withholding certain rights." What matters for tax is what the SCI does. The code shows the declared activity, without proving what the SCI does: according to Insee, it "only provides a presumption of activity, and is not formal proof".

According to Service-Public: "By default, the SCI falls under the income tax regime (IR)." Furnished rental is an exception. According to impots.gouv.fr: "An SCI that owns furnished property must declare it as a commercial activity. It pays corporate income tax on the rent received, after deduction of the costs related to the rental." There is an exception to this rule: the commercial activity can remain incidental. The tax authority considers that "beyond 10% of revenue excluding tax, the commercial activity is no longer incidental and the SCI must be subject to IS", corporate income tax.

Code 68.20A covers "the rental of apartments and houses, unfurnished or furnished, intended as a main or secondary residence". So it says nothing about the tax regime: an SCI coded 68.20A can be under IR or under IS.

What happens to your SCI's code on January 1, 2027?#

According to Insee: "From January 1, 2027, NAF 2025 will be the new reference classification for assigning APE codes." "NAF 2025" is the name of the new list of codes. All codes change, including those of SCIs. The safest approach is to check the future codes for your headquarters and other locations on sirene.gouv.fr: all through 2026, the site "shows companies the (future) APE code in NAF 2025 of all their locations and lets them request its correction, if needed" (Insee). Nothing to do if the label fits; otherwise, ask for the correction of this 2027 code on sirene.gouv.fr during 2026, as in the verification callout.

Here is the most common future code for each current headquarters code. There are exceptions: check the code of your headquarters on sirene.gouv.fr.

Insee already excludes from 68.20A accommodations "intended for short stays". In 2027, the dividing line will be the length of the stay: according to Insee's official table, "the supply of furnished or unfurnished houses and apartments for a period of less than one year" will move from 68.20A to 55.90Y. If your SCI rents out furnished property for a few months, check its future code.

What our census of the 1.9 million SCIs shows#

We recorded the code of each of these active SCIs in the Sirene register, the official file of businesses kept by Insee. Here is the result:

• 85 in 100 have 68.20B, the code for offices, stores, land and garages;
• 11 in 100 have 68.20A, the code for housing;
• just over 1 in 100 has 68.32A, the code for managing property on behalf of third parties;
• a little more than 1 in 100 still has the provisional code 00.00Z, the placeholder code described in the box.

These are the current codes of SCIs that are still active, rather than the codes they received when they were formed. Among the SCIs created in the 1990s, almost 1 in 3 has 68.20A. Among those formed since 2023, only 1 in 70 has that code, and 1 in 22 still has the provisional code 00.00Z.

The code also varies by département (French county-level area; detail in the block below).

The code therefore varies noticeably depending on when and where the SCI was formed. Do not copy another SCI's code, even one close to yours: check yours. For the size of the market, and who these SCIs are, see our study on the number of SCIs in France.

Frequently asked questions#

APE code, NAF code, legal category: what is the difference?#

The APE code and the NAF code mean the same thing for your SCI. The NAF is the list of activity codes, and the APE code (activité principale exercée, main activity carried on) is the one assigned to you in this list. The legal category is something else: it gives the form of the company, not its activity. For an SCI, it is 6540.

Can you find out your SCI's code before receiving the Kbis?#

Not before registration. According to Service-Public, the code "is assigned automatically by Insee when the company is registered [...] The entrepreneur does not need to apply for it."

Which code for a family SCI?#

The code follows what it does. If it rents out a property, go back to the table in the first section. If it rents out nothing, no official rule settles it: the 68.32B case is covered there.

Can an SCI coded 68.20B rent out housing or do seasonal rentals?#

The code does not forbid it, since it has no legal value (see the section on taxes). If renting out housing is your SCI's main activity, ask for the code to be corrected. Seasonal furnished rental, for its part, is a commercial activity (see the section on taxes).

How many SCIs are there in France?#

The Sirene register counts 1.9 million active SCIs on September 1, 2026, excluding companies formed to build and sell property. This total counts all SCIs that are registered and not struck off, even dormant ones.

What the other sources say#

Method#

We recorded every active SCI in Insee's Sirene register, updated on September 1, 2026, one by one. For each, we read the company's activity code and the 2027 code of its headquarters. The details are in the block below.

Cite this study#

Sources#