Starting in 2021, the Government of Canada is transitioning from the use of the Goods and Services Identification Numbers (GSIN) classification system for procurement items to an international standard, the United Nations Standard Products and Services Codes (UNSPSC).

The decision to transition to UNSPSC classification is driven by the Government of Canada’s need to meet evolving reporting obligations established through Treasury Board’s Data Standard on Classification of Procurement Items, and trade agreement requirements.

Key Benefits of the Switch to UNSPSC
The adoption of UNSPSC as the new data standard for classification of procurement items is expected to provide an improved classification system for products and services, increase the ease of data sharing, and centralize the governance of the classification system.

How Will Suppliers Use UNSPSC?
In a way similar to how they use GSIN codes today, suppliers will use UNSPSC to:

• Identify the goods and services they sell on BuyandSell.gc.ca
• Navigate through all procurement data on BuyandSell.gc.ca, including Tenders, Contract History, Standing Offers and Supply Arrangements

UNSPSC Timeline and Rollout
From 2021, GSIN codes and UNSPSC codes will run concurrently, until UNSPSC fully replaces GSIN in the Government of Canada.

In excess of 7000 codes have been mapped. The Download UNSPSC data page provides the following in open data file format:

• the UNSPSC code set used by the Government of Canada

• a simplified concordance table that maps the UNSPSC codes related to goods and services to the Government of Canada’s current GSIN codes

More information
To learn more about UNSPSC and keep current with the rollout, see

• About UNSPSC on Buyandsell.gc.ca
• Frequently Asked Questions about UNSPSC

For advice and guidance on interpreting and using UNSPSC codes, contact the UNSPSC team at
 TPSGC.PADSAAUNSPSC-APBASDUNSPSC.PWGSC@tpsgc-pwgsc.gc.ca

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 7th, 2021 at 12:20 pm and is filed under Canadian Government, Procurement News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.