NAICS Code for Non-Emergency Medical Transportation: 485991 and the Codes Next to It

What NAICS 485991 covers

NAICS, the North American Industry Classification System, sorts businesses by what they mainly do. Federal agencies use it to count businesses, and SBA uses it to decide which companies are small.

The 2022 manual describes 485991, Special Needs Transportation, as businesses mainly engaged in special needs transportation for people with disabilities or older adults, other than to and from school or work. It adds that these businesses may use specially equipped vehicles. The 2022 index lists these activities under 485991:

• Nonemergency medical transportation services (except ambulance services)
• Paratransit transportation services
• Disabled or elderly passenger transportation services
• Senior citizens transportation services
• Special needs passenger transportation services

Two exceptions in the manual matter for ride companies. Buses and other vehicles that carry people with disabilities or older adults to school or work are 485410, School and Employee Bus Transportation. Transporting patients along with medical care, in vehicles with lifesaving equipment and medically trained staff, is 621910, Ambulance Services, emergency or not. The manual’s 621910 entry says the reverse too: carrying older adults or people with disabilities without medical care belongs in 485991.

NAICS is not your NPI taxonomy code. The taxonomy code tells Medicaid and brokers what kind of provider you are on claims. The NAICS code describes your business to federal agencies, lenders, and public buyers.

The codes next to 485991

Pick the code for the activity that brings in most of your receipts. SBA looks at how your receipts, employees, and costs split across industries in your last completed fiscal year (13 CFR 121.107). These are the close codes and SBA’s size limits in average annual receipts, as of October 2026:

Code	Industry	Fits when	SBA limit
485991	Special Needs Transportation	Wheelchair, stretcher van, and ambulatory rides for Medicaid members and older adults	$19.0 million
621910	Ambulance Services	Patients ride with medical care on board, emergency or not	$22.5 million
485410	School and Employee Bus Transportation	Carrying students to school or workers to their jobs, including riders with disabilities	$30.0 million
485310	Taxi and Ridesharing Services	Taxi or ride-hail trips not on regular routes	$19.0 million
485320	Limousine Service	Reserved luxury sedan or limousine trips	$19.0 million
485999	All Other Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation	Scheduled shuttles between set points, and vanpools	$19.0 million
488999	All Other Support Activities for Transportation	Arranging NEMT rides without driving them, as a broker does	$25.0 million

Where you enter the code

• SAM.gov. The entity registration checklist asks for your NAICS codes in the assertions section, along with your annual receipts and employee count. You need the registration to bid on federal work such as VA wheelchair van contracts. List 485991 and every other code you could bid under.
• County and transit vendor lists. Franklin County, Ohio, builds the notice list for each bid from registered vendors’ NAICS codes, so a company that does not list 485991 can miss the notice for a ride bid. See the Franklin County page and government NEMT contracts.
• SBA loans. SBA Form 1919, the borrower form for every 7(a) loan (version effective March 19, 2025), asks for your primary industry six-digit NAICS code. Its instructions say the code must match the business activity code on your IRS tax filings, if you have filed. Look up the code on your last return before you fill it in. See NEMT business loans for the rest of the application.
• Tax returns. The IRS keeps its own shorter list. In its 2025 instructions for Schedule C and the partnership and corporate returns, the closest code for a ride company is 485990, Other transit and ground passenger transportation. Ambulance services sit under 621900, Other ambulatory health care services.

How the code decides whether you are small

On a federal bid, you do not choose the code. The contracting officer assigns one NAICS code and one size standard to each solicitation, or to each category of a multiple award contract, picking the code that best describes what is being bought (13 CFR 121.402). You are small for that bid only if your average annual receipts do not exceed that code’s limit.

Here is how it plays out on a VA wheelchair van solicitation coded 485991. Say your company has been in business three full years and took in $4.8 million over those 156 weeks. For federal contracting, SBA divides total receipts by weeks in business and multiplies by 52 when you have fewer than five completed fiscal years (13 CFR 121.104). That is $1.6 million a year, far under the $19.0 million limit, so you count as small for that bid. If VA codes a combined ambulance and wheelchair van job 621910 instead, the limit is $22.5 million.

If a solicitation carries a code that keeps you out, you can appeal it to SBA’s Office of Hearings and Appeals within 10 calendar days after the solicitation or amendment is issued (13 CFR 121.1103). After that, the code is final.

SBA loans measure size a little differently. A business with three or more completed fiscal years may average its receipts over three or five years (13 CFR 121.104). For a 7(a) loan, you can also qualify under SBA’s alternative standard: tangible net worth of $20 million or less and average net income after federal income taxes of $6.5 million or less over the last two completed fiscal years, affiliates included (13 CFR 121.301).

Older codes and coming changes

If a form asks for an SIC code, from the Standard Industrial Classification that the 1997 NAICS replaced, NEMT falls in SIC 4119, Local Passenger Transportation, Not Elsewhere Classified. The Census Bureau’s crosswalk splits 4119 across several NAICS codes, and its special needs transportation part became 485991. The ambulance part of 4119 went to 621910.

OMB proposed the NAICS 2027 update on July 13, 2026, for data covering periods starting January 1, 2027. It would merge four urban transit codes into one, 485110, Urban Transit Systems, and would leave every code in the table above unchanged. OMB will set the final list in a later Federal Register notice. SBA moves its size table to a new NAICS edition by its own rule, as it did for the 2022 codes on October 1, 2022.

The size limits may change sooner. On August 20, 2026, SBA proposed setting limits for broader industry groups instead of each six-digit code. Special needs transportation would fall in group 4859, Other Transit and Ground Passenger Transportation, with a limit of $121 million in average annual receipts. Ambulance services would fall in group 6219 at $56 million, and brokers in group 4889 at $126 million. SBA extended the comment period to November 20, 2026. Until a final rule takes effect, the limits in the table above apply.