UK SIC 2007 · 46170
Agents involved in the sale of food, beverages and tobacco (SIC code 46170)
Agents involved in the sale of food, beverages and tobacco is UK SIC code 46170. It sits in division 46 (Wholesale trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles) of the SIC 2007 list. On the August 2026 Companies House register, 3,656 active UK companies list 46170 among their SIC codes. 3,232 of them list it first.
Division 46 is the business-to-business trading layer of the UK economy. These companies buy goods and resell them to retailers, trade customers and other wholesalers. They do not sell to the public. The catch-all 46900, non-specialised wholesale, is easily the most registered code. Importers with mixed ranges rely on it. A second big family covers agents (46190, 46160, 46180 and their siblings). Agents sell on commission and never own the stock. The rest of the division is sorted by product: clothing on 46420, cosmetics on 46450, alcohol on 46342, machinery on 46690, food lines across 46310 to 46390, and construction materials on 46730.
Who prospects SIC 46170 companies
Wholesalers and importers are prime accounts for freight forwarders, pallet networks, warehousing operators and customs brokers. Moving and storing stock is their whole cost base. Trade credit insurers, packaging suppliers and accountants who handle import VAT and duty deferment also work this division. A brand new wholesale company often means a first container is on its way. Growing filed accounts suggest the firm is holding more stock. Many trade-only wholesalers put little effort into their website, so the poor-website filter is a fast way to spot them.
Lead generation for wholesalers & suppliers →How to read SIC 46170
SIC 46170 is a five-digit code, and the digits are not arbitrary. The first two, 46, are the division, wholesale trade, except of motor vehicles and motorcycles. Add the third and you have group 461; the fourth narrows it to a class, and the fifth to the subclass, which is the level Companies House actually asks a company to pick. The whole division sits under section G, wholesale and retail trade, the broadest tier there is. Reading a code left to right therefore goes from a whole sector down to one activity.
More on how SIC 46170 is built
A company chooses its own codes when it incorporates and can change them on any confirmation statement. It may list up to four, and Companies House does not check whether they are right. That is why 46170 is worth reading as a claim the company made about itself rather than as a verified fact, and why the first-position and any-position counts above differ.
Measured on the August 2026 register, the busiest registered-office post towns for 46170 are London (1,000), Manchester (76), Birmingham (61), Malvern (53) and Glasgow (49). Those are registered-office locations, which is where the paperwork sits rather than necessarily where the work happens, so treat them as where to start looking rather than as a service area.
Using SIC 46170 as a filter
3,656 companies is 0.07 per cent of the 5,190,464 active companies on the UK register, and ranks 46170 24th most used of the 47 codes we track in division 46. That is the pool before any filter. Whether it is a big market for you depends on what you sell, but it is the number every other filter on this page cuts down from.
More on filtering by SIC 46170
Almost everybody who uses 46170 means it: 3,232 of 3,656 companies put it first, leaving only 424 carrying it as a secondary code. That makes it an unusually clean filter. You can match on the code alone and trust that the companies you get really are in this line of work.
These companies are spread out. London is the largest single cluster at 27 per cent and the top five post towns together hold only 34 per cent, so the remaining 66 per cent sits across the rest of the country. A regional filter narrows this list without gutting it, which makes it a reasonable code to work territory by territory.
In practice the code on its own is rarely the whole filter. Pair 46170 with an incorporation date to catch companies in their first months, when they are still choosing suppliers, or with a filing deadline to reach them while the year end is on their mind. A worked example for this code: 46170, registered office in London, incorporated in the last ninety days, which turns a 3,656 company pool into a list you can write to in an afternoon. Add the poor-website filter if what you sell is a website, or a recent change of officer if you sell to whoever just took the job. Every company you pull carries the Companies House record, the director's name, a verified website and a verified email, and the ones we cannot complete are not charged.
Where SIC 46170 clusters in the UK
ACTIVE COMPANIES BY REGISTERED-OFFICE POST TOWN · COMPANIES HOUSE REGISTER, AUGUST 2026
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About SIC 46170
How many UK companies use SIC code 46170?
3,656 active UK companies list 46170 (Agents involved in the sale of food, beverages and tobacco) among their registered SIC codes. Each company may register up to four. Of those, 3,232 put it first. The figures come from the August 2026 Companies House register snapshot, and count active companies only.
What is the difference between an agent code like 46190 and a normal wholesale code?
Agents in the 461 group sell goods for someone else and earn a fee or commission. They never own the stock. Wholesalers under the other 46 codes buy in their own name and resell. If you broker deals between suppliers and buyers, pick an agent code. If the invoices and the stock run through your company, pick the product-specific wholesale code.
Should I register 46900 or a specific wholesale code for my import business?
Either works, because Companies House does not vet SIC choices. Use 46900 if your range is genuinely mixed. A specific code such as 46420 for clothing describes your trade more clearly. Banks, insurers and customers searching the public record will understand it faster. You can hold up to four codes and swap them on any confirmation statement.
Find UK SIC 46170 companies
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