Updated October 30, 2026. Quick answer: The 2025 chart names caterers inside one row: 722300, special food services, including food service contractors and caterers. The code goes in the box on line B. The restaurant rows next to it may read closer for a caterer who mostly serves guests from a storefront, depending on the principal source of receipts.
The row that names caterers
Few professions find their own word on the chart. Caterers do, in a single row.
| Code | Wording on the IRS chart |
|---|---|
| 722300 | Special food services (including food service contractors & caterers) |
The word sits inside parentheses, after “Special food services (including food service contractors & caterers)” has already named special food services as the main heading. That wording also names food service contractors, so a caterer and a contractor who runs food service for a client share the row.
What line A and line B ask of a caterer
Line A asks for a description of the work: “Describe the business or professional activity that provided your principal source of income reported on line 1.” Line B asks for the code: “Enter on line B the six-digit code from the Principal Business or Professional Activity Codes chart” The code goes in the box on line B, beside the description.
An example of the kind of description, not IRS wording: a line A phrase that says what you cook, whom you cook for and whether you work at client sites. Nothing on the chart limits how detailed that phrase can be.
Food and drink rows that sit beside it
A caterer who also keeps a counter or dining room may find the restaurant rows worth reading.
| Code | Wording on the IRS chart |
|---|---|
| 722511 | Full-service restaurants |
| 722513 | Limited-service restaurants |
| 722514 | Cafeterias, grill buffets, & buffets |
| 722515 | Snack & nonalcoholic beverage bars |
| 722410 | Drinking places (alcoholic beverages) |
The question is where the money comes from. Someone who mostly serves plated meals to seated guests at a venue of their own would compare with “Full-service restaurants”, and someone who mainly sells quick counter orders would compare with “Limited-service restaurants”. The chart does not say where a caterer’s work ends and a restaurant’s begins, so the reader leans on the rule.
The chart’s rule has two steps: “Select the category that best describes your primary business activity”, and then “Then select the activity that best identifies the principal source of your sales or receipts”.
Food trucks, mixed menus and second businesses
A search of the chart finds no row that names food trucks. The word truck appears only in freight trucking rows, and the word mobile appears only in a row for mobile home dealers, so neither is about serving food. A truck that sells meals to walk-up customers has to be read against the rows above by their wording.
A business that caters weddings in spring and sells packaged meals in winter has two streams of income to weigh against “Then select the activity that best identifies the principal source of your sales or receipts”. If the second stream is a business of its own, the instructions say: “If you owned more than one business, complete a separate Schedule C for each business.”
Where to go next
The code sits on line B beside the line A description on Schedule C (Form 1040). Catering receipts start on Schedule C line 1, gross receipts or sales, helpers who are paid as contractors are covered at commissions and contract labor, and the full list of Schedule C business codes lists every row on the chart.
Edition and chart year
This page reads the 2025 Schedule C (Form 1040) and its 2025 instructions, the files for the tax year 2025 return, filed in 2026. The schedule says “Attach to Form 1040, 1040-SR, 1040-SS, 1040-NR, or 1041”. Check the tax year printed on the schedule you are filling in and use the chart that comes with that year’s instructions, because a different year’s chart can list different codes or reword them.
Common mistakes
- Treating the caterer row as limited to caterers. The row also names food service contractors: “Special food services (including food service contractors & caterers)”.
- Looking for a food truck row. A search of the chart wording finds none, so the rows are compared by their own words.
- Setting aside the rule when the work is mixed. The chart says “Select the category that best describes your primary business activity” before it asks for the principal source of receipts.
Related: Schedule C (Form 1040), Schedule C business codes: the full IRS list, Schedule C line 1, gross receipts or sales, and commissions and contract labor.
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Answer againSources
- Instructions for Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business (2025): IRS archived PDF (irs.gov)
- Schedule C (Form 1040), Profit or Loss From Business (2025): IRS archived PDF (irs.gov)
Read from the IRS documents linked above on October 30, 2026. General information, not tax advice. Your own facts decide the outcome, and a preparer, the account provider or the IRS is the right place to confirm anything consequential.