As per National Building Code of India 2005

Category 1 - Assembly Building refers to a building or part thereof where the building
can accommodate groups of people not less than 50 to congregate, and used for
amusement, recreation, social, religious, patriotic, civil, travel and similar purposes.

• Theatres,
• Motion picture houses,
• Assembly halls,
• Auditoria,
• Exhibition halls,
• Museums,
• Gymnasium,
• Restaurant,
• Places of worship,
• Dance halls and club rooms
• Metro and passenger stations 
• Air Terminal,
• Surface and marine public
• Transportation services etc.

Category 2 - Business Building refers to a building or part thereof which is used for
transaction of business (other than those categorized as Mercantile Buildings); for
keeping of accounts and records and similar purposes, professional establishments,
service facilities. This group includes all those buildings of which principal function  is of transaction of public business and keeping of books and records.

• City and Town halls,
• Courthouses 
• Offices, Business Centers,
• Banks,
• Professional establishments like offices of architects, engineers, doctors, lawyers
• Police stations,
• Laboratories,
• Research establishments,
• Libraries and test houses,
• Computer installations, BPOs,EDP Centre, Stock Exchanges
• Telephone exchanges,
• Broadcasting stations and
• TV stations

Category 3 - Educational Building includes any building used for Educational Purpose

• School,
• College,  
• Training institutions for day-care purposes involving assembly for instruction,
• education or recreation.

If residential accommodation is provided in the schools/
institutions that portion of occupancy shall be classified as a Residential Building.

Category 4 - Hazardous Building includes any building or part thereof which is used
for the storage, handling, manufacture or processing of highly combustible or explosive
materials or products which are liable to burn with extreme rapidity and or which may
produce poisonous fumes or explosions for storage

Category 5 - Industrial Building will include any building or part of a building or
structure in which products or materials of all kinds and properties are fabricated,
assembled, manufactured or processed.

• Assembly plants,
• Industrial laboratories,
• Dry cleaning plants,
• Power plants,
• Pumping stations, Fumigation chambers,
• Laundries,buildings or
• Structures in gas plants, refineries, dairies, factories, workshops and sawmills
• etc. shall be placed in this category.

Category 6 - Institutional Building will include any building or part thereof, which is
used for purposes such as medical or other treatment or care of persons suffering from
disease or infirmity, care of infants, convalescents or aged persons including the
differently abled (both physically & mentally challenged) and for penal or correctional
detention in which the liberty of the inmates is restricted. Institutional buildings
ordinarily provide sleeping accommodation for the occupants.

• Hospitals,
• Nursing homes,
• Sanitoria,
• Custodial and penal & mental institutions

Category 7 - Mercantile Building refers to any building or part of a building which is
used as shops, stores, market, for display and sale of merchandise, either wholesale or
retail. This includes:

• Shopping Centers
• Departmental Stores
• Wholesale and Retail Outlets
• Malls and Hyper Markets
• Underground shopping centers,

Storage and service facilities incidental to the sale of merchandise and located in the same
building shall be included under this group too.

Category 8 - Residential Building refers to any building in which sleeping
accommodation is provided for normal residential purposes with or without cooking or
dining or both facilities except any building classified as Institutional Building.

• Lodging or rooming houses,
• One or two-family private dwellings,
• Dormitories,
• Apartment houses (flats) and
• Hotels (including starred hotels).

Category 9 - Storage Building refers to any building or part of a building used
primarily for the storage or sheltering (including servicing, processing or repairs
incidental to storage) of goods, ware or merchandise (except those that involve highly
combustible or explosive products or materials) vehicles or animals.

Warehouses,
Godowns,
Cold storage,
Freight depots,
Storehouses, Truck and marine terminals, Garages, Hangers,