Relevance. The relevance of the study is determined by the growing importance of creative industries in the global economy, which necessitates the formation of common approaches to identifying and defining creative industries to make effective management decisions at the state level. The lack of a unified approach to defining the conceptual and methodological apparatus necessitates additional research on this topic. Purpose of the study. The purpose of this study is to conduct a comparative analysis of approaches to identifying creative industries that have developed in the international and domestic academic community. Data and methods. The study is based on the Scoping review method, which consists of a full analysis of the existing literature in the context of key concepts of a given area of research. The international bibliographic database Scopus was used to select publications for the review. To consider the national specifics of research, the sample was expanded to include articles from the Russian Science Citation Index (RSCI). Results. The article reviews and summarizes the existing scientific approaches to identifying creative industries, highlights the main debatable issues of terminology in the field of the creative economy. Based on a comprehensive review of the approaches of international and domestic researchers, the article presents a system of criteria for identifying creative industries, which are differentiated by types of sources, specifics, and results. The application of this system of criteria will allow us to determine the boundaries of creative industries and distinguish creative industries from the general array of economic sectors. Conclusion. Systematization of theoretical approaches to defining and identifying creative industries is a necessary condition for their further classification and evaluation. The proposed system of criteria is a synthesis of existing approaches, which makes it universal and suggests the possibility of its practical application for solving a wide range of tasks related to managerial decision-making in the field of creative economy development.