The validity of calculated NMR shifts to predict the outcome of electrophilic aromatic substitution reactions on different heterocyclic compounds has been examined. Based on an analysis of >130 literature examples it was found that the lowest calculated 13C and/or 1H chemical shift of a heterocycle correlates qualitatively with the regiochemical outcome of halogenation reactions in >80% of the investigated cases. In the remaining cases, the site of electrophilic aromatic substitution can be explained by the calculated HOMO orbitals obtained using density functional theory. Using a combination of these two methods, the accuracy increases to >95%.