company

A voluntary association formed and organized to carry on a business. Types of companies include sole proprietorship, partnership, limited liability, corporation, and public limited company.

Company vs Corporation

All corporations are companies, but not all companies are corporations. Company is a much broader term than corporation, and it encompasses a lot of different types of businesses. These are a few of the key differences between a company and a corporation.

Company

A company is any entity that engages in business.

Companies can be structured in different ways. For example, your company can be a sole proprietorship, a partnership, or a corporation. Depending on which different type of company you're dealing with, it may be owned by one person or a group of people. Liability in most types of company is assumed by the owners, and can either be limited or unlimited depending on the type.

Corporation

Corporations are different from other types of company in that they exist separately from their legal owners. That means that liability is separate as well. With corporations, liability is limited to the holding of shares. In fact, shareholding is a major difference between corporations and other types of companies. With corporations, the shareholders each own a small piece of the larger corporate structure. Most companies are typically owned by one or a small handful of people, while corporations can be owned by thousands of different individuals.