Company types, classes and sub-classes

ASIC describes every organisation on its register with three codes. The organisation type says what kind of entity it is: an Australian proprietary company, a public company, a foreign company, a managed investment scheme, a business name and so on. For companies, the class records the liability of members (limited by shares, limited by guarantee, no liability or unlimited) and the sub-class refines the type further, for example a listed public company, an exempt proprietary company or a superannuation trustee company. Together they tell you whether "Pty Ltd", "Limited" or "NL" belongs at the end of the name and what reporting obligations the company has.

Organisation type

The type is the broadest classification and drives what data ASIC holds. Only companies (APTY, APUB), registrable bodies (RACN, FNOS) and schemes (MISM) have a full company extract that can be purchased with POST /v1/companies/{id}/extracts; the rest are name-index entries with details only. See companies on the ASIC register for that distinction and the organisation types reference for the full table.

Proprietary and public companies

An Australian proprietary company (APTY, "Pty Ltd") is limited to 50 non-employee shareholders, cannot raise money from the public and needs at least one director who ordinarily resides in Australia. A secretary is optional. Most small and medium businesses are proprietary companies.

An Australian public company (APUB) may have any number of members and may offer shares to the public. It needs at least three directors and one secretary, must hold an annual general meeting and must lodge audited financial reports with ASIC. Public companies also have a governanceType, recording whether the company is governed by its own constitution or by the replaceable rules in the Corporations Act 2001:

Foreign companies and registered Australian bodies

A foreign company (FNOS) is a body incorporated outside Australia that has registered with ASIC to carry on business here. A registered Australian body (RACN) is an Australian body corporate that is not a company, such as an incorporated association or co-operative that trades outside its home state. Both receive an ARBN rather than an ACN, must appoint a local agent (office holder role AG) and have limited lodgement obligations. ASIC recommends searching the body's home regulator as well, because the Corporations Act 2001 only requires limited information to be lodged for registered Australian bodies.

Managed investment schemes

A registered managed investment scheme (MISM) is a pooled investment such as a property trust, mortgage fund or agricultural scheme, identified by an ARSN. Schemes have a responsible entity (role RN) instead of directors, carry one or more scheme categories, and have no class, sub-class or disclosing entity flag. On a scheme record previousStateNumber and placeOfRegistration hold the prescribed interest number and undertaking name instead.

Names that are not companies

Business names (BUSN), name reservations (RSVN), trusts (TRST), non-registered entities (NRET) and non-company names (NONC) appear in name search results but are not companies. A trust or NRET has an ASIC number and a document list but no extract; a business name has a state registration number and no documents at all. These are covered on the business names page.

Organisation class

The class describes members' liability. It applies to companies and registrable bodies; for schemes and non-companies it is null.

• Limited by shares (LMSH): members' liability is limited to any amount unpaid on their shares. This is the class for almost every trading company, proprietary or public.
• Limited by guarantee (LMGT): there is no share capital; members undertake to contribute a fixed amount if the company is wound up. Used by not-for-profits, sporting bodies and charities, and only available to public companies.
• Limited by shares and guarantee (LMSG): a historical hybrid that can no longer be formed but still exists on the register.
• No liability (NLIA, "NL"): only mining companies may use this class. Shareholders are not liable for calls on unpaid shares but forfeit them if they do not pay.
• Unlimited (UNLM): members have unlimited liability. Rare, and mostly used by professional practices.
• EQUT, MORT and PROP are classes for managed investment schemes converted from older prescribed interest categories, and NONE marks a foreign company whose liability has no Australian equivalent.

Organisation sub-class

The sub-class refines the type and often signals a reporting concession or a special-purpose status.

Some sub-classes worth knowing:

• Listed public company (LIST) versus unlisted public company (ULST) tells you whether the company's securities are quoted on a market such as ASX.
• Exempt proprietary company (EXPT) and non-exempt proprietary company (NEXT) date from before 1995, when proprietary companies with no public company shareholders were exempt from lodging accounts. Since the Corporations Law was amended the operative distinction is small versus large proprietary, but ASIC still shows the legacy sub-class on older companies. New proprietary companies are simply PROP.
• Superannuation trustee company (PSTC, EXPS, NEXS, LISS, ULSS) marks a company whose sole purpose is to act as trustee of a regulated superannuation fund, which qualifies it for a reduced annual review fee.
• Home unit company (HUNT) is a proprietary company that owns a block of flats on behalf of its resident shareholders, a structure that predates strata title.
• Non-profit sub-classes (PNPC, EXPN, NEXN, ULSN) identify companies whose constitution prohibits distributing profits to members.
• Licensed to omit "Limited" (LISN, LXPT, NLTD) covers charitable companies that have permission under section 150 (or the older section 383) to leave "Limited" out of their name.
• RACA and RACO split registered Australian bodies into associations and other corporations; PUBF and FXPT split foreign companies by whether they must lodge a balance sheet.
• PTSH, NCCT, OABR and FFSP are sub-classes of non-registered entities that came onto the register via the Australian Business Register or as foreign financial service providers.

Common combinations

How the codes appear in the API

Every company object carries the three codes as { code, label } objects, and the company summary embedded in search results and person roles carries type:

{
  "type": { "code": "APUB", "label": "Australian Public Company" },
  "class": { "code": "LMSH", "label": "Limited By Shares" },
  "subClass": { "code": "LIST", "label": "Listed Public Company" },
  "governanceType": { "code": "C", "label": "Constitution" },
  "disclosingEntity": true
}

You can restrict a name search to particular types with types[], for example types[]=APTY&types[]=APUB to exclude business names and reservations. ASIC adds codes to these tables without notice; when asicapi meets an unknown code the label equals the code, so display code and label rather than looking labels up locally. The current tables are always available from GET /v1/reference/code-tables/{tableId}.

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