Legal form

The legal form decides who answers for a company's obligations, what it has to file, and what the register publishes about it. The most common in Luxembourg is the private limited company (société à responsabilité limitée, S.à r.l.), where the owners' liability is limited to what they put in.

The forms the register records, most common first: S.à r.l. — société à responsabilité limitée, private limited company. The most common form, and most of what section B holds.; S.A. — société anonyme, public limited company; S.à r.l.-S — société à responsabilité limitée simplifiée, simplified private limited company. The one-euro company, open only to natural persons.; SCS — société en commandite simple, common limited partnership; SCSp — société en commandite spéciale, special limited partnership. No legal personality of its own — widely used by investment funds.; SCA — société en commandite par actions, corporate partnership limited by shares; SNC — société en nom collectif, general partnership; ASBL — association sans but lucratif, non-profit association.

A note on how this site knows the legal form. Filed annual accounts do not state it: they carry the RCS number and the registered name, and nothing else about the entity. But a Luxembourg registered name ends in its form, and the name is published. Overit reads it out of the name — for 84.7% of companies — and gives the rest none rather than assuming one.