A legal entity is an entity that has legal personality, giving it legal rights and obligations including allowing it to enter into contracts, own property, and to sue and be sued. A legal entity may be created in order to engage in business activities, charitable work, or other activities. Most often, legal entities in business are formed to sell a product or a service. There are many types of legal entities defined in the legal systems of various countries. These may include corporations, cooperatives, charities, partnerships, sole traders and limited liability companies, although not all of these may be legal entities in all jurisdictions. The specific rules vary by country and by state or province. Some of these types are listed below, by country.

There are a number of forms of legal entity in the United Kingdom, including some types of business partnership, companies incorporated under the Companies Acts, mutual societies, some types of charitable organisation, and others including chartered corporations and statutory corporations.

Partnerships:

Companies – corporations incorporated under the Companies Act 2006 (or previous companies acts):

Mutual societies:

Charities:

Other forms:

Australian companies are generally either proprietary or public. Under the Corporations Act 2001, proprietary companies commonly use the suffix Pty Ltd.