Legal forms

Zefix and SHAB both identify a company’s legal form by its four-digit eCH-0097 code. The name depends on the language the company is registered in: code 0106 is an Aktiengesellschaft in Zurich, a Société anonyme in Geneva and a Società anonima in Ticino, all of them the same legal form.

from zefix_parser import LegalForm, legal_form_abbreviation, legal_form_name

LegalForm.CORPORATION                    # "0106"
legal_form_name("0106", "de")            # "Aktiengesellschaft"
legal_form_name("0106", "fr")            # "Société anonyme"
legal_form_name("0106", "it")            # "Società anonima"
legal_form_abbreviation("0107", "fr")    # "Sàrl"

An unknown language falls back to German; an unknown code returns "".

The codes

Code	Member	German	French	Italian	English
0101	SOLE_PROPRIETORSHIP	Einzelunternehmen	Entreprise individuelle	Impresa individuale	Sole proprietorship
0103	GENERAL_PARTNERSHIP	Kollektivgesellschaft	Société en nom collectif	Società in nome collettivo	General partnership
0104	LIMITED_PARTNERSHIP	Kommanditgesellschaft	Société en commandite	Società in accomandita	Limited partnership
0105	PARTNERSHIP_LIMITED_BY_SHARES	Kommanditaktiengesellschaft	Société en commandite par actions	Società in accomandita per azioni	Partnership limited by shares
0106	CORPORATION	Aktiengesellschaft	Société anonyme	Società anonima	Corporation
0107	LIMITED_LIABILITY_COMPANY	Gesellschaft mit beschränkter Haftung	Société à responsabilité limitée	Società a garanzia limitata	Limited liability company
0108	COOPERATIVE	Genossenschaft	Société coopérative	Società cooperativa	Cooperative
0109	ASSOCIATION	Verein	Association	Associazione	Association
0110	FOUNDATION	Stiftung	Fondation	Fondazione	Foundation
0111	FOREIGN_BRANCH	Zweigniederlassung ausländischer Gesellschaft	Succursale étrangère inscrite au registre du commerce	Succursale estera iscritta nel registro di commercio	Branch of a foreign company
0114	COLLECTIVE_INVESTMENT_LIMITED_PARTNERSHIP	Kommanditgesellschaft für kollektive Kapitalanlagen	Société en commandite de placements collectifs	Società in accomandita per investimenti collettivi di capitale	Limited partnership for collective investment
0115	SICAV	Investmentgesellschaft mit variablem Kapital (SICAV)	Société d’investissement à capital variable (SICAV)	Società di investimento a capitale variabile (SICAV)	Investment company with variable capital (SICAV)
0117	PUBLIC_LAW_INSTITUTE	Institut des öffentlichen Rechts	Institut de droit public	Istituto di diritto pubblico	Public-law institute
0119	UNDIVIDED_ESTATE_REPRESENTATIVE	Gemeinderschaft	Responsable d’indivision	Rappresentante dell’indivisione	Undivided-estate representative
0151	SWISS_BRANCH	Zweigniederlassung schweizerischer Gesellschaft	Succursale suisse inscrite au registre du commerce	Succursale svizzera iscritta nel registro di commercio	Branch of a Swiss company

Abbreviations

These are the forms a company carries in its name. Every other code returns "".

Code	German	French	Italian
0103 General partnership	KlG	SNC	SNC
0104 Limited partnership	KmG	SC	SAc
0105 Partnership limited by shares	KmAG	SCA	SAcA
0106 Corporation	AG	SA	SA
0107 Limited liability company	GmbH	Sàrl	Sagl
0115 Investment company with variable capital (SICAV)	SICAV	SICAV	SICAV

Codes outside the register

eCH-0097 reserves codes the commercial register leaves alone: 0102 covers the simple partnership, which stays unregistered, and 0220 and above cover public-law bodies that keep their own registers. Zefix emits the fifteen codes above and nothing else, so anything outside that set points to a data error upstream or a change to the standard.