If you do any kind of research on foreign companies, it’s imperative to know how the companies are structured. Canadian businesses fall into one of four categories — sole proprietorship, partnership, corporation, or cooperative — and corporations usually carry the designation Inc., Corp., or Ltd.

For foreign companies, there’s an array of other designations and extensions. This page provides a list of these extensions and explains what the terms mean and where they are used. The list also helps narrow your search if you don’t know what country a company is based in.