International · Business identifiers
Entity legal form (ELF) code lookup.
Search the ISO 20275 entity legal form code list published by GLEIF. Look up a 4-character ELF code, or find the code for a legal form by country, name or abbreviation such as Inc., Ltd. or GmbH.
What an ELF code is: a 4-character code of letters and digits that identifies one legal form (for example a limited liability company) within one jurisdiction. It is reported alongside the LEI of an entity. Two codes are reserved: 8888 is used when a new code is requested for a legal form not yet on the list, and 9999 is used for entities with no separate legal form.
Search the code list
Result
Enter a code, a legal-form name or an abbreviation, optionally pick a country, and press Search.
About ELF codes and this list
ISO 20275 “Financial Services – Entity Legal Forms (ELF)” defines a scheme to identify the distinct entity legal forms in a jurisdiction. GLEIF maintains the code list on behalf of the ISO maintenance agency. The current version, 1.6 dated 2026-02-19, has 4,002 rows covering 3,599 distinct codes (including the two reserved codes) across 129 countries and territories; its status column marks each row ACTV (active) or INAC (inactive).
Reading the results. Legal forms are listed only in the local language(s), because a legal form has meaning only under local law: a Dutch BV is not a German GmbH. A country with several official languages (Canada, Belgium, Switzerland) has one row per language for the same code. Canada also has provincial rows, shown with their ISO 3166-2 subdivision such as CA-ON. The abbreviations column is what GLEIF records as abbreviations of the form, so a name such as Inc. can map to several codes; use the country and region to choose.
Shared codes. French legal forms and codes are also used for French Guiana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, Mayotte, Réunion, Saint Barthélemy and Saint Martin, so those are listed under France.
What this tool does not do
It reads a dated copy of the list. It does not tell you the legal form of a particular company and it is not legal advice. For the legal form recorded against a specific LEI, use the GLEIF LEI record itself. GLEIF publishes updated versions periodically, so check the source below for a newer release.
Sources and licence
- GLEIF, ISO 20275 Entity Legal Forms Code List (version 1.6, February 2026; reserved code meanings; language and territory notes)
- ELF code list v1.6 CSV (2026-02-19) (the file this tool’s data was split from)
- GLEIF Terms and LEI Data Terms of Use: GLEIF states its data and website materials are provided under the Creative Commons Zero (CC0) licence, dedicated to the public domain.
Privacy and scope
Nothing you type is transmitted, stored or logged. The page downloads static country files from this site and searches them in your browser. A code shown here confirms only that it appears on list version 1.6; it does not show that any company uses it.