Best Answer: Ltd is a company limited by shares, but older companies used this abbreviation for
all limited companies, such as Limited Liability Partnerships(LLP), Limited Liability
Companies(LLC), Limited Partnerships (LP).
Co. is simply a company which can be any business , in fact, all of the things you are asking
about can be called companies.
Corp. is a company owned by many people or groups.
Pty. means indicates that a party, or proprietor, exercises private ownership, control or use over
an item of property, usually to the exclusion of other parties.
Inc. is quite complex and can be quite similar to a corporation or can be a non-profit
There are also NL means not limited and some common foreign abbreviations are AG
(Aktiengesellschaft - German: "stock corporation"), GmbH (Gesellschaft mit beschrnkter
Haftung - German: "Company with limited liability"), S.A. ("Sociedade Annima", Portuguese:
"anonymous society" = Stock Corporation), S.r.l ("societ a responsabilit limitata") - Italian:
"limited liability Company", S.p. A. ("Societ per Azioni") - Italian: "Shares-based Company", and
PLC after a UK or Irish company name indicate that it is a public limited company, a type of
limited company whose shares may be offered for sale to the public. (The equivalent term in the
United States is Public company)
Proprietary companies
Public companies