kaisha

Kaisha is the Japanese word for a company or corporation, written with the kanji 会社. It functions as a generic label for a business entity and appears in everyday language as well as in the legal names of firms. In company names, the term is often paired with a specific legal form, such as Kabushiki-gaisha (株式会社) or simply KS, and Gōdō-kaisha (合同会社) or GK.

In modern Japan, the two principal corporate forms under the Companies Act are Kabushiki-gaisha and Gōdō-gaisha. Kabushiki-gaisha is the traditional stock company, characterized by shareholding, transferable shares, and a board of directors. Gōdō-gaisha is a limited-liability company designed for smaller or flexible corporate structures. Historically, there was also Yūgen-gaisha (有限会社), but under reforms enacted in the mid-2000s, new Yūgen-gaisha formations were phased out and existing ones could convert to GK or KS.

The term kaisha is used broadly beyond legal form to denote a business or organization in general. It is common in company names regardless of their legal structure and appears frequently in Japanese business discourse, contracts, and corporate literature. The word itself comes from the kanji for “meeting” or “association” and “company,” reflecting historical ties to merchant groups and organized enterprises in Japan.

In English-language contexts, Japanese firms are typically identified by their legal form (e.g., Kabushiki-gaisha) when precision is required, while kaisha remains the everyday, generic term for a company in Japanese.