List of chartered companies

Last updated November 10, 2025

A chartered company is an association with investors or shareholders that is incorporated and granted rights (often exclusive rights) by royal charter (or similar instrument of government) for the purpose of trade, exploration, or colonization, or a combination of these.^[1]

Notable chartered companies (with years of formation)

Austrian

1719 Imperial Privileged Oriental Company
1722 Ostend Company
1775 Austrian East India Company ^{[note 1]}

British

1711 South Sea Company
1752 African Company of Merchants (abolished 1821)
1792 Sierra Leone Company
1824 Van Diemen's Land Company
1825 Canada Company
1825 New Zealand Company
1835 South Australian Company
1847 Eastern Archipelago Company
1853 Standard Chartered
1881 British North Borneo Company
1886 Royal Niger Company
1888 Imperial British East Africa Company
1889 British South Africa Company

The article Chartered Companies in the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, by William Bartleet Duffield, contains a detailed narrative description of the development of some of the companies in England and, later, Britain.^[2]

Dutch

1599-1602 Brabantsche Compagnie
1602–1799 Dutch East India Company (VOC)
1614 New Netherland Company
1614–1642 Noordsche Compagnie (Nordic Company)
1621–1792 Dutch West India Company ^{[note 2]}
1683-1795 Sociëteit van Suriname
1720 Society of Berbice

English

1407 Company of Merchant Adventurers of London
1552 Bristol Society of Merchant Venturers
1553 Company of Merchant Adventurers to New Lands
1555 Muscovy Company
1577 Spanish Company
1579 Eastland Company
1581 Turkey Company
1583 Venice Company
1585 Barbary Company
1592 Levant Company ^{[note 3]}
1600 East India Company ^{[note 4]}
1606 Virginia Company
1606 Plymouth Company
1610 London and Bristol Company
1616 Somers Isles Company
1618 Guinea Company
1619 New River Company
1620 Council for New England
1629 Massachusetts Bay Company
1629 Providence Island Company
1635 Courteen association
1670 Hudson's Bay Company
1672 Royal African Company
1691 Hollow Sword Blade Company
1694 Bank of England

French

German

Polish-Lithuanian

1783–1793 Trade Company Poland (Black Sea Trade Company)

Portuguese

Gallery

Share certificate of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated 16 June 1288
The British East India Company's headquarters in London
The arms of the British South Africa Company

Notes

↑ The Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium), active in India.
↑ The original West India Company collapsed in 1674, and the New West India Company took its place in 1675 and persisted until 1792.
↑ Merger of the Turkey Company and the Venice Company.
↑ Became the largest colonial empire in the 19th century.
↑ Governed Danish India from Trankebar.
↑ Created in connection with the Swedish colony New Sweden (Nya Sverige); absorbed by the Dutch; presently in Delaware.
↑ On the short-lived Swedish Gold Coast.
↑ Created in connection with the colonisation of Saint Barthélemy.
↑ A failed attempt to organise Swedish trade in the eastern Mediterranean region.

References

↑ Tony Webster (25 May 2015). "British and Dutch Chartered Companies". Oxford Bibliographics. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 30 December 2018.
↑ Duffield, William Bartleet (1911). "Chartered Companies" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 950–952.
1 2 Björn Hallerdt (1994). Sankt Eriks årsbok 1994: Yppighet och armod i 1700-talets Stockholm (in Swedish). Stockholm: Samfundet S:t Erik. pp. 9–10. ISBN 91-972165-0-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

Bibliography

Ferguson, Niall (2003). Empire—How Britain Made the Modern World. London, United Kingdom: Allan Lane.
Micklethwait, John; Wooldridge, Adrian (2003). The company: A short history of a revolutionary idea . New York: Modern Library. ISBN 9780679642497.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)
Ross, R. (1999). A Concise History of South Africa . Cambridge, United Kingdom: Cambridge University Press. ISBN 9780521575782.

External links

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[2] The Austrian Netherlands (now Belgium), active in India.

[4] The original West India Company collapsed in 1674, and the New West India Company took its place in 1675 and persisted until 1792.

[5] Merger of the Turkey Company and the Venice Company.

[6] Became the largest colonial empire in the 19th century.

[7] Governed Danish India from Trankebar.

[8] Created in connection with the Swedish colony New Sweden (Nya Sverige); absorbed by the Dutch; presently in Delaware.

[9] On the short-lived Swedish Gold Coast.

[10] Created in connection with the colonisation of Saint Barthélemy.

[12] A failed attempt to organise Swedish trade in the eastern Mediterranean region.

[1] Tony Webster (25 May 2015). "British and Dutch Chartered Companies". Oxford Bibliographics. Oxford University Press. Retrieved 30 December 2018.

[3] Duffield, William Bartleet (1911). "Chartered Companies" . In Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 5 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 950–952.

[pooooook-1994-11] 1 2 Björn Hallerdt (1994). Sankt Eriks årsbok 1994: Yppighet och armod i 1700-talets Stockholm (in Swedish). Stockholm: Samfundet S:t Erik. pp. 9–10. ISBN 91-972165-0-X.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: publisher location (link)

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