Articles of incorporation are the short public document that brings a company into existence. They are not the agreement between the owners, they are not the same thing in every country, and in most places they are filed on a form the registry itself publishes rather than on a document you supply. All three of those points matter before you download anything, so they come first.
This is not legal advice. Incorporation is a formal filing with consequences for liability, ownership and tax, and the requirements differ by country and — in the United States — by state. The templates below are for drafting and for understanding the structure of the document. Before you file anything, check the requirements of the office you are filing with and take advice from a qualified lawyer in your jurisdiction. Nothing on this page is a substitute for either.
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Read this before you download
Almost every company registry publishes its own form for this filing, frequently a fillable one, frequently mandatory, and frequently with wording that has to appear exactly as prescribed. A Word document from anywhere else, filed as it stands, is liable to be queried or rejected.
That does not make a template useless. It makes it a drafting tool. Its job is to show you the shape of the document and force you to settle your decisions — the name, the registered address, the share structure, who is signing — before you are staring at an official form with a fee attached. Work out the content here, then transfer it to the registry’s own form.
So the order of work is: find your filing office first, download their form, and use one of the templates below alongside it as a worksheet. A simple formation checklist alongside both is worth more than any single document, because the filing is usually one item in a sequence rather than the whole job.
Free articles of incorporation templates
Twenty-five Word documents. Use them to draft.
These files are not labelled by jurisdiction, and we cannot tell you which state or country any individual one was drafted for. Treat every one as a structural example rather than as a form that fits your registry. Check each clause against your own filing office’s requirements before you rely on it.
What the articles contain, and what they do not
This is where the previous version of this page was wrong, and the mistake is worth setting out properly because it is a common one.
| Articles of incorporation | Bylaws or operating agreement | |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | The charter. The document that creates the company. | The internal rulebook for running it. |
| Filed with the registry? | Yes — and it is a public document. | Not normally. Kept by the company. |
| Typically covers | The company name, its registered address and agent for service, the share structure, the purpose where one is required, and who is incorporating it. | Meetings and notice, voting, appointing and removing directors, officers’ duties, transfers of shares, what happens when an owner leaves. |
| How often it changes | Rarely. Changing it means filing an amendment. | As the company needs it, by whatever procedure the document itself sets. |
| Length | Often one or two pages. | Usually much longer. |
The practical consequence: anything you would not want on a public register, and anything likely to need changing, does not belong in the articles. Arrangements between the owners — who can sell their shares to whom, how a deadlock is broken, what happens if a founder leaves — belong in the bylaws, the operating agreement, or a separate shareholders’ agreement. The articles being filed does not mean those arrangements exist.
The other half of that consequence is the one people discover late: because the articles are a short public charter, filing them is not the end of setting the company up. The first board meeting that adopts the bylaws, appoints officers and issues shares is a separate step with its own paperwork, and an agenda and minutes for it are part of the company’s records rather than an optional nicety.
Incorporated and unincorporated, which is the real distinction
The previous version of this page compared “a company” with “incorporation”. That is not a comparison that can be made — incorporation is a process, not a type of business. The distinction that actually exists is this:
| Unincorporated | Incorporated | |
|---|---|---|
| Examples | Sole trader or sole proprietor, general partnership. | Corporation, limited company, LLC. |
| Legal personality | None of its own. The business and the owner are the same legal person. | Separate from its owners. It can own property, contract and be sued in its own name. |
| Owner’s liability | The owner is personally liable for the business’s debts. | Liability is limited in principle to what the owner put in — with exceptions. |
| Created by | Starting to trade, plus any local registration. | A filing with a registry. These templates relate to that filing. |
| Continuity | Ends with the owner’s involvement. | Continues independently of who owns it. |
On that liability line, be careful about how far you take it. Limited liability is the main reason people incorporate and it is real, but it is a principle with well-established exceptions rather than an absolute shield — and exactly where those exceptions bite depends on your jurisdiction and on what you have personally signed. This page is not going to list them, because a half-remembered list would be worse than none. It is a question to put to a lawyer, and it is worth putting before you file rather than after.
The word “partners” is also worth watching. The old page used it throughout for what were actually shareholders. In a partnership the partners are the owners and are usually personally liable; in a corporation the shareholders own it, the directors govern it, and the officers run it. Those are three roles and one person can hold all three, but the words are not interchangeable in a document that a registry will read. The same care is worth taking in anything public that follows — a launch announcement that calls shareholders partners is a small error that a careful reader will notice.
If you are not in the United States, you may need a different document
“Articles of incorporation” is not universal terminology, and this is a mistake that costs people real time.
In the United Kingdom there is no such document. Companies House guidance refers throughout to articles of association, and to incorporate a company you deliver an application to register a company — form IN01 — with the fee, a memorandum of association, and articles of association unless you adopt the model articles in full. The memorandum is described as the contract to form the company: it records that the subscribers intend to form it and become members, and for a company limited by shares that they each take at least one share. Capital and shareholding detail is not in it, and its wording is prescribed. If you do not specify which articles you are adopting, Companies House applies the model articles for your company type automatically.
Note what that means for anyone arriving here from a UK search. UK articles of association are the equivalent of US bylaws — the internal rulebook — not of US articles of incorporation. Downloading a US articles-of-incorporation template to register a UK company gets you the wrong document, and the right one may be a form you do not need to draft at all.
Elsewhere the names differ again, and in some jurisdictions the equivalent document is called a certificate, a constitution, or something else entirely. The reliable move is the same everywhere: go to the registry that will receive the filing and use what it tells you to use.
The decisions to settle before you draft
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The exact name, checked for availability
Registries will not accept a name that is not distinguishable from an existing one, and most restrict certain words outright or require supporting evidence to use them. Search the register before you draft, not after, and get the required suffix right — the legal name includes it.
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Where documents are served
A registered address, and in many places a named agent for service at that address, who must be able to accept legal documents during business hours. This becomes public. A home address is usually permitted and is usually regretted.
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How many shares the company is authorised to issue, and whether there is more than one class. This is one of the harder things to change later and one of the easier things to get wrong, because authorised, issued and outstanding shares are three different numbers. Worth advice if more than one person is involved.
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The purpose clause, if one is required
Some registries want a statement of what the company is for and some do not; where it is required, a narrowly drafted purpose can limit what the company may later do without an amendment. Find out which applies to you before you write one, and resist the temptation to be specific for its own sake.
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Who signs, and in what capacity
The person who files is the incorporator or subscriber, and that is a distinct role from director, officer and shareholder — even when one person is all four. Get the capacity right on the signature block, because a registry will reject a document signed in a capacity that does not exist.
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What happens immediately afterwards
The filing is the start. Adopting bylaws, appointing directors and officers, issuing shares, opening a bank account and registering for tax are separate steps, and several of them have their own deadlines. Write them down as a sequence before you file, with owners and dates, so none of them is a surprise — a task list does the job better than memory.
Can I just file one of these templates?
Probably not, and you should assume not. Most registries publish their own form and many require it, with prescribed wording in places. Use a template to get your content and your decisions straight, then put that content on the official form. If your registry genuinely accepts a document you supply, check every clause against its published requirements first.
Do I need a lawyer?
A straightforward single-owner company is commonly filed without one. The point at which that changes is when more than one person owns a share of it, when there is more than one class of share, when anyone is investing money, or when the business is in a regulated field. The cost of advice at formation is almost always less than the cost of fixing an ownership structure later, and the articles are only part of what needs to be right.
What is the difference between articles of incorporation and articles of organization?
They are the equivalent filings for different entity types: articles of incorporation create a corporation, articles of organization create an LLC. Some jurisdictions use other names again for one or both, such as a certificate of incorporation or a certificate of formation. The names are not interchangeable on a form, so take the term from your own filing office rather than from a template’s title.
Are the articles of incorporation public?
Yes. That is the point of filing them — they put the company’s existence, name and registered address on a public register that anyone can search. Plan accordingly: the registered address and the names on the document are visible to anyone who looks, which is one of the main reasons to keep private arrangements in the bylaws or a shareholders’ agreement instead.
Can I change them later?
Yes, by filing an amendment, which usually means a fee, a resolution of the shareholders or directors, and a delay. That is the reason to keep anything you expect to change out of the articles in the first place. Bylaws, by contrast, can usually be amended internally by whatever procedure they themselves set out.
Does incorporating protect my personal assets completely?
No. Limited liability is the general principle and it is genuinely valuable, but it has recognised exceptions, and anything you sign personally — a guarantee on a lease or a loan, for instance — sits outside the company’s protection entirely. Treat incorporation as substantially reducing personal exposure rather than eliminating it, and ask a lawyer where the limits fall in your jurisdiction before you rely on it.
Do non-profits use the same document?
Non-profits generally file articles of incorporation too, but the content differs materially: there are usually no shares, a specific purpose clause may be mandatory, and particular language is often required if the organisation intends to apply for tax-exempt status. A stock-corporation template adapted by hand is a poor starting point for that. Use the registry’s non-profit form and take advice.
Once the company exists, the ordinary trading paperwork follows — quotations to win work, and application forms once you are hiring. Get the filing right first; everything after it is easier to change.
