What is “AD”?
AD stands for Акционерско друштво (Macedonian), a public limited liability company used primarily in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia. The suffix signals that the business has limited liability and is eligible for public listing.
Full meaning & translation
The full form is Акционерско друштво, a Macedonian-language term. It translates literally as “Joint-stock company.” You may also encounter it abbreviated or written as akcionarsko društvo, aktsionerno drujestvo, а.д., ад.
Where it's used
AD appears in company names registered in the following 3 jurisdictions:
What it tells you about the company
Equivalent forms around the world
These are the closest structural equivalents to AD in other jurisdictions — same entity category, different national law.
| Country | Equivalent suffix |
|---|---|
| United States | Corp |
| Germany | AG |
| France | SA |
| Bulgaria | ADS |
| France | AE |
| Germany | AGKGA |
| Germany | AKGKA |
| Germany | COAG |
| Bulgaria | EAD |
| Germany | INVAG |
| North Macedonia | JTD |
| Germany | KGA |
| United Kingdom | PLC |
| Germany | REITAG |
| Germany | SE |
| Germany | SE* |
| France | SEM |
| France | SICAF |
| France | SICAV |
| France | SPA |
| United Kingdom | ULTD |
| Bulgaria | ZAD |
| Bulgaria | ZEAD |
| Bulgaria | ZPAD |
Normalizing “AD” in your data
When matching or deduplicating company records, the legal suffix is noise — “Acme AD” and “Acme” should resolve to the same entity. One API call strips it and returns a stable canonical form:
curl -X POST https://api.ambect.com/v1/normalize/company \
-H "Authorization: Bearer $AMBECT_KEY" \
-H "Content-Type: application/json" \
-d '{"name": "Acme AD", "country": "bg"}'{
"data": {
"canonical": "acme ad",
"legal_type": null,
"tokens": [
"acme",
"ad"
]
},
"meta": {
"pipeline": [
"lowercase",
"legal_suffix"
],
"confidence": 0.99
}
}Frequently asked questions
What does AD stand for?
AD stands for Акционерско друштво (Macedonian), which translates as "Joint-stock company".
Is a AD public or private?
A AD is a public entity — it can issue shares that are listed and traded on a stock exchange.
What is the liability in a AD?
Owners of a AD have limited liability. Their personal assets are protected, and their exposure is capped at the amount they invested.
Which countries use AD?
AD is used in Bulgaria, North Macedonia, Serbia.
Need to normalize AD at scale? The Ambect API handles it across 100+ countries in under 5 ms.
Try the live normalizer free →