nonprofitlimited liability

What is “KZH”?

KZH (Public interest incorporated foundation) is a nonprofit organization used primarily in Japan. It signals limited liability and private ownership.

Where it's used

KZH appears in company names registered in the following jurisdiction:

JP · Japan

What it tells you about the company

LiabilityOwners' liability is limited to their capital contribution. Personal assets are protected.
OwnershipPrivately held. Shares are not listed or traded on a public exchange.
ComparableBroadly equivalent to CIC in United Kingdom, CK in Japan, DG in Japan.

Equivalent forms around the world

These are the closest structural equivalents to KZH in other jurisdictions — same entity category, different national law.

CountryEquivalent suffix
United KingdomCIC
JapanCK
JapanDG
GermanyEV
FranceFCP
GermanyGAG
JapanGH
JapanIH
JapanIZ
JapanJD
JapanKDH
JapanKOD
JapanKOK
JapanKSH
JapanKZDH
United KingdomLG
JapanSFH
JapanSH
JapanSKH
JapanTH
JapanTHKH
JapanZH

Normalizing “KZH” in your data

When matching or deduplicating company records, the legal suffix is noise — Acme KZH” and “Acme” should resolve to the same entity. One API call strips it and returns a stable canonical form:

Request
curl -X POST https://api.ambect.com/v1/normalize/company \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer $AMBECT_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"name": "Acme KZH", "country": "jp"}'
Response
{
  "data": {
    "canonical": "acme kzh",
    "legal_type": null,
    "tokens": [
      "acme",
      "kzh"
    ]
  },
  "meta": {
    "pipeline": [
      "lowercase",
      "legal_suffix"
    ],
    "confidence": 0.99
  }
}

Frequently asked questions

What does KZH mean?

KZH means "Public interest incorporated foundation".

Is a KZH public or private?

A KZH is a private entity — its shares are not publicly listed or traded on a stock exchange.

What is the liability in a KZH?

Owners of a KZH have limited liability. Their personal assets are protected, and their exposure is capped at the amount they invested.

Which countries use KZH?

KZH is used in Japan.

Need to normalize KZH at scale? The Ambect API handles it across 100+ countries in under 5 ms.

Try the live normalizer free →