A numbered company is a corporation given a generic name based on its sequentially-assigned registration number. For instance, an entity incorporated under the Caldari Business Corporations Acticles and assigned the corporation number 1234567 would be entitled to register "1234567 Caldari Inc." as its legal name.

Numbered companies may include, but are by no means limited to, new companies that have not yet determined a permanent brand identity, or shell companies used by much larger enterprises for various purposes.

In some cases, a legitimately-active enterprise may be structured as a numbered company with a doing business as registration to provide the numbered entity with a name. This is usually done for the convenience of lawyers, who create a shelf corporation or advent corporation and then assign the recognisable identity later.