Corporate Seal (Requirements: How It Works)

What is Corporate Seal?

What are the requirements for a corporate seal?

What are the essential elements you should know!

Keep reading as I have gathered exactly the information that you need!

Let me explain to you corporate seals and how it works!

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What Is A Corporate Seal

A corporate seal is literally a tool that is used to stamp or emboss company documents.

The reason why a corporate seal is used is to show that the stamped document or embossed document is truly coming from your company.

In other words, the company seal is used to authenticate a document by your company.

There are two types of corporate seals used:

• Corporate seal embosser
• Corporate seal stamp

A corporate seal embosser is a tool that creates a 3-D impression on your document whereas the corporate seal stamp affixes an ink representation of your seal on the document.

Corporate Seal Definition

How do you define corporate seal?

A corporate seal can be defined as follows:

Corporate Seal Example

In what cases will you need to use a corporate seal to stamp a document?

In today’s “digital” economy, the use of corporate seals have declined and represent a fraction of what it used to be decades ago.

However, corporate seals are still used by many companies signing things like:

• Employment agreements
• Banking forms
• Lease agreements
• Sale agreements
• Loan documents
• Board resolutions 
• Vendor contracts 
• Various applications
• Deeds 

Corporate Seal FAQ

Let’s look at some of the most commonly asked questions relating to corporate seals.

What are the corporate seal requirements

Typically, the corporate seal will contain the following key pieces of information relating to your company:

• Company name
• Company’s year of incorporation 
• Company’s state of incorporation 

How to get a corporate seal

Getting a corporate seal is quite simple.

There are many vendors that offer corporate seals online.

You can get things like:

• Corporate seal embosser
• Corporate seal embosser with yaer
• Non-profit organization seal 
• Corporate seal stamp 

You can even get eSeals being a digital corporate seal.

What is a corporate seal used for

A corporate seal is generally used by companies to authenticate different documents.

In modern times, corporate seals are no longer that relevant or used as much as they used to be.

The main purpose of stamping a document or embossing a document is to show that your company has signed it and approved it.

It gives the document an additional touch of authenticity if you will even though a document can be as legally valid and binding without a seal.

What states require a corporate seal

In the United States, corporations are no longer required to have a seal no matter in which state they were formed.

In the past, corporations needed to have an official seal along with an official stock certificate when they were formed.

However, these requirements no longer exist in modern times when more transactions are done digitally than on paper.

How to use a corporate seal

Using a corporate seal is quite simple.

Typically, the company seal is placed on the signature page of a document that is being signed near or below the signature block where your company is signing.

In some cases, some clients, vendors, or governments will ask you to stamp every page of your document with your corporate seal.

Do I need a corporate seal

A company does not need to have a corporate seal from a legal perspective.

However, if you operate a business under a company, you may be asked to stamp your “corporate seal” from time to time by banks, creditors, vendors, suppliers, clients, and others.

For that reason, it may be worth adopting a corporate seal for your company in case you are asked to stamp or emboss a document.

Corporate Seal Takeaways 

So there you have it folks!

What is a corporate seal in simple terms?

In essence, a corporate seal is a tool used to “authenticate” documents by a company.

The idea behind the use of corporate seal was to ensure that any legal document or official document emanating from your corporation bore a seal to ensure that it was signed by an authorized person or approved by the company.

The placement of a seal on a document showed that the person signing or placing the seal had sufficient authority to act on behalf of the company or bind the company.

Similarly, stock certificates used to bear the corporate seal to show that the company officially recognized the title of ownership of the company stock by the stockholder.

However today, company documents are no longer stamped and sealed as much as most transactions happen electronically.

Similarly, stock certificates are no longer necessary to prove ownership of company stock as brokers perform electronic filings where share ownership is recognized digitally.
Now that you know what is a corporate seal, why it is used, and how it works, good luck with your research!

My Investing, Business, and Law Blog

By the way, on this blog, I focus on topics related to starting a business, business contracts, and investing, making money geared to beginners, entrepreneurs, business owners, or anyone eager to learn. 

I started this blog out of my passion to share my knowledge with you in the areas of finance, investing, business, and law, topics that I truly love and have spent decades perfecting.

You may find useful nuggets of wisdom to help you in your entrepreneurship journey and as an investor.

I’d love to share the insider knowledge that I’ve acquired over the years helping you achieve your business and financial goals.

Now, let’s look at a summary of our findings.

Understanding Corporate Seal And It Requirements

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