Domicile

Basically, it means "where you live" (the word "domicile" coming from the same root as "domestic"). In business terms, it refers to a company's permanent home base...the place where the firm is legally headquartered.

So, the company may have operations all over the world and sell its products in dozens of countries. But its domicile remains Delaware or New York or Bermuda or whatever.

The spot where a firm is domiciled may have regulatory and tax implications. For that reason, companies (and individual people, for that matter) can have some surprising "homes" based on exploiting certain loopholes.

Apple is legally domiciled in Ireland. Why? Because it pays a third as much tax as it would were it domiciled in the U.S. Why does Ireland make this super-low-tax accommodation for corporations? It puts the Irish to work doing more than just dig for those Lucky Charms things buried all over the Emerald Isle.