Can a Company Issue More Shares Than Authorized? No. A company is limited to issuing only the quantity of shares it's authorized to issue.
“Authorized shares” refers to the number of shares the corporation is allowed to issue under its certificate or articles of incorporation. 10 to 15 million is a commonly used range (we set 10 million as default for the Cooley GO Docs Incorporation Package).
Authorized shares are the total number of shares a company can legally issue, while issued shares are the number the company has issued to date. The number of authorized and issued shares may be the same or different, in which case there would be more authorized than issued shares.
Authorized shares, or authorized stock, are simply a legally allowed maximum number of shares that a company can issue to investors. The number of authorized shares is specified in the company's articles of incorporation. You can also see the number in the capital accounts section on the balance sheet.