A natural person is a living human being. Legal systems can attach rights and duties to natural persons without their express consent.
The concept of a natural person appears in business law and bankruptcy law, where it provides a contrast with an artificial person or a legal person which is an entity that is treated as a person for legal purposes. While natural person describes an actual human being, artificial person describes a partnership, corporation, or some other entity that has been provided with legal personhood by statute.
[Last updated in July of 2023 by the Wex Definitions Team]