Mr. Justice Brandéis

delivered the opinion of the court.

The New Jersey automobile law of 1906, as amended in 1908 (P. L. 1908, p. 613), provides in substance that no person, whether a resident or nonresident of the State, shall drive an automobile upon a public highway unless he shall.have been licensed so to do and the automobile shall have been registered under the statute; and also that a nonresident owner shall appoint the Secretary of State his attorney upon whom process may be served "in any action or legal proceeding caused by the operation of his registered motor vehicle, within this State, against such owner.” The statute fixes the driver’s license fee for cars of less than thirty horse power at two dollars and more than thirty horse power at four dollars. It fixes the registration fee at three dollars for cars of not more than ten horse power; five dollars for those from eleven to twenty-nine horse power; and ten dollars for those of thirty or greater horse power. Both license fees and registration fees, whensoever issued, expire at the close of the calendar year. The moneys received from license and registration fees in excess of the amount required for the maintenance of the Motor Vehicle Department are to be applied to the maintenance of the improved highways. Penalties are prescribed for using the public highways *165without complying with the requirements of the act. The material portions of the statute are copied in the margin.1

Kane, a resident of New York, was arrested while driving his automobile on the public highways of New Jersey *166and tried in the Recorder’s Court. The following facts were stipulated: Kane had been duly licensed as a driver under the laws of both New York and .New Jersey. He had registered his car in New York but not in New Jersey. He had not filed with the Secretary of State of New Jersey t the prescribed instrument appointing that official his attorney upon whom process might be served. When arrested he was on his way from New York- to Pennsylvania. The aggregate receipts from license and registration fees for the year exceeded the amount required to defray the expenses of the Motor Vehicle Department, so that a large sum became available for maintenance of the improved roads of the State. .Kane contended that the statute was invalid as to him, a nonresident, because it violated'the Constitution and laws- of the United States regulating interstate commerce and also because it violated *167the Fourteenth Amendment. These contentions were overruled; and he was fined five dollars. The conviction was duly reviewed both in the Supreme Court and by the Court of Errors and Appeals. The contentions were repeated in both of those courts; and both courts affirmed the conviction. Kane v. New Jersey, 81 N. J. L. 594. The case was brought here by writ of error.

The power of a Stater to regulate the use of motor vehicles on its highways has been recently considered by this court and broadly sustained. It extends to nonresidents as well as to residents., It includes the right to exact reasonable compensation for special facilities afforded as well as reasonable provisions to ensure safety. And it is properly exercised in imposing a license fee graduated according to the horse power of the engine. Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610. Several reasons are urged why that case should not be deemed controlling:

1. The Maryland law did not require the nonresident to appoint an agent within the State upon whom process may be served. But it was recognized in discussing it, that “the movement of motor vehicles over the highways is attended by constant and serious dangers to the public” (p. 622). We know that ability to enforce criminal and civil penalties for transgression is?an aid to securing observance of laws. And in view of the speed of the automobile and the habits of men, we cannot say that the Legislature of New Jersey was unreasonable in believing that ability to establish, by legal proceedings within the State, any financial liability of nonresident owners, was essential to public safety. There is nothing to show that the requirement is unduly burdensome in practice.. It is not a discrimination against nonresidents, denying them equal protection of the law. On the contrary, it puts nonresident owners upon an equality with resident owners.

2. The Maryland law contained a reciprocal .provision by which nonresidents whose cars are duly registered in *168their home State are given, for a limited period, free use of the highways in return for similar privileges granted to residents of Maryland. Such a provision promotes the convenience of owners and prevents the relative hardship of having to pay the full registration fee for a brief use of the highways. It has become common in state legislation; and New Jersey has embodied it in her law since thé trial of this case in the lower court. But it is not an essential of valid regulation. Absence of it does not involve discrimination against non residents; for any resident similarly situated would be subjected to the same imposition. A resident desiring to use thé highways only a single day would also have to pay the full annual fee. The amount of the fee is not so large as to be unreasonable; and it is clearly within the discretion of the State to determine whether the compensation for the use of its highways by automobiles shall be determined by way of a fee, payable annually or semi-annually, or by a toll based on mileage or otherwise. Our decision sustaining the Maryland law was not dependent upon the existence of the reciprocal provision. Indeed, the plaintiff in error there was not in a position to avail himself of the reciprocal clause; and it was referred to only because of the contention that the law discriminated between nonresidents; that is, that Maryland extended to residents of other States privileges it denied to residents of the District of Columbia.

3. In Hendrick v. Maryland, it appeared only that the nonresident drove his automobile into the State. In' this case it is admitted that he was driving through the State. The distinction is of no significance. As we there said (622): “In the absence of national legislation covering the subject a State may rightfully prescribe uniform regulations necessary for public safety and order in respect to the operation upon its highways of all motor vehicles — those moving in interstate commerce as well as others.”

4. In the Hendrick Case it did not appear, as here, that *169the fees collected under the motor vehicle law exceeded the amount required to defray the expense of maintaining the regulation and inspection department. But the Maryland statute, like that of New Jersey, contemplated that there would be such excess and provided that it should be applied to the maintenance of improved roads. And it was expressly recognized that the purpose of the Maryland law “was to secure some compensation for the use of facilities provided at great cost from the class for whose needs they are essential and whose operations over them are peculiarly injurious.”

The judgment should be

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Pitney took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Butler

delivered the opinion of the Court.

This action was brought by defendant in error to recover damages for personal injuries. The declaration alleged that plaintiff in error negligently and wantonly drove a motor vehicle on a public highway in Massachusetts and that by reason thereof the vehicle struck and injured defendant in error. Plaintiff in error is a. resident of .Pennsylvania.- No personal service was made on him and no property belonging to him was. attached. The service of process was made in compliance with c. *35490, General Laws of Massachusetts, as amended by Stat. 1923, c. 431, § 2, the material parts of which follow:

“ The acceptance by a non-resident of the rights and privileges conferred by section three or four, as evidenced by his operating a motor vehicle thereunder, or the operation by a non-resident of a motor vehicle on a public way in the commonwealth other than under said sections, shall be deemed equivalent to an appointment by such non-resident of the registrar or his successor in office, to be his true and lawful attorney upon whom may be served all lawful processes in any action or proceeding against him, growing out of any accident or collision in which said non-resident may be involved while operating a motor vehicle on such a way, and said acceptance or operation shall be a signification of his agreement that any such process against him which is so served shall be of the same legal force and validity as if served on him personally. Service of such process shall be made by leaving a copy of the process with a fee of two dollars in the hands of the registrar, or in his office, and such service shall be sufficient service upon the said non-resident; provided, that notice of such service 'and a copy of the process are forthwith sent by registered mail by the plaintiff to the. defendant,' and the defendant’s return receipt and the plaintiff’s affidavit of compliance herewith are appended to the writ and entered with the declaration. The court in which the action is pending may order such continuances as may be necessary to afford the defendant reasonable opportunity to defend the action.”

Plaintiff in error appeared specially for the purpose of contesting jurisdiction and filed an answer in abatement and moved to dismiss on the ground that, the service of process,, if sustained, would deprive him of his property without due process of law in violation of the Fourteenth Amendment. The court overruled the answer in abatement and denied the motion. The Supreme Judicial *355Court held the statute to be a valid exercise of the police power, and affirmed the order. 250 Mass. 22. At the trial the contention was renewed and again denied. Plaintiff in error excepted. The jury returned a verdict for defendant in error. The exceptions wSre overruled by the Supreme Judicial Court. 253 Mass. 478. Thereupon the Superior Court entered judgment. The writ of error was allowed by the chief justice of that court.

The question is whether the Massachusetts enactment contravenes the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The process of a court of one State cannot run into another and summon a party there domiciled to respond to proceedings against him. Notice sent outside the State to a non-resident is unavailing to give jurisdiction in an action against him personally for money recovery. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714. There must be actual service within the State of notice upon him or upon some one authorized to accept service for him. Goldey v. Morning News, 156 U. S. 518. A personal judgment rendered against a non-resident, who has neither been served with process nor appeared in the suit is without validity. McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90. The mere transaction of business in a State by non-resident natural persons does not imply consent to be bound by the process of its courts. Flexner v. Farson, 248 U. S. 289. The power of a State to exclude foreign corporations, although not absolute but qualified, is the ground on which such an implication is supported as to them. Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining Co., 243 U. S. 93, 96. But a State may not withhold from non-resident individuals the right of doing business therein. The privileges and immunities clause of the Constitution, § 2, Art. IV, safeguards to the citizens of one State the right “ to pass through, or to reside in any other state for purposes of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise.” *356And it prohibits state legislation discriminating against citizens of other States, Corfield v. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. 371, 381; Ward v. Maryland, 12 Wall. 418, 430; Paul v. Virginia, 8 Wall. 168, 180.

Motor vehicles are dangerous machines; and, even when skillfully and cafefully operated, their use is attended by serious dangers to persons and property. In the public interest the State may make and enforce regulations reasonably calculated to promote care on the. part of all, residents and non-residents alike, who use its highways. The measure in question operates to require a non-resident to answer for his conduct in the State where arise causes of action alleged against him, as well as to provide for a claimant a convenient method by which he may sue to enforce his rights. Under the statute the implied consent is limited to proceedings growing out of accidents or collisions on a highway in which the non-resident may be involved. It is required that he shall actually receive and receipt for notice of the service and a copy of the process. And it contemplates such continuances as may be found necessary to give reasonable time and opportunity for defense. It makes no hostile discrimination against non-residents but tends to put - them on the sam'e footing as residents. Literal and precise equality in respect of this matter is not attainable; it is not required. Canadian Northern Ry. Co. v. Eggen, 252 U. S. 553, 561-562. The State’s power to regulate the use of its highways extends to their usé by non-residents as well as by residents. Hendrick v. Maryland, 235 U. S. 610, 622. And, in advance-of the operation of a motor vehicle on its highway by a non-resident, the State may require him to appoint one of its officials as his agent on whom process may be served in proceedings growing out of such use. Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160, 167. That case recognizes pówér of the State to exclude a non-resident until the formal appointment is made. And, having the power so to exclude, the State *357may declare that the use of the highway by the nonresident is the equivalent of the appointment of the registrar as agent on whom process may be served. Cf. Pennsylvania Fire Insurance Co. v. Gold Issue Mining Co., supra, 96; Lafayette Ins. Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 407-408. The difference between the formal and implied appointment is not substantial so far as concerns the application of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

Judgment affirmed.

Mr. Chief Justice Stone

delivered the opinion of the Court.

The questions for decision are (1) whether, within the limitations of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, appellant, a Delaware corporation, has by its activities in the State of Washington rendered itself amenable to proceedings in the courts of that state to recover unpaid contributions to the state unemployment compensation fund exacted by state statutes, Washington Unemployment Compensation Act, Washington Revised Statutes, § 9998-103a through § 9998-123a, 1941 Supp., and (2) whether the state can exact those contributions consistently with the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.

The statutes in question set up a comprehensive scheme of unemployment compensation, the costs of which are defrayed by contributions required to be made by employers to a state unemployment compensation fund. *312The contributions are a specified percentage of the wages payable annually by each employer for his employees' services in the state. The assessment and collection of the contributions and the fund are administered by appellees. Section 14 (c) of the Act (Wash. Rev. Stat., 1941 Supp., § 9998-114c) authorizes appellee Commissioner to issue an order and notice of assessment of delinquent contributions upon prescribed personal service of the notice upon the employer if found within the state, or, if not so found, by mailing the notice to the employer by registered mail at his last known address. That section also authorizes the Commissioner to collect the assessment by distraint if it is not paid within ten days after service of the notice. By §§ 14e and 6b the order of assessment may be administratively reviewed by an appeal tribunal within the office of unemployment upon petition of the employer, and this determination is by § 6i made subject to judicial review on questions of law by the state Superior Court, with further right of appeal in the state Supreme Court as in other civil cases.

In this case notice of assessment for the years in question was personally served upon a sales solicitor employed by appellant in the State of Washington, and a copy of the notice was mailed by registered mail to appellant at its address in St. Louis, Missouri. Appellant appeared specially before the office of unemployment and moved to set aside the order and notice of assessment on the ground that the service upon appellant's salesman was not proper service upon appellant; that appellant was not a corporation of the State of Washington and was not doing business within the state; that it had no agent within the state upon whom service could be made; and that appellant is not an employer and does not furnish employment within the meaning of the statute.

The motion was heard on evidence and a stipulation of facts by the appeal tribunal which denied the motion *313and ruled that appellee Commissioner was entitled to recover the unpaid contributions. That action was affirmed by the Commissioner; both the Superior Court and the Supreme Court affirmed. 22 Wash. 2d 146, 164 P. 2d 801. Appellant in each of these courts assailed the statute as applied, as a violation of the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, and as imposing a constitutionally prohibited burden on interstate commerce. The cause comes here on appeal under § 237 (a) of the Judicial Code, 28 U. S. C. § 344 (a), appellant assigning as error that the challenged statutes as applied infringe the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment and the commerce clause.

The facts as found by the appeal tribunal and accepted by the state Superior Court and Supreme Court, are not in dispute. Appellant is a Delaware corporation, having its principal place of business in St. Louis, Missouri, and is engaged in the manufacture and sale of shoes and other footwear. It maintains places of business in several states, other than Washington, at which its manufacturing is carried on and from which its merchandise is distributed interstate through several sales units or branches located outside the State of Washington.

Appellant has no office in Washington and makes no contracts either for sale or purchase of merchandise there. It maintains no stock of merchandise in that state and makes there no deliveries of goods in intrastate commerce. During the years from 1937 to 1940, now in question, appellant employed eleven to thirteen salesmen under direct supervision and control of sales managers located in St. Louis. These salesmen resided in Washington; their principal activities were confined to that state; and they were compensated by commissions based upon the amount of their sales. The commissions for each year totaled more than $31,000. Appellant supplies its salesmen with a line of samples, each consisting of one shoe of a pair, which *314they display to prospective purchasers. On occasion they rent permanent sample rooms, for exhibiting samples, in business buildings, or rent rooms in hotels or business buildings temporarily for that purpose. The cost of such rentals is reimbursed by appellant.

The authority of the salesmen is limited to exhibiting their samples and soliciting orders from prospective buyers, at prices and on terms fixed by appellant. The salesmen transmit the orders to appellant's office in St. Louis for acceptance or rejection, and when accepted the merchandise for filling the orders is shipped f. o. b. from points outside Washington to the purchasers within the state. All the merchandise shipped into Washington is invoiced at the place of shipment from which collections are made. No salesman has authority to enter into contracts or to make collections.

The Supreme Court of Washington was of opinion that the regular and systematic solicitation of orders in the state by appellant's salesmen, resulting in a continuous flow of appellant's product into the state, was sufficient to constitute doing business in the state so as to make appellant amenable to suit in its courts. But it was also of opinion that there were sufficient additional activities shown to bring the case within the rule frequently stated, that solicitation within a state by the agents of a foreign corporation plus some additional activities there are sufficient to render the corporation amenable to suit brought in the courts of the state to enforce an obligation arising out of its activities there. International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, 234 U. S. 579, 587; People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., 246 U. S. 79, 87; Frene v. Louisville Cement Co., 77 U. S. App. D. C. 129, 134 F. 2d 511, 516. The court found such additional activities in the salesmen’s display of samples sometimes in permanent display rooms, and the salesmen's residence within the state, continued over a period of years, all resulting in a *315substantial volume of merchandise regularly shipped by appellant to purchasers within the state. The court also held that the statute as applied did not invade the constitutional power of Congress to regulate interstate commerce and did not impose a prohibited burden on such commerce.

Appellant’s argument, renewed here, that the statute imposes an unconstitutional burden on interstate commerce need not detain us. For 53 Stat. 1391, 26 U. S. C. § 1606 (a) provides that “No person required under a State law to make payments to an unemployment fund shall be relieved from compliance therewith on the ground that he is engaged in interstate or foreign commerce, or that the State law does not distinguish between employees engaged in interstate or foreign commerce and those engaged in intrastate commerce.” It is no longer debatable that Congress, in the exercise of the commerce power, may authorize the states, in specified ways, to regulate interstate commerce or impose burdens upon it. Kentucky Whip & Collar Co. v. Illinois Central R. Co., 299 U. S. 334; Perkins v. Pennsylvania, 314 U. S. 586; Standard Dredging Corp. v. Murphy, 319 U. S. 306, 308; Hooven & Allison Co. v. Evatt, 324 U. S. 652, 679; Southern Pacific Co. v. Arizona, 325 U. S. 761, 769.

Appellant also insists that its activities within the state were not sufficient to manifest its “presence” there and that in its absence the state courts were without jurisdiction, that consequently it was a denial of due process for the state to subject appellant to suit. It refers to those cases in which it was said that the mere solicitation of orders for the purchase of goods within a state, to be accepted without the state and filled by shipment of the purchased goods interstate, does not render the corporation seller amenable to suit within the state. See Green v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., 205 U. S. 530, 533; International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra, 586-587; Philadelphia *316 & Reading R. Co. v. McKibbin, 243 U. S. 264, 268; People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., supra, 87. And appellant further argues that since it was not present within the state, it is a denial of due process to subject it to taxation or other money exaction. It thus denies the power of the state to lay the tax or to subject appellant to a suit for its collection.

Historically the jurisdiction of courts to render judgment in personam is grounded on their de facto power over the defendant’s person. Hence his presence within the territorial jurisdiction of a court was prerequisite to its rendition of a judgment personally binding him. Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U. S. 714, 733. But now that the capias ad respondendum has given way to personal service of summons or other form of notice, due process requires only that in order to subject a defendant to a judgment in personam, if he be not present within the territory of the forum, he have certain minimum contacts with it such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend “traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice.” Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457, 463. See Holmes, J., in McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90, 91. Compare Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U. S. 313, 316, 319. See Blackmer v. United States, 284 U. S. 421; Hess v. Pawloski, 274 U. S. 352; Young v. Masci, 289 U. S. 253.

Since the corporate personality is a fiction, although a fiction intended to be acted upon as though it were a fact, Klein v. Board of Supervisors, 282 U. S. 19, 24, it is clear that unlike an individual its “presence” without, as well as within, the state of its origin can be manifested only by activities carried on in its behalf by those who are authorized to act for it. To say that the corporation is so far “present” there as to satisfy due process requirements, for purposes of taxation or the maintenance of suits against it in the courts of the state, is to beg the question to be decided. For the terms “present” or “presence” are *317used merely to symbolize those activities of the corporation’s agent within the state which courts will deem to be sufficient to satisfy the demands of due process. L. Hand, J., in Hutchinson v. Chase & Gilbert, 45 F. 2d 139, 141. Those demands may be met by such contacts of the corporation with the state of the forum as make it reasonable, in the context of our federal system of government, to require the corporation to defend the particular suit which is brought there. An “estimate of the inconveniences” which would result to the corporation from a trial away from its “home” or principal place of business is relevant in this connection. Hutchinson v. Chase & Gilbert, supra, 141.

“Presence” in the state in this sense has never been doubted when the activities of the corporation there have not only been continuous and systematic, but also give rise to the liabilities sued on, even though no consent to be sued or authorization to an agent to accept service of process has been given. St. Clair v. Cox, 106 U. S. 350, 355; Connecticut Mutual Co. v. Spratley, 172 U. S. 602, 610-611; Pennsylvania Lumbermen’s Ins. Co. v. Meyer, 197 U. S. 407, 414-415; Commercial Mutual Co. v. Davis, 213 U. S. 245, 255-256; International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra; cf. St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Alexander, 227 U. S. 218. Conversely it has been generally recognized that the casual presence of the corporate agent or even his conduct of single or isolated items of activities in a state in the corporation’s behalf are not enough to subject it to suit on causes of action unconnected with the activities there. St. Clair v. Cox, supra, 359, 360; Old Wayne Life Assn. v. McDonough, 204 U. S. 8, 21; Frene v. Louisville Cement Co., supra, 515, and cases cited. To require the corporation in such circumstances to defend the suit away from its home or other jurisdiction where it carries on more substantial activities has been thought to lay too great and unreasonable a burden on the corporation to comport with due process.

*318While it has been held, in cases on which appellant relies, that continuous activity of some sorts within a state is not enough to support the demand that the corporation be amenable to suits unrelated to that activity, Old Wayne Life Assn. v. McDonough, supra; Green v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., supra; Simon v. Southern R. Co., 236 U. S. 115; People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., supra; cf. Davis v. Farmers Co-operative Co., 262 U. S. 312, 317, there have been instances in which the continuous corporate operations within a state were thought so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities. See Missouri, K. & T. R. Co. v. Reynolds, 255 U. S. 565; Tauza v. Susquehanna Coal Co., 220 N. Y. 259, 115 N. E. 915; cf. St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Alexander, supra.

Finally, although the commission of some single or occasional acts of the corporate agent in a state sufficient to impose an obligation or liability on the corporation has not been thought to confer upon the state authority to enforce it, Rosenberg Bros. Co. v. Curtis Brown Co., 260 U. S. 516, other such acts, because of their nature and quality and the circumstances of their commission, may be deemed sufficient to render the corporation liable to suit. Cf. Kane v. New Jersey, 242 U. S. 160; Hess v. Pawloski, supra; Young v. Masci, supra. True, some of the decisions holding the corporation amenable to suit have been supported by resort to the legal fiction that it has given its consent to service and suit, consent being implied from its presence in the state through the acts of its authorized agents. Lafayette Insurance Co. v. French, 18 How. 404, 407; St. Clair v. Cox, supra, 356; Commercial Mutual Co. v. Davis, supra, 254; Washington v. Superior Court, 289 U. S. 361, 364-365. But more realistically it may be said that those authorized acts were of such a nature as to justify the fiction. Smolik v. Philadelphia & *319 Reading Co., 222 F. 148, 151. Henderson, The Position of Foreign Corporations in American Constitutional Law, 94-95.

It is evident that the criteria by which we mark the boundary line between those activities which justify the subjection of a corporation to suit, and those which do not, cannot be simply mechanical or quantitative. The test is not merely, as has sometimes been suggested, whether the activity, which the corporation has seen fit to procure through its agents in another state, is a little more or a little less. St. Louis S. W. R. Co. v. Alexander, supra, 228; International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra, 587. Whether due process is satisfied must depend rather upon the quality and nature of the activity in relation to the fair and orderly administration of the laws which it was the purpose of the due process clause to insure. That clause does not contemplate that a state may make binding a judgment in personam against an individual or corporate defendant with which the state has no contacts, ties, or relations. Cf. Pennoyer v. Neff, supra; Minnesota Commercial Assn. v. Benn, 261 U. S. 140.

But to the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws of that state. The exercise of that privilege may give rise to obligations, and, so far as those obligations arise out of or are connected with the activities within the state, a procedure which requires the corporation to respond to a suit brought to enforce them can, in most instances, hardly be said to be undue. Compare International Harvester Co. v. Kentucky, supra, with Green v. Chicago, B. & Q. R. Co., supra, and People’s Tobacco Co. v. American Tobacco Co., supra. Compare Connecticut Mutual Co. v. Spratley, supra, 619, 620 and Commercial Mutual Co. v. Davis, supra, with Old Wayne Life Assn. v. McDonough, supra. See 29 Columbia Law Review, 187-195.

*320Applying these standards, the activities carried on in behalf of appellant in the State of Washington were neither irregular nor casual. They were systematic and continuous throughout the years in question. They resulted in a large volume of interstate business, in the course of which appellant received the benefits and protection of the laws of the state, including the right to resort to the courts for the enforcement of its rights. The obligation which is here sued upon arose out of those very activities. It is evident that these operations establish sufficient contacts or ties with the state of the forum to make it reasonable and just, according to our traditional conception of fair play and substantial justice, to permit the state to enforce the obligations which appellant has incurred there. Hence we cannot say that the maintenance of the present suit in the State of Washington involves an unreasonable or undue procedure.

We are likewise unable to conclude that the service of the process within the state upon an agent whose activities establish appellant’s “presence” there was not sufficient notice of the suit, or that the suit was so unrelated to those activities as to make the agent an inappropriate vehicle for communicating the notice. It is enough that appellant has established such contacts with the state that the particular form of substituted service adopted there gives reasonable assurance that the notice will be actual. Connecticut Mutual Co. v. Spratley, supra, 618, 619; Board of Trade v. Hammond Elevator Co., 198 U. S. 424, 437-438; Commercial Mutual Co. v. Davis, supra, 254-255. Cf. Riverside Mills v. Menefee, 237 U. S. 189, 194, 195; see Knowles v. Gaslight & Coke Co., 19 Wall. 58, 61; McDonald v. Mabee, supra; Milliken v. Meyer, supra. Nor can we say that the mailing of the notice of suit to appellant by registered mail at its home office was not reasonably calculated to apprise appellant of the suit. Compare Hess v. Pawloski, supra, with McDonald v. Mabee, supra, *32192, and Wuchter v. Pizzutti, 276 U. S. 13, 19, 24; cf. Becquet v. MacCarthy, 2 B. & Ad. 951; Maubourquet v. Wyse, 1 Ir. Rep. C. L. 471. See Washington v. Superior Court, supra, 365.

Only a word need be said of appellant’s liability for the demanded contributions to the state unemployment fund. The Supreme Court of Washington, construing and applying the statute, has held that it imposes a tax on the privilege of employing appellant’s salesmen within the state measured by a percentage of the wages, here the commissions payable to the salesmen. This construction we accept for purposes of determining the constitutional validity of the statute. The right to employ labor has .been deemed an appropriate subject of taxation in this country and England, both before and since the adoption of the Constitution. Steward Machine Co. v. Davis, 301 U. S. 548, 579, et seq. And such a tax imposed upon the employer for unemployment benefits is within the constitutional power of the states. Carmichael v. Southern Coal Co., 301 U. S. 495, 508, et seq.

Appellant having rendered itself amenable to suit upon obligations arising out of the activities of its salesmen in Washington, the state may maintain the present suit in personam to collect the tax laid upon the exercise of the privilege of employing appellant’s salesmen within the state. For Washington has made one of those activities, which taken together establish appellant’s “presence” there for purposes of suit, the taxable event by which the state brings appellant within the reach of its taxing power. The state thus has constitutional power to lay the tax and to subject appellant to a suit to recover it. The activities which establish its “presence” subject it alike to taxation by the state and to suit to recover the tax. Equitable Life Society v. Pennsylvania, 238 U. S. 143, 146; cf. International Harvester Co. v. Department of Taxation, 322 U. S. 435, 442, et seq.; Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, *322 supra, 316-319; see General Trading Co. v. Tax Comm’n, 322 U.S. 335.

Affirmed.

Mr. Justice Jackson took no part in the consideration or decision of this case.

Mr. Justice Black

delivered the following opinion.

Congress, pursuant to its constitutional power to regulate commerce, has expressly provided that a State shall not be prohibited from levying the kind of unemployment compensation tax here challenged. 26 U. S. C. 1600. We have twice decided that this Congressional consent is an adequate answer to a claim that imposition of the tax violates the Commerce Clause. Perkins v. Pennsylvania, 314 U. S. 586, affirming 342 Pa. 529; Standard Dredging Corp. v. Murphy, 319 U. S. 306, 308. Two determinations by this Court of an issue so palpably without merit are sufficient. Consequently that part of this appeal which again seeks to raise the question seems so patently frivolous as to make the case a fit candidate for dismissal. Fay v. Crozer, 217 U. S. 455. Nor is the further ground advanced on this appeal, that the State of Washington has denied appellant due process of law, any less devoid of substance. It is my view, therefore, that we should dismiss the appeal as unsubstantial,1 Seaboard Air Line R. Co. v. Watson, 287 U. S. 86, 90, 92, and decline the invitation to formulate broad rules as to the meaning of due process, which here would amount to deciding a constitutional question “in advance of the necessity for its decision.” Federation of Labor v. McAdory, 325 U. S. 450, 461.

*323Certainly appellant cannot in the light of our past decisions meritoriously claim that notice by registered mail and by personal service on its sales solicitors in Washington did not meet the requirements of procedural due process. And the due process clause is not brought in issue any more by appellant’s further conceptualistic contention that Washington could not levy a tax or bring suit against the corporation because it did not honor that State with its mystical “presence.” For it is unthinkable that the vague due process clause was ever intended to prohibit a State from regulating or taxing a business carried on within its boundaries simply because this is done by agents of a corporation organized and having its headquarters elsewhere. To read this into the due process clause would in fact result in depriving a State’s citizens of due process by taking from the State the power to protect them in their business dealings within its boundaries with representatives of a foreign corporation. Nothing could be more irrational or more designed to defeat the function of our federative system of government. Certainly a State, at the very least, has power to tax and sue those dealing with its citizens within its boundaries, as we have held before. Hoopeston Canning Co. v. Cullen, 318 U. S. 313. Were the Court to follow this principle, it would provide a workable standard for cases where, as here, no other questions are involved. The Court has not chosen to do so, but instead has engaged in an unnecessary discussion in the course of which it has announced vague Constitutional criteria applied for the first time to the issue before us. It has thus introduced uncertain elements confusing the simple pattern and tending to curtail the exercise of State powers to an extent not justified by the Constitution.

The criteria adopted insofar as they can be identified read as follows: Due Process does permit State courts to “enforce the obligations which appellant has incurred” if *324it be found “reasonable and just according to our traditional conception of fair play and substantial justice.” And this in turn means that we will “permit” the State to act if upon “an ‘estimate of the inconveniences’ which would result to the corporation from a trial away from its ‘home’ or principal place of business,” we conclude that it is “reasonable” to subject it to suit in a State where it is doing business.

It is true that this Court did use the terms “fair play” and “substantial justice” in explaining the philosophy underlying the holding that it could not be “due process of law” to render a personal judgment against a defendant without notice and an opportunity to be heard. Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U. S. 457. In McDonald v. Mabee, 243 U. S. 90, 91, cited in the Milliken case, Mr. Justice Holmes, speaking for the Court, warned against judicial curtailment of this opportunity to be heard and referred to such a curtailment as a denial of “fair play,” which even the common law would have deemed “contrary to natural justice.” And previous cases had indicated that the ancient rule against judgments without notice had stemmed from “natural justice” concepts. These cases, while giving additional reasons why notice under particular circumstances is inadequate, did not mean thereby that all legislative enactments which this Court might deem to be contrary to natural justice ought to be held invalid under the due process clause. None of the cases purport to support or could support a holding that a State can tax and sue corporations only if its action comports with this Court’s notions of “natural justice.” I should have thought the Tenth Amendment settled that.

I believe that the Federal Constitution leaves to each State, without any “ifs” or “buts,” a power to tax and to open the doors of its courts for its citizens to sue corporations whose agents do business in those States. Believing that the Constitution gave the States that power, I think it a judicial deprivation to condition its exercise upon this *325Court’s notion of “fair play,” however appealing that term may be. Nor can I stretch the meaning of due process so far as to authorize this Court to deprive a State of the right to afford judicial protection to its citizens on the ground that it would be more “convenient” for the corporation to be sued somewhere else.

There is a strong emotional appeal in the words “fair play,” “justice,” and “reasonableness.” But they were not chosen by those who wrote the original Constitution or the Fourteenth Amendment as a measuring rod for this Court to use in invalidating State or Federal laws passed by elected legislative representatives. No one, not even those who most feared a democratic government, ever formally proposed that courts should be given power to invalidate legislation under any such elastic standards. Express prohibitions against certain types of legislation are found in the Constitution, and under the long-settled practice, courts invalidate laws found to conflict with them. This requires interpretation, and interpretation, it is true, may result in extension of the Constitution’s purpose. But that is no reason for reading the due process clause so as to restrict a State’s power to tax and sue those whose activities affect persons and businesses within the State, provided proper service can be had. Superimposing the natural justice concept on the Constitution’s specific prohibitions could operate as a drastic abridgment of democratic safeguards they embody, such as freedom of speech, press and religion,2 and the right to counsel. This *326has already happened. Betts v. Brady, 316 U. S. 455. Compare Feldman v. United States, 322 U. S. 487, 494-503. For application of this natural law concept, whether under the terms “reasonableness,” “justice,” or “fair play,” makes judges the supreme arbiters of the country’s laws and practices. Polk Co. v. Glover, 305 U. S. 5, 17-18; Federal Power Commission v. Natural Gas Pipeline Co., 315 U. S. 575, 600, n. 4. This result, I believe, alters the form of government our Constitution provides. I cannot agree.

True, the State’s power is here upheld. But the rule announced means that tomorrow’s judgment may strike down a State or Federal enactment on the ground that it does not conform to this Court’s idea of natural justice. I therefore find myself moved by the same fears that caused Mr. Justice Holmes to say in 1930:

“I have not yet adequately expressed the more than anxiety that I feel at the ever increasing scope given to the Fourteenth Amendment in cutting down what I believe to be the constitutional rights of the States. As the decisions now stand, I see hardly any limit but the sky to the invalidating of those rights if they happen to strike a majority of this Court as for any reason undesirable.” Baldwin v. Missouri, 281 U. S. 586, 595.

Justice GINSBURG delivered the opinion of the Court.

*120This case concerns the authority of a court in the United States to entertain a claim brought by foreign plaintiffs against a foreign defendant based on events occurring entirely outside the United States. The litigation commenced in 2004, when twenty-two Argentinian residents1 filed a complaint in the United States District Court for the Northern District *121of California against DaimlerChrysler Aktiengesellschaft *751(Daimler),2 a German public stock company, headquartered in Stuttgart, that manufactures Mercedes-Benz vehicles in Germany. The complaint alleged that during Argentina's 1976-1983 "Dirty War," Daimler's Argentinian subsidiary, Mercedes-Benz Argentina (MB Argentina) collaborated with state security forces to kidnap, detain, torture, and kill certain MB Argentina workers, among them, plaintiffs or persons closely related to plaintiffs. Damages for the alleged human-rights violations were sought from Daimler under the laws of the United States, California, and Argentina. Jurisdiction over the lawsuit was predicated on the California contacts of Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC (MBUSA), a subsidiary of Daimler incorporated in Delaware with its principal place of business in New Jersey. MBUSA distributes Daimler-manufactured vehicles to independent dealerships throughout the United States, including California.

The question presented is whether the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment precludes the District Court from exercising jurisdiction over Daimler in this case, given the absence of any California connection to the atrocities, perpetrators, or victims described in the complaint. Plaintiffs invoked the court's general or all-purpose jurisdiction. California, they urge, is a place where Daimler may be sued on any and all claims against it, wherever in the world the claims may arise. For example, as plaintiffs' counsel affirmed, under the proffered jurisdictional theory, if a Daimler-manufactured vehicle overturned in Poland, injuring a Polish driver and passenger, the injured parties could maintain a design defect suit in California. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 28-29. Exercises of personal jurisdiction so exorbitant, *122we hold, are barred by due process constraints on the assertion of adjudicatory authority.

In Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 2846, 180 L.Ed.2d 796 (2011), we addressed the distinction between general or all-purpose jurisdiction, and specific or conduct-linked jurisdiction. As to the former, we held that a court may assert jurisdiction over a foreign corporation "to hear any and all claims against [it]" only when the corporation's affiliations with the State in which suit is brought are so constant and pervasive "as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum State." Id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2851. Instructed by Goodyear , we conclude Daimler is not "at home" in California, and cannot be sued there for injuries plaintiffs attribute to MB Argentina's conduct in Argentina.

I

In 2004, plaintiffs (respondents here) filed suit in the United States District Court for the Northern District of California, alleging that MB Argentina collaborated with Argentinian state security forces to kidnap, detain, torture, and kill plaintiffs and their relatives during the military dictatorship in place there from 1976 through 1983, a period known as Argentina's "Dirty War." Based on those allegations, plaintiffs asserted claims under the Alien Tort Statute, 28 U.S.C. § 1350, and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991, 106 Stat. 73, note following 28 U.S.C. § 1350, as well as claims for wrongful death and intentional infliction of emotional distress under the laws of California and Argentina. The incidents recounted in the *752complaint center on MB Argentina's plant in Gonzalez Catan, Argentina; no part of MB Argentina's alleged collaboration with Argentinian authorities took place in California or anywhere else in the United States.

Plaintiffs' operative complaint names only one corporate defendant: Daimler, the petitioner here. Plaintiffs seek to hold Daimler vicariously liable for MB Argentina's alleged *123malfeasance. Daimler is a German Aktiengesellschaft (public stock company) that manufactures Mercedes-Benz vehicles primarily in Germany and has its headquarters in Stuttgart. At times relevant to this case, MB Argentina was a subsidiary wholly owned by Daimler's predecessor in interest.

Daimler moved to dismiss the action for want of personal jurisdiction. Opposing the motion, plaintiffs submitted declarations and exhibits purporting to demonstrate the presence of Daimler itself in California. Alternatively, plaintiffs maintained that jurisdiction over Daimler could be founded on the California contacts of MBUSA, a distinct corporate entity that, according to plaintiffs, should be treated as Daimler's agent for jurisdictional purposes.

MBUSA, an indirect subsidiary of Daimler, is a Delaware limited liability corporation.3 MBUSA serves as Daimler's exclusive importer and distributor in the United States, purchasing Mercedes-Benz automobiles from Daimler in Germany, then importing those vehicles, and ultimately distributing them to independent dealerships located throughout the Nation. Although MBUSA's principal place of business is in New Jersey, MBUSA has multiple California-based facilities, including a regional office in Costa Mesa, a Vehicle Preparation Center in Carson, and a Classic Center in Irvine. According to the record developed below, MBUSA is the largest supplier of luxury vehicles to the California market. In particular, over 10% of all sales of new vehicles in the United States take place in California, and MBUSA's California sales account for 2.4% of Daimler's worldwide sales.

The relationship between Daimler and MBUSA is delineated in a General Distributor Agreement, which sets forth requirements for MBUSA's distribution of Mercedes-Benz vehicles in the United States. That agreement established MBUSA as an "independent contracto[r]" that "buy[s] and *124sell[s] [vehicles] ... as an independent business for [its] own account." App. 179a. The agreement "does not make [MBUSA] ... a general or special agent, partner, joint venturer or employee of DAIMLERCHRYSLER or any DaimlerChrysler Group Company"; MBUSA "ha[s] no authority to make binding obligations for or act on behalf of DAIMLERCHRYSLER or any DaimlerChrysler Group Company." Ibid.

After allowing jurisdictional discovery on plaintiffs' agency allegations, the District Court granted Daimler's motion to dismiss. Daimler's own affiliations with California, the court first determined, were insufficient to support the exercise of all-purpose jurisdiction over the corporation. Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG, No. C-04-00194 RMW (N.D.Cal., Nov. 22, 2005), App. to Pet. for Cert. 111a-112a, 2005 WL 3157472, *9-*10. Next, the court declined to attribute MBUSA's California contacts to Daimler on an agency theory, concluding that plaintiffs failed to demonstrate that MBUSA acted as Daimler's agent. Id., at 117a, 133a, 2005 WL 3157472, *12, *19;

*753Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler AG, No. C-04-00194 RMW (N.D.Cal., Feb. 12, 2007), App. to Pet. for Cert. 83a-85a, 2007 WL 486389, *2.

The Ninth Circuit at first affirmed the District Court's judgment. Addressing solely the question of agency, the Court of Appeals held that plaintiffs had not shown the existence of an agency relationship of the kind that might warrant attribution of MBUSA's contacts to Daimler. Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 579 F.3d 1088, 1096-1097 (2009). Judge Reinhardt dissented. In his view, the agency test was satisfied and considerations of "reasonableness" did not bar the exercise of jurisdiction. Id., at 1098-1106. Granting plaintiffs' petition for rehearing, the panel withdrew its initial opinion and replaced it with one authored by Judge Reinhardt, which elaborated on reasoning he initially expressed in dissent. Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 644 F.3d 909 (C.A.9 2011).

*125Daimler petitioned for rehearing and rehearing en banc, urging that the exercise of personal jurisdiction over Daimler could not be reconciled with this Court's decision in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 2846, 180 L.Ed.2d 796 (2011). Over the dissent of eight judges, the Ninth Circuit denied Daimler's petition. See Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp., 676 F.3d 774 (2011) (O'Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).

We granted certiorari to decide whether, consistent with the Due Process Clause of the Fourteenth Amendment, Daimler is amenable to suit in California courts for claims involving only foreign plaintiffs and conduct occurring entirely abroad. 569 U.S. ----, 133 S.Ct. 1995, 185 L.Ed.2d 865 (2013).

II

Federal courts ordinarily follow state law in determining the bounds of their jurisdiction over persons. See Fed. Rule Civ. Proc. 4(k)(1)(A) (service of process is effective to establish personal jurisdiction over a defendant "who is subject to the jurisdiction of a court of general jurisdiction in the state where the district court is located"). Under California's long-arm statute, California state courts may exercise personal jurisdiction "on any basis not inconsistent with the Constitution of this state or of the United States." Cal. Civ. Proc. Code Ann. § 410.10 (West 2004). California's long-arm statute allows the exercise of personal jurisdiction to the full extent permissible under the U.S. Constitution. We therefore inquire whether the Ninth Circuit's holding comports with the limits imposed by federal due process. See, e.g., Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 464, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985).

III

In Pennoyer v. Neff, 95 U.S. 714, 24 L.Ed. 565 (1878), decided shortly after the enactment of the Fourteenth Amendment, the Court held that a tribunal's jurisdiction over persons reaches no farther than the geographic bounds of the forum. See id="p126" href="#p126" data-label="126" data-citation-index="1" class="page-label">*126id., at 720 ("The authority of every tribunal is necessarily restricted by the territorial limits of the State in which it is established."). See also Shaffer v. Heitner, 433 U.S. 186, 197, 97 S.Ct. 2569, 53 L.Ed.2d 683 (1977) (Under Pennoyer, "any attempt 'directly' to assert extraterritorial jurisdiction over persons or property would offend sister States and exceed the inherent limits of the State's power."). In time, however, that strict territorial approach yielded to a less rigid understanding, spurred by "changes in the technology of transportation and communication, and the tremendous growth of interstate business activity." Burnham v. Superior Court of Cal., *754County of Marin, 495 U.S. 604, 617, 110 S.Ct. 2105, 109 L.Ed.2d 631 (1990) (opinion of SCALIA, J.).

"The canonical opinion in this area remains International Shoe [Co. v. Washington ], 326 U.S. 310 [66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) ], in which we held that a State may authorize its courts to exercise personal jurisdiction over an out-of-state defendant if the defendant has 'certain minimum contacts with [the State] such that the maintenance of the suit does not offend "traditional notions of fair play and substantial justice." ' " Goodyear, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2853 (quoting International Shoe, 326 U.S., at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154). Following International Shoe, "the relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation, rather than the mutually exclusive sovereignty of the States on which the rules of Pennoyer rest, became the central concern of the inquiry into personal jurisdiction." Shaffer, 433 U.S., at 204, 97 S.Ct. 2569.

International Shoe 's conception of "fair play and substantial justice" presaged the development of two categories of personal jurisdiction. The first category is represented by International Shoe itself, a case in which the in-state activities of the corporate defendant "ha[d] not only been continuous and systematic, but also g[a]ve rise to the liabilities sued on." 326 U.S., at 317, 66 S.Ct. 154.4 International Shoe recognized, as *127well, that "the commission of some single or occasional acts of the corporate agent in a state" may sometimes be enough to subject the corporation to jurisdiction in that State's tribunals with respect to suits relating to that in-state activity. Id., at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154. Adjudicatory authority of this order, in which the suit "aris[es] out of or relate[s] to the defendant's contacts with the forum," Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 414, n. 8, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404 (1984), is today called "specific jurisdiction." See Goodyear, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2853 (citing von Mehren & Trautman, Jurisdiction to Adjudicate: A Suggested Analysis, 79 Harv. L.Rev. 1121, 1144-1163 (1966) (hereinafter von Mehren & Trautman)).

International Shoe distinguished between, on the one hand, exercises of specific jurisdiction, as just described, and on the other, situations where a foreign corporation's "continuous corporate operations within a state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities." 326 U.S., at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154. As we have since explained, "[a] court may assert general jurisdiction over foreign (sister-state or foreign-country) corporations to hear any and all claims against them when their affiliations with the State are so 'continuous and systematic' as to render them essentially at home in the forum State." Goodyear, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2851; see id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2853-2854; Helicopteros, 466 U.S., at 414, n. 9, 104 S.Ct. 1868.5

*755*128Since International Shoe, "specific jurisdiction has become the centerpiece of modern jurisdiction theory, while general jurisdiction [has played] a reduced role." Goodyear, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2854 (quoting Twitchell, The Myth of General Jurisdiction, 101 Harv. L.Rev. 610, 628 (1988) ). International Shoe 's momentous departure from Pennoyer 's rigidly territorial focus, we have noted, unleashed a rapid expansion of tribunals' ability to hear claims against out-of-state defendants when the episode-in-suit occurred in the forum or the defendant purposefully availed itself of the forum.6 Our subsequent decisions have continued to bear out the prediction that "specific jurisdiction will come into sharper relief and form a considerably more significant part of the scene." von Mehren & Trautman 1164.7

*129Our post-International Shoe opinions on general jurisdiction, by comparison, are few. "[The Court's] 1952 decision in Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co. remains the textbook case of general jurisdiction *756appropriately exercised over a foreign corporation that has not consented to suit in the forum." Goodyear, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2856 (internal quotation marks and brackets omitted). The defendant in Perkins , Benguet, was a company incorporated under the laws of the Philippines, where it operated gold and silver mines. Benguet ceased its mining operations during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in World War II; its president moved to Ohio, where he kept an office, maintained the company's files, and oversaw the company's activities. Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 448, 72 S.Ct. 413, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952). The plaintiff, an Ohio resident, sued Benguet on a claim that neither arose in Ohio nor related to the corporation's activities in that State. We held that the Ohio courts could exercise general jurisdiction over Benguet without offending due *130process. Ibid. That was so, we later noted, because "Ohio was the corporation's principal, if temporary, place of business." Keeton v. Hustler Magazine, Inc., 465 U.S. 770, 780, n. 11, 104 S.Ct. 1473, 79 L.Ed.2d 790 (1984).8 *131The next case on point, Helicopteros, 466 U.S. 408, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404, arose from a helicopter crash in Peru. Four U.S. citizens perished in that accident; their survivors and representatives brought suit in Texas state court against the helicopter's owner and operator, a Colombian corporation. That company's contacts with Texas were confined to " sending its chief executive officer to Houston for a *757contract-negotiation session; accepting into its New York bank account checks drawn on a Houston bank; purchasing helicopters, equipment, and training services from [a Texas-based helicopter company] for substantial sums; and sending personnel to [Texas] for training." Id., at 416, 104 S.Ct. 1868. Notably, those contacts bore no apparent relationship to the accident that gave rise to the suit. We held that the company's Texas connections did not resemble the "continuous and systematic general business contacts ... found to exist in Perkins ." Ibid. "[M]ere purchases, even if occurring at regular intervals," we clarified, "are not enough to warrant a State's assertion of in personam jurisdiction over a nonresident corporation in a cause of action not related to those purchase transactions." Id., at 418, 104 S.Ct. 1868.

Most recently, in Goodyear , we answered the question: "Are foreign subsidiaries of a United States parent corporation amenable to suit in state court on claims unrelated to any activity of the subsidiaries in the forum State? " 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2850. That case arose from a bus accident outside Paris that killed two boys from North Carolina. The boys' parents brought a wrongful-death suit in North Carolina state court alleging that the bus's tire was defectively manufactured. The complaint named as defendants not only The Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company (Goodyear), an Ohio corporation, but also Goodyear's Turkish, French, and Luxembourgian subsidiaries. Those foreign subsidiaries, which manufactured tires for sale in Europe and Asia, lacked any affiliation with North Carolina. A small percentage of tires *132manufactured by the foreign subsidiaries were distributed in North Carolina, however, and on that ground, the North Carolina Court of Appeals held the subsidiaries amenable to the general jurisdiction of North Carolina courts.

We reversed, observing that the North Carolina court's analysis "elided the essential difference between case-specific and all-purpose (general) jurisdiction." Id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2855. Although the placement of a product into the stream of commerce "may bolster an affiliation germane to specific jurisdiction," we explained, such contacts "do not warrant a determination that, based on those ties, the forum has general jurisdiction over a defendant." Id., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2857. As International Shoe itself teaches, a corporation's "continuous activity of some sorts within a state is not enough to support the demand that the corporation be amenable to suits unrelated to that activity." 326 U.S., at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154. Because Goodyear's foreign subsidiaries were "in no sense at home in North Carolina," we held, those subsidiaries could not be required to submit to the general jurisdiction of that State's courts. 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2857. See also J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 564 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 2780, 2797-2798, 180 L.Ed.2d 765 (2011) (GINSBURG, J., dissenting) (noting unanimous agreement that a foreign manufacturer, which engaged an independent U.S.-based distributor to sell its machines throughout the United States, could not be exposed to all-purpose jurisdiction in New Jersey courts based on those contacts).

As is evident from Perkins , Helicopteros, and Goodyear , general and specific jurisdiction have followed markedly different trajectories post- International Shoe . Specific jurisdiction has been cut loose from Pennoyer 's sway, but we have declined to stretch general jurisdiction beyond *758limits traditionally recognized.9 As this Court has increasingly *133trained on the "relationship among the defendant, the forum, and the litigation," Shaffer, 433 U.S., at 204, 97 S.Ct. 2569,i.e., specific jurisdiction,10 general jurisdiction has come to occupy a less dominant place in the contemporary scheme.11

IV

With this background, we turn directly to the question whether Daimler's affiliations with California are sufficient to subject it to the general (all-purpose) personal jurisdiction of that State's courts. In the proceedings below, the parties agreed on, or failed to contest, certain points we now take as given. Plaintiffs have never attempted to fit this case into the specific jurisdiction category. Nor did plaintiffs challenge on appeal the District Court's holding that Daimler's *134own contacts with California were, by themselves, too sporadic to justify the exercise of general jurisdiction. While plaintiffs ultimately persuaded the Ninth Circuit to impute MBUSA's California contacts to Daimler on an agency theory, at no point have they maintained that MBUSA is an alter ego of Daimler.

Daimler, on the other hand, failed to object below to plaintiffs' assertion that the California courts could exercise all-purpose jurisdiction over MBUSA.12 But see Brief for Petitioner 23, n. 4 (suggestion that in light of Goodyear , MBUSA may not be amenable to general jurisdiction in California); Brief for United States as Amicus Curiae 16, n. 5 (hereinafter U.S. Brief) (same). We will assume then, for purposes of this decision only, that MBUSA qualifies as at home in California.

A

In sustaining the exercise of general jurisdiction over Daimler, the Ninth Circuit relied on an agency theory, determining that MBUSA acted as Daimler's agent for jurisdictional purposes and then *759attributing MBUSA's California contacts to Daimler. The Ninth Circuit's agency analysis derived from Circuit precedent considering principally whether the subsidiary "performs services that are sufficiently important to the foreign corporation that if it did not have a representative to perform them, the corporation's own officials would undertake to perform substantially similar services." 644 F.3d, at 920 (quoting Doe v. Unocal Corp., 248 F.3d 915, 928 (C.A.9 2001) ; emphasis deleted).

This Court has not yet addressed whether a foreign corporation may be subjected to a court's general jurisdiction based on the contacts of its in-state subsidiary. Daimler argues, and several Courts of Appeals have held, that a subsidiary's jurisdictional contacts can be imputed to its parent only when the former is so dominated by the latter as to be *135its alter ego. The Ninth Circuit adopted a less rigorous test based on what it described as an "agency" relationship. Agencies, we note, come in many sizes and shapes: "One may be an agent for some business purposes and not others so that the fact that one may be an agent for one purpose does not make him or her an agent for every purpose." 2A C. J. S., Agency § 43, p. 367 (2013) (footnote omitted).13 A subsidiary, for example, might be its parent's agent for claims arising in the place where the subsidiary operates, yet not its agent regarding claims arising elsewhere. The Court of Appeals did not advert to that prospect. But we need not pass judgment on invocation of an agency theory in the context of general jurisdiction, for in no event can the appeals court's analysis be sustained.

The Ninth Circuit's agency finding rested primarily on its observation that MBUSA's services were "important" to Daimler, as gauged by Daimler's hypothetical readiness to perform those services itself if MBUSA did not exist. Formulated *136this way, the inquiry into importance stacks the deck, for it will always yield a pro-jurisdiction answer: "Anything a corporation does through an independent contractor, subsidiary, or distributor is presumably something that the corporation would do 'by other means' if the independent contractor, subsidiary, or distributor did not exist." 676 F.3d, at 777 (O'Scannlain, J., dissenting from denial of rehearing en banc).14 THE NINTH CIRCUIT'S AGENCY theory *760thus appears to subject foreign corporations to general jurisdiction whenever they have an in-state subsidiary or affiliate, an outcome that would sweep beyond even the "sprawling view of general jurisdiction" we rejected in Goodyear . 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2856.15

B

Even if we were to assume that MBUSA is at home in California, and further to assume MBUSA's contacts are imputable to Daimler, there would still be no basis to subject Daimler to general jurisdiction in California, for Daimler's slim contacts with the State hardly render it at home there.16

*137Goodyear made clear that only a limited set of affiliations with a forum will render a defendant amenable to all-purpose jurisdiction there. " For an individual, the paradigm forum for the exercise of general jurisdiction is the individual's domicile; for a corporation, it is an equivalent place, one in which the corporation is fairly regarded as at home." 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2853-2854 (citing Brilmayer et al., A General Look at General Jurisdiction, 66 Texas L.Rev. 721, 728 (1988) ). With respect to a corporation, the place of incorporation and principal place of business are " paradig[m] ... bases for general jurisdiction." Id ., at 735. See also Twitchell, 101 Harv. L.Rev., at 633. Those affiliations have the virtue of being unique-that is, each ordinarily indicates only one place-as well as easily ascertainable. Cf. Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 94, 130 S.Ct. 1181, 175 L.Ed.2d 1029 (2010) ("Simple jurisdictional rules ... promote greater predictability."). These bases afford plaintiffs recourse to at least one clear and certain forum in which a corporate defendant may be sued on any and all claims.

Goodyear did not hold that a corporation may be subject to general jurisdiction only in a forum where it is incorporated or has its principal place of business; it simply typed those places paradigm all-purpose forums. Plaintiffs would have us look beyond the exemplar bases Goodyear identified, *761*138and approve the exercise of general jurisdiction in every State in which a corporation "engages in a substantial, continuous, and systematic course of business." Brief for Respondents 16-17, and nn. 7-8. That formulation, we hold, is unacceptably grasping.

As noted, see supra, at 753 - 754, the words "continuous and systematic" were used in International Shoe to describe instances in which the exercise of specific jurisdiction would be appropriate. See 326 U.S., at 317, 66 S.Ct. 154 (jurisdiction can be asserted where a corporation's in-state activities are not only "continuous and systematic, but also give rise to the liabilities sued on").17 Turning to all-purpose jurisdiction, in contrast, International Shoe speaks of "instances in which the continuous corporate operations within a state [are] so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit ... on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities ." Id., at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154 (emphasis added). See also Twitchell, Why We Keep Doing Business With Doing-Business Jurisdiction, 2001 U. Chi. Legal Forum 171, 184 (International Shoe "is clearly not saying that dispute-blind jurisdiction exists whenever 'continuous and systematic' contacts are found.").18 Accordingly, the inquiry under Goodyear is *139not whether a foreign corporation's in-forum contacts can be said to be in some sense "continuous and systematic," it is whether that corporation's "affiliations with the State are so 'continuous and systematic' as to render [it] essentially at home in the forum State." 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2851.19

Here, neither Daimler nor MBUSA is incorporated in California, nor does either entity have its principal place of business there. If Daimler's California activities sufficed to allow adjudication of this Argentina-rooted case in California, the same global reach would presumably be available in every other State in which MBUSA's sales are sizable. Such exorbitant exercises of all-purpose jurisdiction would *762scarcely permit out-of-state defendants "to structure their primary conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will not render them liable to suit." Burger King Corp., 471 U.S., at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174 (internal quotation marks omitted).

It was therefore error for the Ninth Circuit to conclude that Daimler, even with MBUSA's contacts attributed to it, was at home in California, and hence subject to suit there on claims by foreign plaintiffs having nothing to do with anything that occurred or had its principal impact in California.20

C

*140Finally, the transnational context of this dispute bears attention. The Court of Appeals emphasized, as supportive of *141the exercise of general jurisdiction, plaintiffs' assertion of claims under the Alien Tort Statute (ATS), 28 U.S.C. § 1350, and the Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991 (TVPA), 106 Stat. 73, note following 28 U.S.C. § 1350. See 644 F.3d, at 927 ("American federal courts, be they in California or any other state, have a strong interest in adjudicating and redressing international human rights abuses."). Recent decisions of this Court, however, have *763rendered plaintiffs' ATS and TVPA claims infirm. See Kiobel v. Royal Dutch Petroleum Co., 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1659, 1669, 185 L.Ed.2d 671 (2013) (presumption against extraterritorial application controls claims under the ATS); Mohamad v. Palestinian Authority, 566 U.S. ----, ----, 132 S.Ct. 1702, 1705, 182 L.Ed.2d 720 (2012) (only natural persons are subject to liability under the TVPA).

The Ninth Circuit, moreover, paid little heed to the risks to international comity its expansive view of general jurisdiction posed. Other nations do not share the uninhibited approach to personal jurisdiction advanced by the Court of Appeals in this case. In the European Union, for example, a corporation may generally be sued in the nation in which it is "domiciled," a term defined to refer only to the location of the corporation's "statutory seat," "central administration," or "principal place of business." European Parliament and Council Reg. 1215/2012, Arts. 4(1), and 63(1), 2012 O.J. (L. 351) 7, 18. See also id., Art. 7(5), 2012 O.J. 7 (as to "a dispute arising out of the operations of a branch, agency or other establishment, " a corporation may be sued "in the courts for the place where the branch, agency or other establishment is situated" (emphasis added)). The Solicitor General informs us, in this regard, that "foreign governments' objections to some domestic courts' expansive views of general jurisdiction have in the past impeded negotiations of international agreements on the reciprocal recognition and *142enforcement of judgments." U.S. Brief 2 (citing Juenger, The American Law of General Jurisdiction, 2001 U. Chi. Legal Forum 141, 161-162). See also U.S. Brief 2 (expressing concern that unpredictable applications of general jurisdiction based on activities of U.S.-based subsidiaries could discourage foreign investors); Brief for Respondents 35 (acknowledging that " doing business" basis for general jurisdiction has led to "international friction"). Considerations of international rapport thus reinforce our determination that subjecting Daimler to the general jurisdiction of courts in California would not accord with the "fair play and substantial justice" due process demands. International Shoe, 326 U.S., at 316, 66 S.Ct. 154 (quoting Milliken v. Meyer, 311 U.S. 457, 463, 61 S.Ct. 339, 85 L.Ed. 278 (1940) ).

* * *

For the reasons stated, the judgment of the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit is

Reversed.

Justice SOTOMAYOR, concurring in the judgment.

I agree with the Court's conclusion that the Due Process Clause prohibits the exercise of personal jurisdiction over Daimler in light of the unique circumstances of this case. I concur only in the judgment, however, because I cannot agree with the path the Court takes to arrive at that result.

The Court acknowledges that Mercedes-Benz USA, LLC (MBUSA), Daimler's wholly owned subsidiary, has considerable contacts with California. It has multiple facilities in the State, including a regional headquarters. Each year, it distributes in California tens of thousands of cars, the sale of which generated billions of dollars in the year this suit was brought. And it provides service and sales support to customers throughout the State. Daimler has conceded that California courts may exercise general jurisdiction over MBUSA on the basis of these contacts, and the Court assumes that MBUSA's contacts may be attributed to Daimler *143for the purpose of deciding whether Daimler is also subject to general jurisdiction.

Are these contacts sufficient to permit the exercise of general jurisdiction over *764Daimler? The Court holds that they are not, for a reason wholly foreign to our due process jurisprudence. The problem, the Court says, is not that Daimler's contacts with California are too few, but that its contacts with other forums are too many. In other words, the Court does not dispute that the presence of multiple offices, the direct distribution of thousands of products accounting for billions of dollars in sales, and continuous interaction with customers throughout a State would be enough to support the exercise of general jurisdiction over some businesses. Daimler is just not one of those businesses, the Court concludes, because its California contacts must be viewed in the context of its extensive "nationwide and worldwide" operations. Ante, at 762, n. 20. In recent years, Americans have grown accustomed to the concept of multinational corporations that are supposedly "too big to fail"; today the Court deems Daimler "too big for general jurisdiction."

The Court's conclusion is wrong as a matter of both process and substance. As to process, the Court decides this case on a ground that was neither argued nor passed on below, and that Daimler raised for the first time in a footnote to its brief. Brief for Petitioner 31-32, n. 5. As to substance, the Court's focus on Daimler's operations outside of California ignores the lodestar of our personal jurisdiction jurisprudence: A State may subject a defendant to the burden of suit if the defendant has sufficiently taken advantage of the State's laws and protections through its contacts in the State; whether the defendant has contacts elsewhere is immaterial.

Regrettably, these errors are unforced. The Court can and should decide this case on the far simpler ground that, no matter how extensive Daimler's contacts with California, *144that State's exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable given that the case involves foreign plaintiffs suing a foreign defendant based on foreign conduct, and given that a more appropriate forum is available. Because I would reverse the judgment below on this ground, I concur in the judgment only.

I

I begin with the point on which the majority and I agree: The Ninth Circuit's decision should be reversed.

Our personal jurisdiction precedents call for a two-part analysis. The contacts prong asks whether the defendant has sufficient contacts with the forum State to support personal jurisdiction; the reasonableness prong asks whether the exercise of jurisdiction would be unreasonable under the circumstances. Burger King Corp. v. Rudzewicz, 471 U.S. 462, 475-478, 105 S.Ct. 2174, 85 L.Ed.2d 528 (1985). As the majority points out, all of the cases in which we have applied the reasonableness prong have involved specific as opposed to general jurisdiction. Ante, at 762, n. 20. Whether the reasonableness prong should apply in the general jurisdiction context is therefore a question we have never decided,1 and it is one on which I *145can appreciate *765the arguments on both sides. But it would be imprudent to decide that question in this case given that respondents have failed to argue against the application of the reasonableness prong during the entire 8-year history of this litigation. See Brief for Respondents 11, 12, 13, 16 (conceding application of the reasonableness inquiry); Plaintiffs' Opposition to Defendant's Motion to Quash Service of Process and to Dismiss for Lack of Personal Jurisdiction in No. 04-00194-RMW (ND Cal., May 16, 2005), pp. 14-23 (same). As a result, I would decide this case under the reasonableness prong without foreclosing future consideration of whether that prong should be limited to the specific jurisdiction context.2

We identified the factors that bear on reasonableness in Asahi Metal Industry Co. v. Superior Court of Cal., Solano Cty., 480 U.S. 102, 107 S.Ct. 1026, 94 L.Ed.2d 92 (1987) : "the burden on the defendant, the interests of the forum State," "the plaintiff's interest in obtaining relief" in the forum State, and the interests of other sovereigns in resolving the dispute. Id., at 113-114, 107 S.Ct. 1026. We held in Asahi that it would be "unreasonable and unfair" for a California court to exercise jurisdiction over a claim between a Taiwanese plaintiff and a Japanese defendant that arose out of a transaction in Taiwan, particularly where the Taiwanese plaintiff had not shown that it would be more convenient to litigate in California than in Taiwan or Japan. Id., at 114, 107 S.Ct. 1026.

*146The same considerations resolve this case. It involves Argentine plaintiffs suing a German defendant for conduct that took place in Argentina. Like the plaintiffs in Asahi, respondents have failed to show that it would be more convenient to litigate in California than in Germany, a sovereign with a far greater interest in resolving the dispute. Asahi thus makes clear that it would be unreasonable for a court in California to subject Daimler to its jurisdiction.

II

The majority evidently agrees that, if the reasonableness prong were to apply, it would be unreasonable for California courts to exercise jurisdiction over Daimler in this case. See ante, at 761 - 762 (noting that it would be "exorbitant" for California courts to exercise general jurisdiction over Daimler, a German defendant, in this "Argentina-rooted case" brought by "foreign plaintiffs"). But instead of resolving the case on this uncontroversial basis, the majority reaches out to decide it on a ground neither argued nor decided below.3

*766We generally do not pass on arguments that lower courts have not addressed. See, e.g., Cutter v. Wilkinson, 544 U.S. 709, 718, n. 7, 125 S.Ct. 2113, 161 L.Ed.2d 1020 (2005). After all, "we are a court of review, not of first view." Ibid. This principle carries even greater force where the argument at issue was never pressed *147below. See Glover v. United States, 531 U.S. 198, 205, 121 S.Ct. 696, 148 L.Ed.2d 604 (2001). Yet the majority disregards this principle, basing its decision on an argument raised for the first time in a footnote of Daimler's merits brief before this Court. Brief for Petitioner 32, n. 5 ("Even if MBUSA were a division of Daimler AG rather than a separate corporation, Daimler AG would still ... not be 'at home' in California").

The majority's decision is troubling all the more because the parties were not asked to brief this issue. We granted certiorari on the question "whether it violates due process for a court to exercise general personal jurisdiction over a foreign corporation based solely on the fact that an indirect corporate subsidiary performs services on behalf of the defendant in the forum State." Pet. for Cert. i. At no point in Daimler's petition for certiorari did the company contend that, even if this attribution question were decided against it, its contacts in California would still be insufficient to support general jurisdiction. The parties' merits briefs accordingly focused on the attribution-of-contacts question, addressing the reasonableness inquiry (which had been litigated and decided below) in most of the space that remained. See Brief for Petitioner 17-37, 37-43; Brief for Respondents 18-47, 47-59.

In bypassing the question on which we granted certiorari to decide an issue not litigated below, the Court leaves respondents "without an unclouded opportunity to air the issue the Court today decides against them," Comcast Corp. v. Behrend, 569 U.S. ----, ----, 133 S.Ct. 1426, 1436, 185 L.Ed.2d 515 (2013) (GINSBURG and BREYER, JJ., dissenting). Doing so "does 'not reflect well on the processes of the Court.' " Ibid. (quoting Redrup v. New York, 386 U.S. 767, 772, 87 S.Ct. 1414, 18 L.Ed.2d 515 (1967) (Harlan, J., dissenting)). "And by resolving a complex and fact-intensive question without the benefit of full briefing, the Court invites the error into which it has fallen." 569 U.S., at ----, 133 S.Ct., at 1436.

The relevant facts are undeveloped because Daimler conceded at the start of this litigation that MBUSA is subject *148to general jurisdiction based on its California contacts. We therefore do not know the full extent of those contacts, though what little we do know suggests that Daimler was wise to concede what it did. MBUSA imports more than 200,000 vehicles into the United States and distributes many of them to independent dealerships in California, where they are sold. Declaration of Dr. Peter Waskönig in Bauman v. DaimlerChrysler Corp ., No. 04-00194-RMW (N.D.Cal.), ¶ 10, p. 2. MBUSA's California sales account for 2.4% of Daimler's worldwide sales, which were $192 billion in *7672004.4 And 2.4% of $192 billion is $4.6 billion, a considerable sum by any measure. MBUSA also has multiple offices and facilities in California, including a regional headquarters.

But the record does not answer a number of other important questions. Are any of Daimler's key files maintained in MBUSA's California offices? How many employees work in those offices? Do those employees make important strategic decisions or oversee in any manner Daimler's activities? These questions could well affect whether Daimler is subject to general jurisdiction. After all, this Court upheld the exercise of general jurisdiction in Perkins v. Benguet Consol. Mining Co., 342 U.S. 437, 447-448, 72 S.Ct. 413, 96 L.Ed. 485 (1952) -which the majority refers to as a "textbook case" of general jurisdiction, ante, at 755 - 756 -on the basis that the foreign defendant maintained an office in Ohio, kept corporate files there, and oversaw the company's activities from the State. California-based MBUSA employees may well have done similar things on Daimler's behalf.5 But because the Court *149decides the issue without a developed record, we will never know.

III

While the majority's decisional process is problematic enough, I fear that process leads it to an even more troubling result.

A

Until today, our precedents had established a straightforward test for general jurisdiction: Does the defendant have "continuous corporate operations within a state" that are "so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities"? International Shoe Co. v. Washington, 326 U.S. 310, 318, 66 S.Ct. 154, 90 L.Ed. 95 (1945) ; see also Helicopteros Nacionales de Colombia, S.A. v. Hall, 466 U.S. 408, 416, 104 S.Ct. 1868, 80 L.Ed.2d 404 (1984) (asking whether defendant had "continuous and systematic general business contacts").6 In every case where we have applied this test, we have focused solely on the magnitude of the defendant's in-state contacts, not the relative magnitude of those contacts in comparison to the defendant's contacts with other States.

*150In Perkins , for example, we found an Ohio court's exercise of general jurisdiction *768permissible where the president of the foreign defendant "maintained an office," "drew and distributed ... salary checks," used "two active bank accounts," "supervised ... the rehabilitation of the corporation's properties in the Philippines," and held "directors' meetings," in Ohio. 342 U.S., at 447-448, 72 S.Ct. 413. At no point did we attempt to catalog the company's contacts in forums other than Ohio or to compare them with its Ohio contacts. If anything, we intimated that the defendant's Ohio contacts were not substantial in comparison to its contacts elsewhere. See id. , at 438, 72 S.Ct. 413 (noting that the defendant's Ohio contacts, while "continuous and systematic," were but a "limited ... part of its general business").7

We engaged in the same inquiry in Helicopteros . There, we held that a Colombian corporation was not subject to general jurisdiction in Texas simply because it occasionally sent its employees into the State, accepted checks drawn on a Texas bank, and purchased equipment and services from a *151Texas company. In no sense did our analysis turn on the extent of the company's operations beyond Texas.

Most recently, in Goodyear Dunlop Tires Operations, S.A. v. Brown, 564 U.S. ----, 131 S.Ct. 2846, 180 L.Ed.2d 796 (2011), our analysis again focused on the defendant's in-state contacts. Goodyear involved a suit against foreign tire manufacturers by North Carolina residents whose children had died in a bus accident in France. We held that North Carolina courts could not exercise general jurisdiction over the foreign defendants. Just as in Perkins and Helicopteros, our opinion in Goodyear did not identify the defendants' contacts outside of the forum State, but focused instead on the defendants' lack of offices, employees, direct sales, and business operations within the State.

This approach follows from the touchstone principle of due process in this field, the concept of reciprocal fairness. When a corporation chooses to invoke the benefits and protections of a State in which it operates, the State acquires the authority to subject the company to suit in its courts. See International Shoe, 326 U.S., at 319, 66 S.Ct. 154 ("[T]o the extent that a corporation exercises the privilege of conducting activities within a state, it enjoys the benefits and protection of the laws of that state" such that an "obligatio[n] arise[s]" to respond there to suit); J. McIntyre Machinery, Ltd. v. Nicastro, 564 U.S. ----, ----, 131 S.Ct. 2780, 2796-2797, 180 L.Ed.2d 765 (2011) (plurality opinion) (same principle for general jurisdiction). The majority's focus on the extent of a corporate defendant's out-of-forum contacts is untethered from this rationale. After all, the degree to which a company *769intentionally benefits from a forum State depends on its interactions with that State, not its interactions elsewhere. An article on which the majority relies (and on which Goodyear relied as well, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2853-2854 ) expresses the point well: "We should not treat defendants as less amenable to suit merely because they carry on more substantial business in other states.... [T]he amount of activity elsewhere seems virtually irrelevant to ... the imposition *152of general jurisdiction over a defendant." Brilmayer et al., A General Look at General Jurisdiction, 66 Texas L.Rev. 721, 742 (1988).

Had the majority applied our settled approach, it would have had little trouble concluding that Daimler's California contacts rise to the requisite level, given the majority's assumption that MBUSA's contacts may be attributed to Daimler and given Daimler's concession that those contacts render MBUSA "at home" in California. Our cases have long stated the rule that a defendant's contacts with a forum State must be continuous, substantial, and systematic in order for the defendant to be subject to that State's general jurisdiction. See Perkins, 342 U.S., at 446, 72 S.Ct. 413. We offered additional guidance in Goodyear , adding the phrase "essentially at home" to our prior formulation of the rule. 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2851 (a State may exercise general jurisdiction where a defendant's "affiliations with the State are so 'continuous and systematic' as to render [the defendant] essentially at home in the forum State"). We used the phrase "at home" to signify that in order for an out-of-state defendant to be subject to general jurisdiction, its continuous and substantial contacts with a forum State must be akin to those of a local enterprise that actually is "at home" in the State. See Brilmayer, supra, at 742.8

*770*153Under this standard, Daimler's concession that MBUSA is subject to general jurisdiction in California (a concession the Court accepts, ante, at 758, 759) should be dispositive. For if MBUSA's California contacts are so substantial and the resulting benefits to MBUSA so significant as to make MBUSA "at home" in California, the same must be true of Daimler when MBUSA's contacts and benefits are viewed as its own. Indeed, until a footnote in its brief before this Court, even Daimler did not dispute this conclusion for eight years of the litigation.

B

The majority today concludes otherwise. Referring to the "continuous and systematic" contacts inquiry that has *154been taught to generations of first-year law students as "unacceptably grasping," ante, at 760, the majority announces the new rule that in order for a foreign defendant to be subject to general jurisdiction, it must not only possess continuous and systematic contacts with a forum State, but those contacts must also surpass some unspecified level when viewed in comparison to the company's "nationwide and worldwide" activities. Ante, at 762, n. 20.9

Neither of the majority's two rationales for this proportionality requirement is persuasive. First, the majority suggests that its approach is necessary for the sake of predictability. Permitting general jurisdiction in every State where a corporation has continuous and substantial contacts, the majority asserts, would "scarcely permit out-of-state defendants 'to structure their primary conduct with some minimum assurance as to where that conduct will and will not render them liable to suit.' " Ante, at 762 (quoting Burger King Corp., 471 U.S., at 472, 105 S.Ct. 2174). But there is nothing unpredictable about a rule that instructs multinational corporations that if they engage in continuous and substantial contacts with more than one State, they will be subject to general jurisdiction in each one. The majority may not favor that rule as a matter of policy, but such disagreement does not render an otherwise routine test unpredictable.

Nor is the majority's proportionality inquiry any more predictable than the approach it rejects. If anything, the majority's *155approach injects an additional layer of uncertainty because a corporate defendant must now try to foretell a court's analysis as to both the sufficiency of its contacts with the forum State itself, as well as the relative sufficiency of those contacts in light of the company's operations elsewhere. Moreover, the majority does not even try to explain just how extensive the company's in-state contacts must be in the context of its global operations in order for general jurisdiction to be proper.

The majority's approach will also lead to greater unpredictability by radically expanding the scope of jurisdictional discovery.

*771Rather than ascertaining the extent of a corporate defendant's forum-state contacts alone, courts will now have to identify the extent of a company's contacts in every other forum where it does business in order to compare them against the company's in-state contacts. That considerable burden runs headlong into the majority's recitation of the familiar principle that " '[s]imple jurisdictional rules ... promote greater predictability.' " Ante, at 760 - 761 (quoting Hertz Corp. v. Friend, 559 U.S. 77, 94, 130 S.Ct. 1181, 175 L.Ed.2d 1029 (2010) ).

Absent the predictability rationale, the majority's sole remaining justification for its proportionality approach is its unadorned concern for the consequences. "If Daimler's California activities sufficed to allow adjudication of this Argentina-rooted case in California," the majority laments, "the same global reach would presumably be available in every other State in which MBUSA's sales are sizable." Ante, at 761.

The majority characterizes this result as "exorbitant," ibid., but in reality it is an inevitable consequence of the rule of due process we set forth nearly 70 years ago, that there are "instances in which [a company's] continuous corporate operations within a state" are "so substantial and of such a nature as to justify suit against it on causes of action arising from dealings entirely distinct from those activities," International Shoe, 326 U.S., at 318, 66 S.Ct. 154. In the era of International *156Shoe, it was rare for a corporation to have such substantial nationwide contacts that it would be subject to general jurisdiction in a large number of States. Today, that circumstance is less rare. But that is as it should be. What has changed since International Shoe is not the due process principle of fundamental fairness but rather the nature of the global economy. Just as it was fair to say in the 1940's that an out-of-state company could enjoy the benefits of a forum State enough to make it "essentially at home" in the State, it is fair to say today that a multinational conglomerate can enjoy such extensive benefits in multiple forum States that it is "essentially at home" in each one.

In any event, to the extent the majority is concerned with the modern-day consequences of International Shoe 's conception of personal jurisdiction, there remain other judicial doctrines available to mitigate any resulting unfairness to large corporate defendants. Here, for instance, the reasonableness prong may afford petitioner relief. See supra, at 764 - 765. In other cases, a defendant can assert the doctrine of forum non conveniens if a given State is a highly inconvenient place to litigate a dispute. See Gulf Oil Corp. v. Gilbert, 330 U.S. 501, 508-509, 67 S.Ct. 839, 91 L.Ed. 1055 (1947). In still other cases, the federal change of venue statute can provide protection. See 28 U.S.C. § 1404(a) (permitting transfers to other districts "[f]or the convenience of parties and witnesses" and "in the interests of justice"). And to the degree that the majority worries these doctrines are not enough to protect the economic interests of multinational businesses (or that our longstanding approach to general jurisdiction poses "risks to international comity," ante, at 762), the task of weighing those policy concerns belongs ultimately to legislators, who may amend state and federal long-arm statutes in accordance with the democratic process. Unfortunately, the majority short circuits that process by enshrining today's narrow rule of general jurisdiction as a matter of constitutional law.

C

*157The majority's concern for the consequences of its decision should have led it *772the other way, because the rule that it adopts will produce deep injustice in at least four respects.

First, the majority's approach unduly curtails the States' sovereign authority to adjudicate disputes against corporate defendants who have engaged in continuous and substantial business operations within their boundaries.10 The majority does not dispute that a State can exercise general jurisdiction where a corporate defendant has its corporate headquarters, and hence its principal place of business within the State. Cf. Hertz Corp., 559 U.S., at 93, 130 S.Ct. 1181. Yet it never explains why the State should lose that power when, as is increasingly common, a corporation "divide[s] [its] command and coordinating functions among officers who work at several different locations." Id., at 95-96, 130 S.Ct. 1181. Suppose a company divides its management functions equally among three offices in different States, with one office nominally deemed the company's corporate headquarters. If the State where the headquarters is located can exercise general jurisdiction, why should the other two States be constitutionally forbidden to do the same? Indeed, under the majority's approach, the result would be unchanged even if the company has substantial operations within the latter two States (and even if the company has no sales or other business operations in the first State). Put simply, the majority's rule defines the Due Process Clause so narrowly and arbitrarily as to contravene the States' sovereign prerogative to subject to judgment defendants who have manifested an unqualified "intention *158to benefit from and thus an intention to submit to the[ir] laws," J. McIntyre, 564 U.S., at ----, 131 S.Ct., at 2787 (plurality opinion).

Second, the proportionality approach will treat small businesses unfairly in comparison to national and multinational conglomerates. Whereas a larger company will often be immunized from general jurisdiction in a State on account of its extensive contacts outside the forum, a small business will not be. For instance, the majority holds today that Daimler is not subject to general jurisdiction in California despite its multiple offices, continuous operations, and billions of dollars' worth of sales there. But imagine a small business that manufactures luxury vehicles principally targeting the California market and that has substantially all of its sales and operations in the State-even though those sales and operations may amount to one-thousandth of Daimler's. Under the majority's rule, that small business will be subject to suit in California on any cause of action involving any of its activities anywhere in the world, while its far more pervasive competitor, Daimler, will not be. That will be so even if the small business incorporates and sets up its headquarters elsewhere (as Daimler does), since the small business' California sales and operations would still predominate when "apprais[ed]" in proportion to its minimal "nationwide and worldwide" operations, ante, at 762, n. 20.

Third, the majority's approach creates the incongruous result that an individual defendant whose only contact with a forum State is a one-time visit will be subject to general jurisdiction if served with process during that visit, *773Burnham v. Superior Court of Cal., County of Marin, 495 U.S. 604, 110 S.Ct. 2105, 109 L.Ed.2d 631 (1990), but a large corporation that owns property, employs workers, and does billions of dollars' worth of business in the State will not be, simply because the corporation has similar contacts elsewhere (though the visiting individual surely does as well).

Finally, it should be obvious that the ultimate effect of the majority's approach will be to shift the risk of loss from multinational corporations to the individuals harmed by *159their actions. Under the majority's rule, for example, a parent whose child is maimed due to the negligence of a foreign hotel owned by a multinational conglomerate will be unable to hold the hotel to account in a single U.S. court, even if the hotel company has a massive presence in multiple States. See, e.g., Meier v. Sun Int'l Hotels, Ltd., 288 F.3d 1264 (C.A.11 2002).11 Similarly, a U.S. business that enters into a contract in a foreign country to sell its products to a multinational company there may be unable to seek relief in any U.S. court if the multinational company breaches the contract, even if that company has considerable operations in numerous U.S. forums. See, e.g., Walpex Trading Co. v. Yacimientos Petroliferos Fiscales Bolivianos, 712 F.Supp. 383 (S.D.N.Y.1989).12 Indeed, the majority's approach would preclude the plaintiffs in these examples from seeking recourse anywhere in the United States even if no other judicial system was available to provide relief. I cannot agree with the majority's conclusion that the Due Process Clause requires these results.

The Court rules against respondents today on a ground that no court has considered in the history of this case, that *160this Court did not grant certiorari to decide, and that Daimler raised only in a footnote of its brief. In doing so, the Court adopts a new rule of constitutional law that is unmoored from decades of precedent. Because I would reverse the Ninth Circuit's decision on the narrower ground that the exercise of jurisdiction over Daimler would be unreasonable in any event, I respectfully concur in the judgment only.