Tag: Can a Java class be public or private?

No, we cannot declare a top-level class as private or protected. It can be either public or default (no modifier).

Public means that the subject may be accessed by any class, protected by subclass , private by the class itself, no modifier means “package protected”, so the subject may be accessed by classes from the same package.

In Java, a top-level class is either public or non-public . There is no “private”. You can only use the public keyword or leave it off. If you leave it off it is non-public, i.e., visible only to other classes in the same package.

Java Classes and Objects