Check debts before a £13 strike-off
A voluntary strike-off is not a way of writing off company debts, and the digital filing fee of £13 does not change that. Companies House set that fee from 1 February 2026. It is still the digital rate on the published schedule. The fee is cheap. The consequences of filing while creditors are unpaid are not.
You are affected if you are an owner-director thinking of closing a limited company because trade has slowed, HMRC is pressing, or an accountant has sent a DS01 form with a note that it only costs £13. The same warning applies if a lead-generation site has told you strike-off is the simple exit. Companies House uses fee income to fund its own register work and, it says, the Insolvency Service’s company investigation and enforcement activity. That activity includes winding companies up and disqualifying directors. A low filing fee does not buy you a quiet close.
This week, work through this list before anyone files.
One. List every creditor, including HMRC, trade suppliers, landlords, finance companies and anyone who has issued a statutory demand or a winding-up petition. A company cannot be struck off if it has traded, changed its name, or disposed of property or rights for value in the previous three months, or if it is the subject of insolvency proceedings. Even where those bars do not apply, a creditor can object. HMRC may object where tax is outstanding.
Two. Write down every personal guarantee, every director’s loan account that is overdrawn, and every bounce back loan. Strike-off does not release a personal guarantee. An overdrawn loan account can still be pursued. A bounce back loan was made to the company; if it was not used for the business, or if the company was already insolvent when it was drawn, that is a separate problem for you, not a problem the £13 fee solves.
Three. Ask whether the company can still pay its debts as they fall due. If it cannot, continuing to trade while you hope a strike-off goes through can expose you to a wrongful trading claim and, later, to disqualification. Formal insolvency is sometimes the right choice. A creditors’ voluntary liquidation (CVL) puts a licensed insolvency practitioner in charge, realises assets and pays creditors in a set order: secured creditors and insolvency expenses, preferential creditors including certain HMRC debts, then floating-charge holders, then unsecured creditors. A company voluntary arrangement (CVA) can keep a viable business trading if creditors agree a deal. Neither is automatic, and neither is free. The first person who recommends one often gets paid from the procedure. Get advice from someone who is not selling you that procedure.
Four. If the company can pay what it owes, or can agree time to pay with HMRC and a realistic plan with other creditors, continued trading or an orderly solvent close may be better than either strike-off or a formal insolvency. Do not file a DS01 to buy time. If a petition is already out, take advice the same day. The law on strike-off and director duties in Scotland and Northern Ireland is not identical to the law in England and Wales; check which regime applies to your company before you file.
Do this before Friday: pull the creditor list, the guarantee documents and the loan-account balance, and book a conversation with an accountant or solicitor who is not an insolvency practitioner marketing a CVL. The £13 is the filing fee. It is not the cost of getting this wrong.
