Voluntary deregistration of a company

What voluntary deregistration means

Deregistration means that a company no longer exists as a legal entity. You can choose to close your company through voluntary deregistration.

This is different to when ASIC initiates the deregistration of a company.

A company must meet the following requirements for voluntary deregistration:

• All members (shareholders) of the company agree to deregister.
• The company is not conducting business.
• The company’s assets are worth less than $1,000.
• The company has no outstanding liabilities (for example, unpaid wages).
• The company is not involved in any legal proceedings.
• The company has paid all fees and penalties payable to ASIC.

If the company does not meet the above requirements but is solvent, you can wind up a solvent company instead.

If the company is insolvent, you should get professional accounting and legal advice as soon as possible. You may need to wind up an insolvent company.

Before deregistering

You should dispose all of your company’s assets before you deregister. Otherwise, the assets usually vest in ASIC or the Commonwealth after deregistration.

You should also cancel any Australian financial services licence or credit licence your company holds before deregistering.

Apply for deregistration

You can apply online for voluntary deregistration. If you do not want to pay your next annual review fee, you should apply at least 2 weeks before it is due. This will give us enough time to process your application.

Use this form to apply:

Form 6010 Application for voluntary deregistration of a company

There is an application fee for deregistration. You must pay this fee when you apply. We do not refund this fee even if your application is rejected. The current application fee is {A15}.

If we approve your application, we will send confirmation that we will deregister the company. We will also publish a notice on the Published notices website. If the notice isn’t published before the review fee is due, you will need to pay the fee before you can deregister your company.

Two months after we publish the notice, your company may be deregistered. If it is, it will then show as ‘Deregistered’ on the companies register.

If we reject your application, we will tell you why. If you have questions about your application, contact us.

Delay or stop your deregistration

You may be able to stop voluntary deregistration if you’ve changed your mind. You should contact us and explain why we should not deregister the company. We’ll review your request and respond within 28 days.

Delay or stop deregistration of another company

If you are a third party (such as a creditor), you can apply to ASIC to delay or stop deregistration. We call this ‘deferral’.

You can ask us to consider deferring deregistration for an initial period of 30 days.

During this 30 days, you can ask us to further defer or stop deregistration. You must have started, or plan to start, legal proceedings against the company. We will delay deregistration so you can complete the proceedings.

To defer or stop deregistration, contact us and tell us:

• the name and Australian Company Number (ACN) of the company we are deregistering
• the reason you want to stop deregistration, with any supporting evidence
• your postal address.

Reinstate a deregistered company

Reinstatement means we restore a company to a registered status. It is treated as if it was never deregistered. For example, all directors become directors again and all property is vests back with the company.

There are only some reasons you can apply to ASIC for reinstatement. For more information, see:

Reinstate a company after deregistration