The deadlines below apply to company liquidations in England and Wales. Scotland and Northern Ireland run to different procedural rules.
Most of these dates cannot be moved. A few can, but only if you ask before they expire rather than after.
If nothing has started yet, have the company’s position assessed before you fix a resolution date, meaning the day the shareholders formally vote to wind the company up. In a Creditors’ Voluntary Liquidation that date drives most of the early deadlines, and it is the one date you still choose.
Some of what follows is yours to do. Some belongs to the liquidator once appointed. This page keeps the two apart, because a director does not need to carry the practitioner’s diary as well as their own.
Liquidation Deadlines at a Glance
Which deadlines apply depends on where the company is now, so start there.
Nothing has started. No statutory clock is running. The one exception is wrongful trading, meaning the duty to act once insolvent liquidation can no longer be avoided, which depends on the company’s position rather than on any filing.
A CVL is planned. Before fixing the resolution date, we would want the latest management accounts and a current creditor list. Without those, nobody can tell you how much time you have.
The resolution has passed. Four obligations now fall due within the same 14 days: notice to creditors, the statement of affairs, the Gazette advertisement, and the decision procedure, which is the process letting creditors confirm or replace the liquidator you nominated.
The statement of affairs there is a formal statement of the company’s assets and liabilities, verified by a statement of truth. It is covered in detail further down.
A petition has been served. The court sets the timetable from here. Your window runs to the advertisement date rather than the hearing.
A winding-up order has been made. The Official Receiver, a civil servant from the Insolvency Service, becomes liquidator immediately. Your remaining obligations are cooperation and, if you are asked for one, a statement of affairs.
CVL Deadlines for Directors
These are the dates you are responsible for. Every one of them is measured from the resolution date.
Day 0: winding-up resolution. The shareholders pass a special resolution, by a 75% majority of the votes cast, to wind the company up voluntarily.
Within 14 days: notice to creditors. You must give notice of the resolution to all known creditors and invite them to a decision procedure. The notice must enclose the statement of affairs or say where creditors can inspect it.
Missing that window breaches your obligations under the Insolvency Act 1986. It is the notice, rather than the resolution itself, that tends to be overlooked.
By the business day before the decision date: statement of affairs. This is a formal statement of the company’s assets, liabilities and creditors, verified by a statement of truth.
A statement of truth is a signed declaration that the contents are correct as far as you know. No oath and no solicitor is involved, but the declaration still carries weight, so the figures are worth taking time over.
It lists every asset, every liability, every creditor, and every secured charge, meaning any debt that carries a legal claim over a particular company asset.
Within 14 days: decision procedure. Creditors get the chance to appoint their own liquidator, either at a virtual meeting or by deemed consent, which means the proposal goes through automatically unless enough of them object in time.
Under rule 6.14 the decision date must fall at least three business days after notice goes out, and no later than 14 days after the resolution.
If creditors do not respond in time, the liquidator you nominated is confirmed. Our liquidation documents checklist sets out what you need in place before that point.
Within 14 days: Gazette notice of the resolution. Section 85 requires the company to advertise the winding-up resolution in the Gazette, the government’s official journal of public notices.
This one is the company’s obligation rather than the liquidator’s, which is why it belongs on your list. Banks monitor the Gazette, so it is frequently how your own bank learns what has happened.
Timeline Reality
The 14-day window can close in three business days
Rule 6.14 sets 14 days as the outer limit for the creditors’ decision date, but only three business days as the minimum gap after notice goes out. A decision procedure convened at the earliest lawful moment leaves barely three days to finalise the statement of affairs.
The 14 days is a ceiling rather than an allowance. Planning against the floor instead leaves time to check the statement of affairs properly before anyone signs it.
Deadlines the Liquidator Handles
These dates are part of the process, but they are not jobs you have to perform. Once we are appointed they fall to us, and they are listed here so you recognise them when the correspondence arrives.
Within 14 days of appointment: Gazette and Companies House. Under section 109 the liquidator must advertise the appointment in the Gazette and deliver notice of it to Companies House.
For appointments in England and Wales made on or after 9 December 2017, Companies House uses form 600CH. The older form 600 applies only to appointments before that date.
Within 28 days of appointment: notice to creditors and contributories. The liquidator sends formal notice of the appointment to every creditor, and to every contributory, meaning any shareholder who could still be asked to pay up on their shares.
Annual progress reports. The liquidator reports to creditors and Companies House at least once a year, covering what has been sold, what has been paid out, and what is left to finish.
Final account and dissolution. The liquidator sends a final account to creditors and files it at Companies House. There is no longer any requirement to call a final meeting; the 2016 Rules replaced that with the account and report.
The company is dissolved automatically three months after the registrar registers that account, under section 201. That three-month tail cannot be shortened, which is why the full liquidation timeline always runs past the point the work actually finishes.
Dissolution removes the company from the register and ends its normal legal existence, though restoration remains possible in limited circumstances. Our guide to what happens after liquidation covers what follows for you personally.
Creditors work to a different set of dates entirely. Our guide to creditor meetings in liquidation covers proving a debt and voting.
The order in which money is paid out is set out in which creditors get paid first.
Winding-Up Petition and Compulsory Liquidation Deadlines
In a compulsory liquidation the timetable is set between a creditor and the court, so it is not open to negotiation.
Service of the petition. The petitioning creditor serves at the company’s registered office. There is no fixed 21-day service period here.
The 21 days you may have in mind belongs to a statutory demand, which is a different document at an earlier stage. The two are easy to confuse, and the difference matters when you are working out how much time is left.
7 business days after service: advertisement. The petition is advertised in the London Gazette, at least 7 business days after service and at least 7 business days before the hearing.
In practice the advertisement date matters more than the hearing date, because that is the point at which the wider world learns about the petition.
Once it is advertised, a bank may freeze or restrict the company’s account, because of the risk attached to payments made after a petition has been presented. In the cases we handle this can happen quickly, and payroll is normally the first payment to fail.
The advertisement is the formal notice, and it is directed at creditors rather than at the company, so there is no separate warning to the directors. There is real value in taking advice before the advertisement date rather than after it.
Hearing date: the winding-up order. If the court grants it, the Official Receiver becomes liquidator, and later deadlines are calculated from the date of the order.
Payments made before then are not automatically safe. A compulsory winding up is generally treated as commencing when the petition was presented, so under section 127 dispositions of company property made after presentation can be void unless the court validates them.
That is why banks become cautious as soon as they know a petition exists, and why it is worth taking advice on any payment you are considering in that window.
Statement of affairs: 21 days from the notice, where one is required. The Official Receiver may require a verified statement of affairs, though it is not automatic on every case.
Where one is required, section 131 gives you 21 days beginning with the day after you receive the notice.
Failing to comply without a reasonable excuse is a criminal offence, and the Official Receiver can ask the court to compel you. If 21 days is genuinely too short, say so in writing before it expires. Asking for more time in advance is a different conversation from explaining a default afterwards.
What Most Directors Miss
The section 131 clock starts at the notice, not the winding-up order
Section 131 gives 21 days beginning with the day after the notice requiring a statement of affairs is received. It does not run from the date of the winding-up order, which is the date most directors have written in the diary.
This is the deadline we most often see counted from the wrong document, and the consequences of missing it go beyond a late-filing penalty. Check which date the notice bears before counting from it.
Wrongful Trading: The Deadline With No Fixed Date
Every deadline above is attached to a document. This one is not, which is what makes it hard to plan around.
Under section 214, the relevant moment is when a director knew, or ought to have concluded, that there was no reasonable prospect of the company avoiding insolvent liquidation or insolvent administration.
From that point, the question is whether the director took every step with a view to minimising the potential loss to the company’s creditors.
A court can order a director who carried on regardless to contribute to the company’s debts personally. The liquidator has to establish both limbs of that test, so a wrongful trading claim is not a routine outcome of an insolvent liquidation.
No notice arrives to mark the date. It is reconstructed afterwards from the management accounts, the cash position, and what the board knew at the time, which is why we ask for those documents first.
We cannot pinpoint the exact date that duty crystallised for your company. The honest question is whether that date has already passed.
If it has, taking advice early matters for a practical reason rather than a presentational one. Options may still be open, and the steps that reduce loss to creditors can only be taken while there is something left to protect.
Taking advice is not itself a defence. What counts is what you do next.
What to Do If You Have Already Missed a Deadline
Many directors reach this page because they think they are already late, so it is worth answering that directly.
The consequence depends entirely on which deadline it was. A late filing at Companies House sits at one end of the scale. A missed section 131 notice sits at the other.
What matters most is what you do on discovering it. Do not conceal a missed obligation, and do not reconstruct documents to make the timing look better than it was. Both turn a procedural problem into a conduct one.
Identify precisely which obligation was missed and when, then take advice straight away. A missed deadline that is disclosed and explained is a very different matter from one that someone else discovers later.
A liquidator has to report on the conduct of the directors in every insolvent liquidation. The existence of that report does not mean the directors have done anything wrong, and it does not mean an investigation will follow.
Next Steps on Liquidation Deadlines
If any deadline above is close, or you suspect the company is already past the point where insolvent liquidation is probable, take advice before the next one falls, from a licensed insolvency practitioner.
Company Debt is a licensed insolvency practice. Our practitioners assess your position confidentially, tell you which deadlines are genuinely live, and take the appointment where a formal procedure is the right route.
There is a clear advantage in moving before a creditor does. Once a winding-up petition is served, the sequence above narrows to what the court allows.
While the choice is still open, it is between a timetable you set and one set for you. We talk to directors in this position every day, and the first conversation is confidential.
FAQs on Liquidation Deadlines and Time Limits
What is the first deadline after deciding to liquidate voluntarily?
Within 14 days of the winding-up resolution, you must notify creditors, deliver a statement of affairs, advertise the resolution in the Gazette, and initiate a decision procedure so creditors can confirm or replace the liquidator you nominated. Those obligations run concurrently rather than in sequence, so you need the statement of affairs prepared before you pass the resolution.
What happens if I miss a filing deadline during liquidation?
It depends which deadline. A late filing at Companies House can bring penalties and will be noted in the liquidator’s reporting. In a compulsory liquidation, where the Official Receiver has required a statement of affairs, failing to submit it within 21 days of receiving that notice without a reasonable excuse is a criminal offence.
In every case, disclose the miss rather than working around it, and take advice on the specific obligation involved.
Can my bank freeze the company account after a winding-up petition?
Yes. Once the petition is advertised in the London Gazette, a bank that becomes aware of it may freeze or restrict the account, because payments made after a petition has been presented can later be void unless the court validates them. In practice this can happen quickly.
Directors who do not anticipate it often find they cannot pay staff or cover essential costs, which is why advice is worth taking before the advertisement date rather than after it.
Can I pay creditors selectively before liquidation starts?
Paying one creditor ahead of others while the company is insolvent can create a preference under section 239 of the Insolvency Act 1986. The liquidator can apply to unwind preferential payments made in the six months before liquidation, extending to two years where the creditor is a connected party such as a director or family member.
Take professional advice before you pay any specific creditor at this stage.
Is there a time limit on how long liquidation can last?
There is no statutory maximum duration. Simple cases can complete within 12 months. Complex cases involving disputed claims, ongoing investigations, or assets that are hard to sell can run for several years. The liquidator must file annual progress reports, and creditors can apply to the court if they believe the process is being unreasonably delayed.
Do these deadlines apply in Scotland and Northern Ireland?
No. This page sets out the position in England and Wales, under the Insolvency Act 1986 and the Insolvency (England and Wales) Rules 2016. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own procedural rules, and several of the periods and forms differ. Take advice from a practitioner licensed to act in the relevant jurisdiction.
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