Check whether your company qualifies
These four questions check your company against our referral rule for licensing records. The buyer decides who qualifies, and a result is not an offer.
If your company is closing, the route it takes decides who controls its records. Our guide to closing a limited company explains each route.
You can ask the buyer to review your company
We refer companies with 30 or more full-time employees in the markets this check covers, including companies that are closing or have closed, and your answers fit. This result is preliminary and is not an offer. The buyer reviews the company and its records and decides whether to make an offer, and applying does not guarantee an offer or a price. A company still in the middle of closing should ask the buyer how its situation is handled.
The company has to own what it licenses, so data you hold for clients is unlikely to fit. Personal data in the records stays under UK GDPR until nobody is reasonably likely to identify the people it relates to, so take advice before you share any records that hold it. Our guides cover England and Wales, so the closing steps differ if the company is registered in Scotland, Northern Ireland or outside the UK.
Your records answer does not change this result. Before you apply, list the records you hold: what each covers, its dates, who keeps it and how long it must be kept.
Who controls the company now? Choose the one that fits before you apply.
Directors in control: strike-off planned
Agree any licence before you apply to strike the company off. A company cannot apply if it traded or carried on other activity in the previous three months, and no source we have read says whether granting a licence counts as that activity. Ask your adviser first.
Check the strike-off handover first
Ad:The buyer pays us a referral fee only after a company we refer has its data transferred and approved. How we make money
The next page is the buyer's own application, under its terms and privacy notice. We do not share your answers to this check with the buyer.
Practitioner in control: liquidation or administration
The practitioner controls the company and its records and decides what happens to them. If one has been appointed, pass this page to them, because directors can no longer act for the company or share its records. If you are about to appoint one, raise the records with them first.
Route or controller not yet confirmed
The route decides who controls the records, so agree any licence before you choose one. Our guide to closing a limited company has a route finder.
Company already dissolved
The company no longer exists and its remaining assets passed to the Crown. A licence would need the company restored to the register first. A company struck off at its directors' request needs a court order to be restored, so take a solicitor's advice before you go further.
Your company is below the size we refer
We refer companies with 30 or more full-time employees, so this check ends here. This result is preliminary, and it is not a rejection by any buyer. Other buyers set their own rules, and we do not cover them here. Our guides on closing a limited company and keeping records apply at any size.
Your company is outside the markets this check covers
We refer companies with 30 or more full-time employees in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the European Union, so this check ends here. This result is preliminary, and it is not a rejection by any buyer. Other buyers set their own rules, and we do not cover them here. The closing rules and the data protection law on this site are those of the UK, mainly England and Wales.
We keep your answers for 90 days. Our privacy page explains what we keep.
The check asks four questions and shows whether your company fits our referral rule: we refer companies with 30 or more full-time employees in the markets the check covers. It is a first screen. It does not look at your records, and the buyer decides who qualifies.
What the check asks
It asks how many full-time employees the company has, or had when it last operated, whether it is operating, closing or already closed, and where it is based. A fourth question, which you can skip, asks which kinds of records the company holds. Every answer is a choice from a list, and nothing is uploaded.
What the result means
The result is preliminary. It does not confirm that the company owns its records, that you can sign for it, that the records can lawfully be passed on, or that the company will be approved. The check covers companies based in the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the European Union.
If your answers fit, the result shows an Apply on the buyer’s site button marked “Ad”. If the company has fewer than 30 employees, or is based outside the markets the check covers, the result says so, shows no link and offers an optional email address. That is not a rejection by any buyer.
Before you start
Personal data in the records stays under UK GDPR until nobody is reasonably likely to identify the people it relates to. Removing names is not enough, and anonymising is itself processing that needs a lawful basis, so take advice before any records that hold personal data leave your systems. Our guide to anonymising company data explains the ICO’s test. If the company is closing, read how to close a limited company first, because the route decides who controls the records.
The privacy page explains what the check stores, and the disclosure explains how we are paid.