Why do so many new UK companies disappear at seventeen months?

Updated 17 September 2026 · by Matt Vallis, Salenovo · numbers from the Companies House public register

The shape of it

Almost nothing dies in the first year: 96% of companies are still on the register at twelve months. Then a third of every cohort disappears in the second year, nearly all of it in one month of age. Deaths by age at dissolution, for every company formed in 2022–24 that had been dissolved by September 2026:

Source: Companies House public register, every company incorporated January 2022 – December 2024, followed to September 2026. The smaller peak at 25 months is the same mechanism a year on — companies that filed one confirmation statement and not the second.

The mechanism, step by step

1. The confirmation statement falls due. Every company must confirm its details to Companies House once a year, within fourteen days of the anniversary of incorporation. It costs £34 online (it was £13 before May 2024) and takes a few minutes. There is no late-filing penalty for it — the penalties are for accounts — but not filing it is the clearest signal the register has that nobody is behind the company any more.
2. Companies House writes, twice. When the statement is overdue the registrar sends reminders to the registered office. If they go unanswered, it forms the view that the company is not carrying on business.
3. A notice appears in The Gazette. The company's status changes to "Active — Proposal to Strike off" and a first notice is published. This is the point at which anyone — a creditor, HMRC, a director — can object.
4. Two months later, the company is dissolved. If no objection is received, a second notice is published and the company ceases to exist. Companies House processes these in a weekly batch: nearly every dissolution in the register — 1.33 million of 1.33 million in our data — is dated a Tuesday.

Twelve months to the deadline, a fortnight's grace, reminders, a Gazette notice, two months: seventeen months. The same clock runs for every company, which is why the spike is so sharp and why it appears in every formation month of every year.

A second route: the registrar removes the address

Since March 2024 Companies House has had the power to replace a registered office it judges not to be a real address with its own default address — PO Box 4385, Cardiff, CF14 8LH — and to strike the company off if a proper address is not supplied within 28 days. It has used that power at scale: about one in eleven dissolutions of companies formed in 2022–24 happened from the default address, a quarter of all dissolutions at the peak in early 2025, and most of them were online-retail or wholesale companies at addresses that did not exist. A company whose registered office is the default address is, in effect, already being removed.

What it means for reading the numbers

Any count of companies taken from today's register for an earlier period misses the ones that have since been struck off — 30% of a cohort at eighteen months, half within three years. "X companies were formed in your area last year" is a very different number from "X companies from last year are still on the register", and the second is the only one the register itself can show. Salenovo's year-earlier comparisons correct for this using the survival curve above; the method page has the detail and the comparison with the official ONS survival figures.

It also means a low death rate is not a sign of success. Property vehicles and holding companies survive best precisely because they are not trying to trade; a company that files dormant accounts stays alive indefinitely for nothing. What matters is the share that go on to file trading accounts, which is what every council page on this site now shows under What happens to them.

How to tell a company is on its way out

Four things on the public record, in the order they appear: the confirmation statement date has passed with nothing filed; the accounts due date has passed; the status reads "Active — Proposal to Strike off"; and, increasingly, the registered office has become the Companies House default address. Of the companies from the 2022–24 cohorts sitting in "Proposal to Strike off" today, nearly half had filed trading accounts at some point — real businesses whose owners have walked away — and the rest never traded. Companies House's company search shows all four for any company.

If it is your company

File the confirmation statement: an overdue statement can be filed online at any time until the company is dissolved, and filing it stops the process. If a first Gazette notice has already appeared, filing plus a letter to Companies House normally suspends the strike-off. If the company has already been dissolved, a company that was carrying on business when it was struck off can usually be restored by administrative restoration within six years, on payment of the outstanding fees and any penalties; a company that had genuinely stopped is generally better left dissolved. None of this is legal advice; an accountant or Companies House's guidance will confirm what applies to your case.

If you sell to new companies

The first year is the window. A new company is on the register for at least seventeen months whatever happens, so a list of last month's incorporations contains every company that will trade and every company that will never start, in the proportion above — about a third real, two in five since the 2024 fee rise. Two things follow. Ranking the list by who is likely to trade matters most at the start, which is what Salenovo's weekly list does; and a company that has passed seventeen months and filed its confirmation statement has cleared the biggest hurdle there is, which is why the accounts-due and confirmation-statement dates are worth more than the incorporation date once a company is a year old.

Questions people also ask

What does 'Active — Proposal to Strike off' mean?

Companies House has published a first notice in The Gazette that it intends to strike the company off the register, usually because it has not filed its confirmation statement or accounts. Unless someone objects or the filings are made, the company will be dissolved about two months later. It can also mean the directors themselves have applied to close the company (a DS01); the register shows the same status for both.

Is there a fine for not filing a confirmation statement?

No automatic penalty, unlike late accounts, which attract penalties from £150 rising to £1,500. But it is an offence for the directors, and it is the usual trigger for the registrar to strike the company off — and anyone who carries on trading in the name of a dissolved company is doing so personally, without the company's protection.

How long does it take Companies House to strike off a company for not filing?

About five months from the confirmation statement falling due: reminders, then a first Gazette notice, then dissolution two months after that. Companies House processes dissolutions in a weekly batch on Tuesdays. The whole sequence runs from twelve months after incorporation, so most such companies are dissolved at seventeen months old.

Can a company that has been struck off be restored?

Usually, if it was carrying on business when it was struck off: administrative restoration is available within six years of dissolution, on filing the outstanding documents and paying the fees and any penalties. Otherwise restoration needs a court order. Any assets of a dissolved company pass to the Crown until it is restored.

What is the Companies House default address?

PO Box 4385, Cardiff, CF14 8LH (with equivalents in Belfast and Edinburgh). Since March 2024 the registrar can move a company there when it decides the registered office is not a real address; the company then has 28 days to supply one before strike-off can begin. Post sent there does not reach the company.

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