Antevo / Closing a company
The company ends. The name may not.
In the twelve months to September 2026, 56,375 companies in Switzerland were deleted from the commercial register or put into liquidation. A company’s trademarks are assets: they can be sold, transferred or left to lapse, and a registered mark can outlast the company that held it. These pages answer the questions that come up at the end, each with its sources and one place in Antevo to act on it.
See the questions ↓The drawing: the company line runs in, is put into liquidation and ends at its deletion from the register, at an end bar. The company’s trademarks leave the line at liquidation and run on below it to an open stop: a mark can be sold, transferred or left to lapse.
Put into liquidation22,335companies, with “in Liquidation” added to the name
Deleted from the register35,042deletions published in the SHAB
Its trademarksAssets of the company: sold with the business or on their own, or left to lapse.
Closed or closing
56,375
companies were deleted from the commercial register or put into liquidation in the twelve months to September 2026, each counted once.
Antevo count of SHAB notices · as of 18 October 2026Sources 1
01 / The questions
Five questions, answered.
Antevo counts from the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, the Federal Statistical Office’s bankruptcy figures, and the rules from fedlex.admin.ch and the IPI, each with its source on the page.
- 01What happens to the company’s trademarks?They are assets. Liquidators realise them: a mark can be sold with the business or on its own, or it stays registered until its term runs out.
- 02Can someone else register the name once the company is gone?Not through the commercial register any more: a business name’s protection rested on its entry, and the entry is gone. A registered trademark is different: it stands until it is cancelled, whoever holds it.
- 03Liquidation or deletion: what is the difference?Liquidation is the way out: the company keeps its legal personality and adds “in Liquidation” to its name. Deletion is the end, entered once the liquidation is complete.
- 04What do creditors and buyers see in the register?Every step, published in the SHAB and kept in order: the dissolution and “in Liquidation”, a bankruptcy if there is one, and the deletion with its reason.
- 05How many companies go bankrupt in Switzerland?12,485 bankruptcy proceedings were opened against companies in 2025, according to the Federal Statistical Office: 61.2% more than in 2024, mostly because of a change in the law.
02 / In Antevo
See which marks a name still carries.
The free check screens a name across 50+ trademark registers and lists the marks near it, with office, status and the holder where it is a company. Before a sale, a purchase or a closure, it shows what is registered under the name and who holds it. No account needed.
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Sources
Where this comes from.
The counts behind the figures, the Federal Statistical Office’s bankruptcy figures and the primary sources for every legal point. Intelligence, not advice: nothing here is legal or tax advice, and your lawyer, notary or fiduciary confirms what a closure requires.
- SHAB: Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce, deletions (rubric HR03) and change notices (rubric HR02) in the commercial register, source of the Antevo countwww.shab.ch ↗
- FSO: Sharp rise in bankruptcies in 2025, debt collection and bankruptcy statistics, press release of 21 May 2026www.bfs.admin.ch ↗
- fedlex.admin.ch: Trade Mark Protection Act (MSchG, in English TmPA), SR 232.11, Arts. 3, 10, 12, 17, 19, 31, 35 and 35awww.fedlex.admin.ch ↗
Antevo count of the notices published in the Swiss Official Gazette of Commerce (SHAB) from 1 October 2025 to 30 September 2026: deletions from the commercial register (rubric HR03), and change notices (rubric HR02) in which the register added “in Liquidation” (or “en liquidation”, “in liquidazione”) to a company’s name. Each company is counted once: a company and the branches carrying its name count as one, and the 1,002 companies with both a liquidation and a deletion notice in the window count once in the total. As of 18 October 2026. Deletions are counted as published in the SHAB; the cantons’ annual reports, compiled by the Federal Office of the Commercial Register, count more events as deletions, so this is the conservative count. The merger share comes from a sample of 150 deletion notices. Counts only: no company is named.
The company closes. See where its name stands.
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