Closing a company / Question 3
Liquidation or deletion: what is the difference?
Intelligence, not legal advice. Screening is a starting point, not a clearance opinion.
Liquidation is the way out, deletion is the end. A company in liquidation keeps its legal personality and its name, with “in Liquidation” added, while its affairs are wound up. Once the liquidation is complete, the liquidators report it to the register and the company is deleted.
01 / Antevo count
How many companies close.
companies were deleted from the commercial register or put into liquidation from October 2025 to September 2026, each counted once.
deletions published in the SHAB, each company counted once. In a sample of 150 deletion notices, about 9% followed a merger.
companies put into liquidation: the register added “in Liquidation” to their name. This covers voluntary liquidations, court-ordered dissolutions and bankruptcies.
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.
Check a name ↑02 / Liquidation
The same company, “in Liquidation”.
A company is dissolved by resolution of its general meeting, by the opening of bankruptcy or by a court’s judgment, among other grounds, and the dissolution must be entered in the commercial register. (OR Arts. 736 and 737)
In liquidation, the company keeps its legal personality and its name, with the addition “in Liquidation”. (OR Art. 739(1)) Creditors are called on to register their claims, by notice in the SHAB where they are not known. (OR Art. 742(2))
Check a name ↑03 / Deletion
The end of the entry.
Assets may be distributed one year after the call to creditors at the earliest, or after three months where a licensed audit expert confirms that the debts are paid. (OR Art. 745(2) and (3)) After the liquidation, the liquidators report the company’s end to the register. (OR Art. 746)
For an AG, the register deletes the company only once the federal and cantonal tax authorities agree, and enters the reason. (HRegV Art. 65) Not every deletion follows a liquidation: a company with no business and no realisable assets left is deleted by the register itself (OR Art. 934), and in a sample of 150 deletion notices about 9% followed a merger.
Check a name ↑04 / In Antevo
Before the end, see what the name 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: a first look at what a liquidation has to deal with. No account needed; the answer appears on this page.
Check a name ↑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.