Liquidation or winding up of a company is an activity whereby the operation of a company and its existence will come to an end.

The liquidation or winding up of a company is commonly known as closing of a company or cancellation of a company in the UAE.

Notice of Company’s Dissolution & Appointment of a Liquidator: As a first step the company has to pass a resolution for dissolution (closing) of the company in the shareholders meeting. This resolution has to be attested by Notary Public in the case of Limited Liability companies registered in the UAE. If the shares holders are not available in the UAE, then the resolution has to be notarised and attested from the UAE embassy of that country and has to be attested and legalised from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Justice in UAE. In the case of companies registered in most of the Free Zones attestation from Notary Public is not required. In this statement of resolution, the appointment of liquidator should also be included with the name of the liquidator along with their address. Further, in the case of sole establishments this step is not applicable.

Once the above documents are submitted and the initial payment is also done to the concerned Authority (Department of Economic Development), a liquidation certificate (primary) will be issued. It is a documentary evidence from the Authority for the company to proceed with winding up of a company.

Once the liquidation certificate (primary) is obtained the company can proceed for advertisement in the newspaper. In the case of Limited Liability Companies and some of the Free zone companies such as Dubai Creative Cluster Authority, etc requires forty five (45) days’ notice of liquidation advertisement in the public newspaper. In the case of LLC companies four advertisements are to be published in Arabic language.

Once the notice period is over the following documents are to be submitted along with the above-mentioned documents:

Once the above documents are submitted, the authority will review and upon approval of the same final payment to the authority has to be done. Thereafter, the final certificate called License Cancellation Certificate will be issued by the concerned Authority.