I've decided to liquidate my company — what are the actual steps from start to finish?

Voluntary liquidation of a mainland company starts with a notarized shareholders' resolution to dissolve the company and appoint a licensed liquidator, who must hold an accountant registration certificate and cannot be the company's current or recently-serving auditor, to keep the role independent. Once appointed, the liquidator publishes a liquidation notice in two local newspapers (at least one in Arabic) and opens a mandatory 45-day window for creditors to submit claims — a period set under Federal Decree-Law No. 32 of 2021 on Commercial Companies, with no legal shortcut to compress it.

During and after that window, the liquidator settles outstanding debts and employee entitlements, cancels work visas with the Ministry of Human Resources and Emiratisation, and closes bank accounts and utility services. The step that stalls many files: a tax clearance from the Federal Tax Authority is required — VAT deregistration and settlement of any outstanding corporate tax liability — before the process can move forward. The liquidator then prepares an audited final liquidation account and submits every document and clearance to the Department of Economic Development (or the relevant licensing authority), which issues the deregistration certificate and cancels the trade license permanently. Free zone liquidations typically run faster, sometimes just weeks, while mainland liquidations usually take two to three months given the mandatory notice period and government clearances. RASEEKH manages the full liquidation timeline from the dissolution resolution to the final certificate, so one missing clearance doesn't add months to the process.