How many members' voluntary liquidations are there a year in the UK?
The count of solvent liquidations in the UK, by year and by month from January 2018, set beside the official annual figure.
Companies House answers this question once a year, in June, for a year that closed in March. It is a perfectly good answer. I keep the count by the month as well, because a calendar shows things a single annual figure politely folds away.
In short
A members' voluntary liquidation (MVL) is the formal closing of a solvent company so that what remains reaches its owners, and The Gazette carried 8,170 such notices in 2025, within a range of 7,753 (2018) to 13,564 (2021) across the eight full years from 2018. Companies House, the official annual count, recorded 8,569 in the 2025-26 financial year. January to October 2026 carried 6,706 notices, against 6,594 in the same months of 2025.
Key takeaways
- The Gazette carried 8,170 notices of members' voluntary liquidation in 2025, the second lowest of the eight full calendar years from 2018 to 2025.
- Companies House recorded 8,569 members' voluntary liquidations in the UK in the 2025-26 financial year, down from 12,579 in 2024-25.
- March was the highest month in six of the nine years from 2018 to 2026 (2026 to October), though not in 2018, 2019 or 2024.
- October 2024, the month of the 30 October 2024 Budget, carried 2,694 notices, the highest month from January 2018 to October 2026.
- October 2026, the month of the 28 October 2026 Budget, carried 970 notices against 648 in October 2025, and 22 earlier months since January 2018 carried more.
What is a members' voluntary liquidation, and why does it matter to a private banker?
A members' voluntary liquidation is how the shareholders of a solvent company close it and take out what is left. The directors swear a declaration of solvency, which states the surplus they expect after every debt is paid; the shareholders resolve to wind the company up; the resolution is published in The Gazette; and a licensed insolvency practitioner distributes the money. It is not a sign of trouble, because the company must be able to pay its debts in full.
It matters to a banker because it is a dated, public record of money about to reach a company's owners. In the 90 days to 8 November 2026, 74.9 per cent of the companies behind the notices had a current individual person with significant control, so the owner can usually be named. The notice also names the practitioner, a professional already in the owner's affairs.
Few are large enough for a private bank. Of 1,099 declarations of solvency the house read from filings in the 90 days to 8 November 2026, the median sworn surplus was £270,750, while 214 swore £1 million or more and 46 swore £5 million or more. Common triggers also include contractor company closures and group simplification, so the count below says how many events there are, not how large. The house's note on what an MVL tells you about the shareholder reads one from the adviser's side.
How many members' voluntary liquidations were there each year from 2018?
The Gazette published between 7,753 and 13,564 notices of a resolution for a members' voluntary winding-up (notice code 2431) in each full calendar year from 2018 to 2025. The two highest years were 2021, with 13,564, and 2020, with 13,046. The table counts notices by publication date, read from The Gazette's own data feed on 8 November 2026, and names each year's highest and lowest month.
| Year | Notices (code 2431), read 8 November 2026 | Highest month | Lowest month |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018 | 7,753 | October, 822 | January, 487 |
| 2019 | 8,573 | December, 959 | January, 548 |
| 2020 | 13,046 | March, 2,603 | January, 578 |
| 2021 | 13,564 | March, 2,503 | May, 639 |
| 2022 | 9,488 | March, 1,207 | January, 547 |
| 2023 | 8,958 | March, 1,327 | January and May, 530 each |
| 2024 | 11,392 | October, 2,694 | January, 475 |
| 2025 | 8,170 | March, 1,693 | May, 284 |
| 2026, January to October | 6,706 | March, 1,570 | May, 269 |
The first ten months of 2026 carried 112 more notices than the first ten months of 2025, a rise of 1.7 per cent. The figure for 2026 is not a full year and is refreshed on this page as each month closes.
What is the official count of members' voluntary liquidations?
Companies House publishes the official annual count, by financial year, in table A10 of its Companies register activities release. The release for April 2025 to March 2026, published on 25 June 2026, records 8,569 members' voluntary liquidations in the UK in 2025-26: 7,927 in England and Wales, 478 in Scotland and 164 in Northern Ireland.
The Gazette count reads the same kind of event from a different record: Companies House's table counts liquidations notified to it, and The Gazette counts resolutions advertised. The two can be set side by side only on Companies House's April to March year. The Gazette count was below the Companies House count in each of the eight financial years from 2018-19 to 2025-26, at between 87 and 97 per cent of it. The house has not traced the difference and found no explanation of it in either source on 8 November 2026.
| Financial year, April to March | Companies House, table A10 (published 25 June 2026) | Gazette notices (read 8 November 2026) | Gazette as a share of Companies House |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2018-19 | 9,212 | 8,036 | 87.2% |
| 2019-20 | 11,494 | 10,713 | 93.2% |
| 2020-21 | 14,910 | 14,003 | 93.9% |
| 2021-22 | 11,824 | 10,933 | 92.5% |
| 2022-23 | 10,237 | 9,532 | 93.1% |
| 2023-24 | 9,290 | 8,380 | 90.2% |
| 2024-25 | 12,579 | 12,148 | 96.6% |
| 2025-26 | 8,569 | 8,088 | 94.4% |
A search on 8 November 2026 found no other published count by calendar year or by month. The monthly series on this page, from January 2018, is therefore the first the house knows of, and it would welcome correction. The Insolvency Service's research of 18 June 2026 reports sample cases by cohort and no annual total. Its company insolvency statistics exclude members' voluntary liquidations because all debts are paid in full, and its guide to those statistics refers the reader to Companies House.
Two honest counts of one thing, about one in twenty apart in 2025-26. In this corner of the public record, that counts as harmony.
When in the year do members' voluntary liquidations peak?
March is the usual peak, and the spring fall is the steadiest feature of the series. March was the highest month in 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2025 and 2026 (2026 to October), and the count fell from April to May in every year from 2018 to 2026. March and April together carried more notices than May and June together in every one of those years.
The pattern is not uniform. October was the highest month in 2018 and 2024, and December in 2019. January, not May, was the lowest month in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2024, and January and May tied in 2023. May was the lowest month in 2021, 2025 and 2026, and May 2026, with 269 notices, was the lowest month from January 2018 to October 2026.
The spring share has moved without a steady trend. March and April carried 37.0 per cent of the notices of 2025, against 19.2 per cent of those of 2018, but only 15.5 per cent of those of 2024, the year of the October peak.
What was the count in every month from January 2018?
The table gives every month from January 2018 to October 2026, by publication date, read from The Gazette's data feed on 8 November 2026. November and December 2026 are not yet closed.
| Month | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 | 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 487 | 548 | 578 | 900 | 547 | 530 | 475 | 376 | 400 |
| February | 541 | 622 | 982 | 1,717 | 735 | 676 | 626 | 642 | 659 |
| March | 712 | 853 | 2,603 | 2,503 | 1,207 | 1,327 | 854 | 1,693 | 1,570 |
| April | 774 | 898 | 731 | 1,074 | 943 | 989 | 908 | 1,331 | 1,154 |
| May | 560 | 566 | 607 | 639 | 698 | 530 | 651 | 284 | 269 |
| June | 567 | 610 | 836 | 894 | 684 | 626 | 714 | 347 | 328 |
| July | 622 | 715 | 1,046 | 873 | 763 | 684 | 877 | 414 | 425 |
| August | 619 | 629 | 906 | 886 | 688 | 615 | 766 | 395 | 405 |
| September | 618 | 708 | 1,172 | 944 | 701 | 659 | 1,077 | 464 | 526 |
| October | 822 | 783 | 1,156 | 1,122 | 704 | 750 | 2,694 | 648 | 970 |
| November | 691 | 682 | 1,068 | 969 | 920 | 698 | 1,124 | 788 | not closed |
| December | 740 | 959 | 1,361 | 1,043 | 898 | 874 | 626 | 788 | not closed |
Was the October 2026 rise a Budget effect?
The notices show timing and do not record a reason. October 2026, the month of the 28 October 2026 Budget, carried 970 notices against 648 in October 2025, a rise of 322 or 49.7 per cent. The rise is real, and it is well short of October 2024, the month of the 30 October 2024 Budget, which carried 2,694.
October 2026 is not a high month in the long series: from January 2018 to October 2026, 22 months carried more than its 970 notices. October 2026 was the fourth highest of the nine Octobers in the series, behind 2,694 in 2024, 1,156 in 2020 and 1,122 in 2021.
Three other peaks sit beside dated events on gov.uk, and in each case the link is unproven. March 2020, with 2,603 notices, contained 11 March 2020, Budget day, from which the lifetime limit for what is now business asset disposal relief was reduced. March 2021, with 2,503, contained the Budget of 3 March 2021. October 2024, with 2,694, contained 30 October 2024, Budget day, from which the main rates of capital gains tax rose. A notice follows its resolution, so only notices published on the last two days of October 2024 could record a resolution passed on or after that day.
Research commissioned by the Insolvency Service, published on 18 June 2026, says the number commenced annually between 2015 and 2024 "has fluctuated, influenced by changes in tax policy", and it names economic conditions and the Covid-19 pandemic as well. The monthly counts here neither prove nor test that statement, because no notice states why its company is being wound up. The detail of the 2026 measure is in the house's note on the business asset disposal relief limit, and the October 2026 month is set out in the UK Liquidity Ledger for October 2026.
What does the count not tell you?
The count measures notices published, and five limits follow from that.
- Notices, not companies. In October 2026 the 970 notices covered 968 companies, so the two counts differ slightly.
- Publication date, not resolution date. Section 85 of the Insolvency Act 1986, which extends to England, Wales and Scotland, gives a company 14 days after the resolution to advertise it in the Gazette, so a notice published in one month can record a resolution passed in the month before.
- A resolution, not a sum. A notice records that members resolved to wind up the company, and the count does not say how much money moved. What a notice can indicate about the shareholder is in the house's reading of a members' voluntary liquidation.
- UK reach, with no split by edition. The Gazette comprises the London, Edinburgh and Belfast editions, and the feed's filter lists all three. Single notices from October 2026 read on 8 November 2026 carried the Edinburgh and the Belfast edition, so the feed reaches beyond London. The count used here takes all editions together and gives no figure by nation.
- Outside the insolvency statistics. The Insolvency Service's monthly figures exclude members' voluntary liquidations, as its commentary stated for December 2025, so they cannot be used as a check on this series.
Frequently asked questions
How many MVLs were there in the UK in 2025?
The Gazette carried 8,170 notices of a resolution for a members' voluntary winding-up in calendar 2025. Companies House, which counts by financial year, recorded 8,569 members' voluntary liquidations in the UK in 2025-26 and 12,579 in 2024-25.
Are members' voluntary liquidations in the insolvency statistics?
No. The Insolvency Service's company insolvency statistics exclude members' voluntary liquidations, because the process does not involve insolvency and all debts are paid in full. Companies House publishes the annual count, in table A10 of its Companies register activities release of 25 June 2026.
Is there a monthly count of members' voluntary liquidations?
A search on 8 November 2026 found no official monthly count. The Gazette's data feed allows one to be made, and this page gives every month from January 2018 to October 2026, with 970 notices in the latest month.
Which month has the most MVLs?
March is the usual peak: it was the highest month in six of the nine years from 2018 to 2026 (2026 to October), with 1,570 notices in March 2026. The highest single month from January 2018 to October 2026 was October 2024, with 2,694 notices.
Do MVLs rise before a Budget?
October 2024 and October 2026, both Budget months, carried 2,694 and 970 notices, against 877 in July 2024 and 425 in July 2026. October also carried more than July in six other years from 2018 to 2025, all but 2022, so a rise from July to October is not peculiar to those two. The notices do not record reasons, so the link is one of timing.
Why is the Gazette count lower than the Companies House count?
The house has not traced the reason. The Gazette count was 87 to 97 per cent of the Companies House count in each financial year from 2018-19 to 2025-26, and in 2025-26 the two were 8,088 and 8,569. The house found no explanation in either source on 8 November 2026.
Method
Gazette counts are of notices under code 2431, resolution for a members' voluntary winding-up, by publication date, read on 8 November 2026 from The Gazette's data feed with gazette-mvl-counts.mjs, which reads the feed's total for each month and stores no notice. The house's own record, read with measure-ledger.ts on 8 November 2026, gave 970 notices for 968 companies in October 2026 and agreed with the feed. Financial-year Gazette figures are sums of the monthly counts from April to March. Past counts can change if the feed is revised, so they are re-read at each refresh. Companies House figures are as published in table A10 and unadjusted. No sum of money appears because a notice carries none. The page is refreshed in place each month.
Sources
- The Gazette, data feed for notice code 2431, January 2018 to October 2026, read 8 November 2026: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/notice/data.json?noticetypes=2431
- The Gazette, notice search filter by edition, and notices 5240985 (Edinburgh) and 5222825 (Belfast), read 8 November 2026: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/all-notices/notice
- The Gazette, about page, on the three editions, read 8 November 2026: https://www.thegazette.co.uk/about
- Companies House, Companies register activities, April 2025 to March 2026, table A10, published 25 June 2026, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/companies-register-activities-statistical-release-april-2025-to-march-2026
- The Insolvency Service, guide to insolvency statistics, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/insolvency-statistics-policy-and-procedures/guide-to-insolvency-statistics
- The Insolvency Service, Commentary on Company Insolvency Statistics, December 2025, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/company-insolvencies-december-2025/commentary-company-insolvency-statistics-december-2025
- The Insolvency Service, Members' Voluntary Liquidations: A Statistical Review, published 18 June 2026, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/members-voluntary-liquidations-a-statistical-review-of-mvl-practice-and-outcomes/members-voluntary-liquidations-a-statistical-review-of-mvl-practice-and-outcomes-research-report-march-2026
- Insolvency Act 1986, section 85, read 8 November 2026: https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1986/45/section/85
- HMRC, Capital Gains Manual CG63956, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/hmrc-internal-manuals/capital-gains-manual/cg63956
- HM Treasury, Autumn Budget 2024, rates and allowances, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/autumn-budget-2024-overview-of-tax-legislation-and-rates-ootlar/annex-a-rates-and-allowances
- HM Treasury, Budget 2021 documents, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2021-documents
- HM Treasury, Budget 2026 document, read 8 November 2026: https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/budget-2026-document
Winny is the house’s pen name. This page is written by Windfall Intelligence Ltd from the UK public record, every figure re-measured on the date it carries, and checked by a person before publication. How these pages are made. Corrections to hello@joinwindfall.com.
Related reading
The UK Liquidity Ledger: October 2026
The first monthly edition: solvent liquidations nearly doubled in October 2026, the month of the Budget, with the sums sworn and the firms that handle the work.
What a members' voluntary liquidation tells you about the shareholder
The most under-read liquidity signal on the UK public record, read from the adviser's side of the table, with the flow and the money measured.
What Budget 2026 means for owners planning to sell: the £500,000 business asset disposal relief limit from 6 April 2027
Budget 2026 cut the business asset disposal relief lifetime limit from £1 million to £500,000 for disposals from 6 April 2027. The change, the people it reaches, the timing question and what it means for a private banker's book.