The register never sleeps: thousands of Irish companies are struck off every year, most for the same mundane reason — filings stopped — and most discover the consequences at the worst possible moment. Strike-off law runs in both directions: the clean exit for the finished company, and the restoration routes for the company that should never have left. Both are processes with requirements, and both punish delay.
Mary Molloy Solicitors are solicitors, not accountants or tax advisers. Nothing on this page is tax, accounting or financial advice — engage your accountant on those questions, and both advisers together where matters straddle the line. Company law procedures, CRO practice and filing deadlines change frequently, and reform of the law governing owners’ management companies and charities is ongoing; confirm the current position before acting on anything here.
Involuntary Strike-Off: The Widening Net
The classic route remains failure to file annual returns — but the 2024 Act added three new grounds: registered-office failures, no secretary recorded, and RBO non-filing, the last with genuine reach given how many companies never filed beneficial ownership information (what happens next). The consequences are total: existence ends, property vests in the State, and the company’s name surfaces only when someone tries to transact with a ghost. One partial mercy arrived in July 2025: a first late annual return in five years no longer costs a small company its audit exemption — that penalty now bites on the second (the 2024 Act changes). The exposure that follows dissolution for directors personally is its own subject: restriction and personal exposure.
The Routes Back
- Within 12 months: the administrative CRO route — filings current, fees paid, no court (the restoration guide);
- After 12 months: court restoration, available up to 20 years — heavier, slower, costlier, and entirely runnable;
- OMCs: the MUD Act keeps the administrative route open for 6 years — recognition of how routinely apartment companies were struck off: the OMC restoration file;
- Creditors and claimants: restoration sought against the company so claims can proceed — strike-off extinguishes nothing owed to you.
Restoration is a process, not a promise: each route has proofs, parties and conditions, and property that vested in the State needs its own handling. What is uniformly true: earlier is easier. The voluntary version — the finished company closed down properly, assets extracted first, conditions met — is the cheap mirror image of everything above, and worth doing correctly for exactly that reason.
Off the Register - or Heading There?
Bring the CRO printout and the story. One call establishes the route, the requirements and the clock.
Call 01 5827148