Closing your Estonian company

Creating a company (osaühing or OU) is easy and can take a few minutes online. However, getting rid of it can take a bit longer. If you cannot sell your company, voluntary dissolution (liquidation) is another option. The law prescribes strict deadlines for different stages that have to be followed even if you have not had any economic activity.

The first step is for the owner or owners to take a formal decision to liquidate and a liquidator has to be appointed. This decision then has to be reflected in the Commercial Register.

The next step is to publish the liquidation notice in the portal: https://www.ametlikudteadaanded.ee/ and call for all creditors to come forward with their possible claims. The deadline for this is 4 months and liquidator shall pay the amounts due after the end of that deadline.

After that it is possible to prepare the final balance sheet of the private limited company and to distribute the remaining assets. And only after that is it possible to delete the company from the Commercial Register. The final balance sheet and asset distribution plan has to be sent to the Commercial Register as well. Application for deletion can be done after a minimum period of six months of the entry of the liquidation of the private limited company into the Commercial Register.

Expat Legal Estonia helps with the liquidation process from start to finish.