A customer's bankruptcy is one of the clearest signals a bank, lender or regulated firm can receive. It changes credit risk, affordability, and in many cases the legal capacity of the customer to deal with their own assets. Yet many compliance teams treat "check The Gazette" as a single step that covers all personal insolvency. It does not. This guide sets out precisely which personal insolvency notices appear in The Gazette, which routes to insolvency sit elsewhere, and how to build a screening process that reflects both.
What The Gazette publishes for personal insolvency
The Gazette is the UK's official public record. Under the Insolvency Act 1986, it publishes a defined set of personal insolvency notices. According to The Gazette's own guidance on personal insolvency notices, these include:
- Statutory demands (notice code 2501) and substituted service of petition (2502)
- Bankruptcy orders (2503) and bankruptcy orders for partnerships (2504)
- Administration orders (2505) and amendment of title of proceedings (2506)
- Appointment of trustees (2507) and notice to creditors (2508)
- Notice of intended dividend (2509), final notice to prove debts (2510) and final meetings (2511)
- Annulment of proceedings (2512), discharge orders (2515) and annulling, revoking or rescinding orders (2516)
For a compliance team, the lifecycle matters as much as the opening event. A bankruptcy order tells you a customer's estate now vests in a trustee. An annulment or discharge notice tells you the position has changed. A screening process that only looks for the order will keep flagging customers whose status has moved on, and one that ignores later notices will miss the trustee's contact details you need to lodge a claim.
What The Gazette's personal insolvency list does not cover
The Gazette's published list of personal insolvency notice types does not include Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) or Debt Relief Orders (DROs). In England and Wales, those are recorded on the Individual Insolvency Register, which is maintained by the Insolvency Service. Scotland runs separate procedures (sequestration and protected trust deeds) under Scottish law and a separate public register.
The practical consequence is simple: a clean Gazette result does not mean a customer has no formal debt arrangement. It means the customer has no bankruptcy-related notice in the record you searched. If your policy needs to detect every formal insolvency route, The Gazette is one source in a set, not the whole set.
Why this matters for regulated firms
Affordability and forbearance decisions
If a customer is in an IVA or a DRO, their obligations to creditors are set by that arrangement, not by your original agreement. Lending, forbearance and collections decisions made without knowing this can produce complaints and conduct issues.
Ongoing customer due diligence
Customer records go stale. Ongoing monitoring obligations under the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 mean firms are expected to keep customer information current and proportionate to risk. Insolvency status is a legitimate part of that picture for higher-risk relationships, particularly where the customer is a sole trader or partner whose personal and business finances overlap.
Business customers and personal guarantees
A company customer's insolvency is only half the exposure when a director has given a personal guarantee. A director's bankruptcy order in The Gazette can be the first public sign that the guarantee is worth less than the file assumes. For company-side context, the Insolvency Service reported 1,946 registered company insolvencies in England and Wales in August 2026, including 1,431 creditors' voluntary liquidations and 314 compulsory liquidations. That is a steady flow of corporate failures, each with directors whose personal position may follow.
A screening approach that reflects the gaps
- Define which insolvency routes your policy must detect. Bankruptcy, IVA, DRO, Scottish procedures and company insolvency are different data sources.
- Screen the Gazette for the routes it covers. For bankruptcy, search on name and other identifiers, then confirm matches against the notice detail (date of birth where shown, address, case number).
- Add the Individual Insolvency Register for IVAs and DROs where your policy requires it.
- Record match quality. Common names produce false positives. Store the identifiers you matched on, not just the outcome.
- Re-screen on a schedule. A one-off check goes out of date. Decide a review cycle by customer risk tier.
- Track notice age. The Gazette instructs search engines to exclude personal insolvency notices roughly one year and three months after publication, so a web search is a poor substitute for a structured search of the record.
Where bulk screening helps
Checking one name at a time on the public Gazette search works for a single enquiry. It does not scale to a customer book of thousands.
Gazette Search UK is built for the bulk case. You can upload a CSV or Excel file, or paste names, company numbers or postcodes, and run up to 50,000 identifiers in a single run. Results come back as structured data, with a matched versus not found split, parties, practitioners, courts, case numbers and deadlines, and a CSV export for your own systems. Pricing is pay-as-you-go credits, charged only when a search finds a notice, with no subscription and no minimum. You can try the free demo panel on the Gazette Search UK homepage with up to 150 entries and no signup, and see rates on the pricing page. Watchlists and an API are coming soon and are not yet available.
The alternatives are worth stating accurately. The Gazette's own public search handles one query at a time. Its manual Research Service publishes rates from around £30 for a single name, £24 per name for two to five names and £20 per name for six to ten. Its Data Service is a sales-led subscription. Each suits a different volume and budget.
Frequently asked questions
Are IVAs published in The Gazette?
The Gazette's published list of personal insolvency notice types does not include IVAs. In England and Wales, IVAs are recorded on the Individual Insolvency Register run by the Insolvency Service. If your policy requires IVA detection, you need that register as a separate source.
Does a Gazette search show Debt Relief Orders?
No. DROs are not among the personal insolvency notice types The Gazette lists. They are recorded on the Individual Insolvency Register. A clean Gazette result therefore does not rule out a DRO.
Which bankruptcy notices should a compliance team screen for?
At a minimum, screen for bankruptcy orders, appointment of trustees and notices to creditors. Also track annulments and discharge orders, so that customers whose status has changed are not flagged incorrectly and your records stay accurate.
Why not rely on a web search for bankruptcy checks?
The Gazette instructs search engines to exclude personal insolvency notices about one year and three months after publication. A web search can therefore miss notices that are still relevant to a live customer relationship. A structured search of the record is more reliable and easier to evidence.
How often should a customer book be re-screened?
There is no single legal frequency. Set the cycle by risk tier, for example more frequent for higher-risk relationships and sole-trader or guarantor exposure, and document the rationale in your policy so it can be evidenced to a regulator or auditor.