There are plenty of reasons to ask whether a company is in liquidation before you deal with it. You are about to extend credit. An invoice has gone unpaid and gone quiet. A supplier has stopped answering the phone. You are admitting claims in an estate, running a conflict check, or deciding whether a contract is worth signing.
The answer is on the public record. UK company insolvency is not a private event — it generates official filings and statutory notices from the day it starts. The question is which record to check, what each one actually shows, and what to do when you have more than one name to run.
The two-minute check: Companies House
The fastest free check is the Companies House register. Search the company by name or company number, open its record, and look at the company status field. A company in liquidation shows it plainly — "Liquidation" — and the filing history underneath shows the insolvency documents as they are registered: the resolution to wind up, the appointment of a liquidator, the progress reports.
This check is free, instant, and authoritative for what it covers. Two caveats matter.
First, the status reflects registered filings. There is a lag between an insolvency event happening and the paperwork reaching the register, and the length of that lag is not something you control.
Second — and this is the one that costs people money — a winding-up petition does not change a company's status. A company can have a petition advertised against it, its bank account frozen, and a hearing scheduled, while Companies House still shows it as "Active." The petition lives in a different record.
The official notice record: The Gazette
That different record is The Gazette — the UK's official public record, where insolvency events are required by law to be published. Winding-up petitions, winding-up orders, resolutions to wind up voluntarily, appointments of liquidators and administrators, notices to creditors: publication is a statutory step, not a courtesy.
This makes The Gazette the earlier and more complete signal. A petition is advertised there before any order exists. A creditors' voluntary liquidation publishes its resolution and its liquidator appointment there. If you want to know not just whether a company is in liquidation but what stage it is at and since when, the notices are where the detail is.
The Gazette's own search takes one query at a time: one name or company number per search, then filters, then the next name. For a single company, that is fine. We cover what happens beyond a single name in How to Search The Gazette for Insolvency Notices — Without Doing It One Name at a Time.
What the free checks miss
Run both checks on one company and you have a solid answer for that company, today. The gaps appear at the edges:
Timing. Each register is only as current as its latest entry, and events sit at different stages in different records at any given moment. Checking only one source means inheriting its blind spot.
Similar names. "AB Construction Ltd", "A B Construction Ltd" and "AB Construction (Midlands) Ltd" are three different companies. Searching by name risks a false match or a missed one; searching by the 8-character company number removes the ambiguity. We cover this in How to Search The Gazette by Company Number.
Repetition. A check is a snapshot. The company that was fine when you onboarded it can be in liquidation eighteen months later, and nothing notifies you. The only cure is re-checking, which brings us to the real problem.
When you have a list, not a name
Every method above prices itself per lookup, in your time. Two minutes per company is nothing for one company and a full day for a debtor book of two hundred. That is why, in practice, most businesses check the companies that are already worrying them — which is the opposite of what screening is for.
Gazette Search closes that gap. Upload a spreadsheet — CSV or Excel — of company names or company numbers, and every entry is searched against the UK insolvency notice record in one pass. The result comes back in seconds as a clean split: matched, with the notices found against each entry, and not found. Pricing is pay-as-you-go credits — no subscription, and a search that finds nothing costs nothing. Current rates are on the pricing page.
Re-running the same list next month is just another upload — which turns the one-off check into an actual screening habit. For the collections version of this argument, see Screening Your Debtor Book for Insolvency.
Why this matters more than it used to
In July 2026 alone, 1,931 companies entered insolvency in England and Wales — 1,497 of them creditors' voluntary liquidations and 288 compulsory. Over the twelve months to July 2026, roughly one company in 199 on the register entered insolvency. If your customer, supplier or counterparty list runs to a few hundred companies, the odds that none of them is affected in a given year are not on your side.
Try it before you build a process around it
The demo panel on the Gazette Search homepage takes a pasted list and returns matches in seconds — no account, no card. Paste in a few companies you already know the answer for. If the results are right, you have found your screening workflow; if not, you have lost thirty seconds.
Frequently asked questions
What is the fastest free way to check if a company is in liquidation?
Search the company on the Companies House register and read the company status field. It is free and instant, but it only reflects registered filings — a winding-up petition, for example, does not change the status.
Does a winding-up petition mean a company is in liquidation?
No. A petition is a step towards compulsory liquidation, not the event itself. But it is a serious warning sign — it is advertised in The Gazette before the hearing, and banks typically freeze the company's account once it is published.
What is the difference between Companies House and The Gazette for this check?
Companies House shows the company's registered state; The Gazette carries the statutory insolvency notices themselves, including events — like petitions — that do not appear as a status change.
How do I check a whole list of companies at once?
The official sources take one query at a time. Gazette Search accepts a CSV or Excel upload of names or company numbers and searches every entry in one pass, returning matched and not-found lists in seconds.
How often should I re-check?
A check is only current on the day you run it. Businesses with live exposure — credit, collections, ongoing contracts — typically re-run their list monthly.