GraftoWhy so many UK companies are dissolved on a Tuesday
21 October 2026 · Figures as of 20/10/2026
If you watch the dissolved counter on Ltd Edition for a week, one day stands out. On most days a hundred or so companies are dissolved. On a Tuesday it can be ten thousand or more.
What we saw in October 2026
- Tuesday 13/10/2026: 17,685 companies dissolved.
- Tuesday 20/10/2026: 10,201 companies dissolved.
- Every other day from 09/10 to 20/10 averaged 87.
Those two Tuesdays accounted for 27,886 of the 28,759 dissolutions we recorded in the period: 97.0%. The 20/10 figure matches Companies House's own count for that date exactly.
What "dissolved" means
A dissolved company no longer exists as a legal entity. Companies leave the register in two main ways: the directors apply to close it (voluntary strike-off), or Companies House strikes it off, for example when it stops filing. Either way, notices are published in The Gazette before the company is removed. GOV.UK explains the process in Strike off your limited company.
Because strike-offs are processed in batches, dissolutions arrive in large blocks rather than as a steady trickle, and in our data those blocks land on Tuesdays. We record the date Companies House gives as the date of dissolution.
A dissolution isn't a failure story
Most dissolved companies are small and quiet: a project that finished, a business that was sold, a company set up and never used. The people behind them usually move on to something new. That's why our company obituaries list the longest-established companies dissolved each day, with their dates and where they were registered, and nothing else.