Business licence renewal is required according to anniversary date (the Certificate of Incorporation date).
For closing of HK company, there are mainly 2 methods :
- De-registration
- There should be no outstanding amount and liability due to 3rd party ( such as debt, document filing duty to government etc. )
- Takes several months for the process to complete;
- Annual licence renewal
- As the process takes several months, client needs to pay annual licence renewal fee when it is close to due.
Otherwise, HK government will consider there is unpaid government debt and not approving the de-registration;
- Result of de-registration
- Client still needs to keep existing company record for 5 years;
- Winding up
- Can be started even there is outstanding amount due to 3rd party;
- Management account needs to be prepared in order to identify the company's financial status;
- Receiver will be appointed to take over the management power (usually appointing an accountant);
- Takes several months to complete.
