Deregister business

If you cease trading, you must deregister your business.

If you change the legal form of your business, you must also deregister it. First, you must deregister your business under its previous legal form. You must then re-register your business under the new legal form.

If you relocate the head office of your business, or a branch or a dependent branch of your company, to a new location without any change to the local authority’s jurisdiction, a change of business registration is sufficient.

The deregistration must be carried out by the following persons or their authorised representatives:

• in the case of sole traders: by the trader themselves
• in the case of legal entities: by their legal representatives; this applies, for example, to limited liability companies (GmbH) and public limited companies (AG)
• in the case of partnerships: by all partners authorised to manage the business: this applies, for example, to general partnerships (OHG), limited partnerships with share capital (KG), civil-law partnerships (GbR), limited liability companies and limited partnerships (GmbH & Co. KG)

If your business relocates:

• If you move your business premises to another local authority area, you must register your business at the new location. Your old location will then be automatically deregistered.
• If you change the location of your business within the same local authority area, you simply need to re-register your business.