The phone call usually starts the same way. Somebody went to open a bank account, or tender, or sign a lease, and found out their company is not on the register any more. Nobody told them. Nothing arrived in the post.
Here is what has almost certainly happened, and what the route back looks like.
Why it happened
In nearly every case we see, the cause is unfiled annual returns. Not fraud, not a dispute, not a complaint — just a filing that nobody was chasing, missed for long enough that the registry concluded the company was no longer active.
This is the quiet failure mode of company compliance generally. Nothing reminds you. There is no invoice arriving monthly to prompt the thought. The obligation is real, recurring and entirely unprompted, and that combination is what makes it the most common way a perfectly healthy business ends up off the register.
A company that has been struck off has not necessarily done anything else wrong. That is worth knowing, because the usual reaction is to assume something worse happened.
Restoration and the arrears are one job
This is the single most useful thing to understand before anybody quotes you, because it is where most quotes go wrong.
CIPA will not restore a company that is still in default. So the outstanding returns that caused the strike-off have to be prepared and lodged with the restoration — a bare restoration application leaves you short of what CIPA will ask for, and the application stalls while you go and do the thing you thought you had paid for.
If a quote for restoration does not mention your outstanding returns, it is not a quote for getting your company back. It is a quote for part of the work.
What it costs
PulaGo prices restoration at P750 — level with registering a company, because a restoration is essentially a re-registration in effort. Each outstanding annual return is P300 on top.
The reason we bill it that way rather than quoting one number is that the variable part is genuinely variable: a company one year behind and a company five years behind are not the same job. Three years in arrears is P750 + 3 × P300. You can work out your own before you call.
CIPA’s own restoration fees and late-filing penalties are set by CIPA and are payable by you, at cost, on top of the above. We do not control them and will not guess at them.
This is also the honest answer to why waiting costs money. The penalty side compounds per outstanding period, so the bill for the same company is larger every year you postpone the decision.
What the work involves
- The register is searched to confirm the company’s current status and exactly why it was struck off — rather than assuming it was the returns.
- The outstanding annual returns are identified and quantified, so you know the full cost before committing.
- The restoration application is prepared and lodged with CIPA.
- It is followed through to restoration and confirmation of active status, which is the part that matters — a lodged application is not a restored company.
- Company particulars are updated where the register is out of date, because in a company that has been dormant for years the directors and address on file frequently are.
What you need to hand: your CIPA registration number (UIN), an Omang or passport for each current director and shareholder, confirmation of the current registered office address, and which financial years the outstanding returns cover.
How long it takes
Roughly 3 to 8 weeks in our experience, subject to CIPA’s own processing — which is their timeline, not ours, and the reason the range is wide rather than a promise.
Plan around that rather than against it. If you are restoring a company because a tender or a bank needs it, start now and assume the longer end.
Should you just register a new company instead?
Almost never, and the instinct is understandable — a new registration is P750 flat and visibly faster.
The problem is that it does not make the old company go away. It stays on the register in default, with your name on it. Meanwhile the new company has none of the trading history, none of the bank relationship, and none of the age that a tender or a lender may be asking about in the first place.
If the old company genuinely has nothing worth keeping, that is a conversation worth having. But it should be a decision, not an avoidance.
If your company is still on the register and simply behind on returns, you do not need a restoration — you need the arrears filed before it becomes one. That is the cheaper version of this entire article.
Not being here again
Once the company is restored, the thing that keeps it restored is knowing your annual return filing month, which is specific to your company and sits on your CIPA record. Put it on a calendar, and give the job to a named person rather than to the company in general.
PulaGo is a private company and is not affiliated with or endorsed by CIPA. CIPA sets its own fees and penalties; ours are shown separately.