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Guide · United Kingdom · The Gazette

Gazette insolvency notices: London, Edinburgh and Belfast

When a UK company is wound up, goes into administration or has a liquidator appointed, the law makes someone advertise it in The Gazette. Here is what those notices say, how they join to a Companies House record, and how to query them from an API.

The short version

The Gazette is the UK’s official public record, first published in 1665 and issued in three editions: the London Gazette, the Edinburgh Gazette and the Belfast Gazette. Insolvency practitioners, courts and other bodies place there the notices that the Insolvency Act 1986 and the insolvency rules require to be advertised, and The Gazette files them under corporate insolvency. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own insolvency law and their own editions.

It is not a company register. The register is Companies House. A Gazette insolvency notice names the company, gives its registered office and prints its Companies House company number, and that number is the key that joins the notice to everything else known about the company.

What the notices cover

A corporate insolvency leaves a trail of notices, each a separate publication with its own date. The families you will meet:

NoticeWhat it means for a counterparty
Petition to wind upA creditor, or the company itself, has asked the court to wind the company up. It is advertised ahead of the hearing so that other creditors can appear. A petition is a warning, not yet a winding-up.
Winding-up orderThe court has ordered the company wound up (compulsory liquidation) and an officeholder takes control. In England and Wales that is the Official Receiver first.
Resolution to wind up, appointment of liquidatorShareholders have resolved to wind the company up voluntarily. In a creditors’ voluntary liquidation the company is insolvent; in a members’ voluntary liquidation the directors have declared it solvent.
AdministrationAdministrators are appointed to rescue the company or realise its assets, and a moratorium holds creditors back while they work.
ReceivershipA secured creditor has had a receiver appointed over assets. The company may still trade.
Notices to creditorsInvitations to prove debts, meetings of creditors, and the final meeting that precedes the company’s dissolution.

The Gazette has its own notice names and codes for these, and this table groups them in plain English. Personal insolvency (bankruptcy orders, individual voluntary arrangements, debt relief orders, and the Scottish equivalents) sits in a separate category and is not what this guide is about.

Two things that catch people out

A liquidation is not always distress. A members’ voluntary liquidation is a solvent wind-down: the directors have made a declaration of solvency and the shareholders are closing the company. It appears among the Gazette’s corporate insolvency notices, but it is not a warning about the company’s ability to pay, so Prometiam leaves it out: the notices it serves are creditors’ voluntary and compulsory (court) liquidations, told apart by the Gazette’s own notice codes.

Strike-off is not insolvency. When the Registrar of Companies starts to strike a company off for not filing, the notice is published in the same Gazette. It is a dissolution, not an insolvency. Prometiam serves the strike-off proposal separately, as a registry-compliance signal on the company record (see the strike-off risk guide), so the two are never confused.

One more habit worth having: a notice follows the event and the lag varies, so a company can be in administration or liquidation before its notice is published. The company’s own status on the register, which can read liquidation or administration, is worth reading beside the notice.

Querying UK insolvency notices from an API

Prometiam serves UK corporate insolvency notices from The Gazette through the same endpoint as France, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, the US, the Netherlands, Denmark, Croatia, Sweden, Spain, Latvia, Estonia and Singapore. Filter by company_number, the Companies House number as printed on the notice (eight characters: digits with their leading zeros, or a two-letter prefix such as SC for Scotland or NI for Northern Ireland followed by six digits), by name, or by event_type and a date range.

curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/insolvency/search?country=GB&company_number=12345678&limit=5" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

The response has the shape below. The record is illustrative, and the meta block is shortened.

{
  "data": [
    {
      "id": 1234567,
      "source_country": "GB",
      "source_provider": "The Gazette",
      "company_name": "EXAMPLE CONSTRUCTION LIMITED",
      "company_number": "12345678",
      "event_type": "liquidation",
      "status": null,
      "local_status": null,
      "filing_date": "2026-09-18",
      "bankrupt_city": "Leeds",
      "notice_url": "https://www.thegazette.co.uk/…"
    }
  ],
  "pagination": { "count": 1, "has_more": false, "next_cursor": null },
  "meta": {
    "query_ms": 38,
    "name_match": "contains",
    "coverage_note": "CORPORATE insolvency only. Personal/consumer insolvency is deliberately excluded …"
  }
}

filing_date is the date of the notice, event_type is normalised across countries, and notice_url links to the notice. A search by name is a contains match, ranked by relevance, and each row then carries a match_score from 0 to 100. Page through a long result with next_cursor. To check a list of counterparties in one call, POST /insolvency/check takes up to 100 items and returns each one’s five most recent notices; every item counts as one request.

From a notice to the Companies House record

UK notices are linked to company records: the company_number on a notice is the Companies House number, so it goes straight into the company search.

curl "https://api.prometiam.com/functions/v1/risk-api/companies/search?company_number=12345678&country=GB" \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY"

The record returns the company’s status, registered address and incorporation details, and its officers, persons with significant control and corporate events through the endpoints named in the UK company data guide. The register is explained in What is Companies House?

What the UK coverage is, and is not

  • Corporate only. Personal insolvency is never returned. The United Kingdom is one of sixteen insolvency markets (FR, DE, GB, AT, CH, NO, FI, US, NL, DK, HR, SE, ES, LV, EE, SG).
  • Linked to Companies House. The notice carries the company number, so it joins to the company record. You can also search by name.
  • Alerts on a company. Add a UK company to POST /monitor (country=GB) and a webhook fires when a Gazette notice or a Companies House filing appears, besides status changes, dissolution and sanctions matches (beta). To screen a list of counterparties in one call, use POST /insolvency/check. See Companies House monitoring API.
  • An empty result is not proof of solvency. It means no notice was found for that search.

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FAQ

Where do I find insolvency notices in the London Gazette?
On thegazette.co.uk, which publishes the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes: search its notices and choose the corporate insolvency category. A notice names the company and its Companies House number. To search by company number or check many companies at once, use the API (GET /insolvency/search?country=GB).

Is there a separate Belfast Gazette insolvency search?
The Belfast Gazette carries the notices for Northern Ireland, which has its own insolvency law, and is published on the same site as the London and Edinburgh Gazettes. Prometiam serves the corporate insolvency notices through one endpoint with country=GB, and a Northern Ireland company is found by its NI-prefixed Companies House number.

What is The Gazette?
The Gazette is the UK’s official public record, published in three editions: the London, Edinburgh and Belfast Gazettes. Insolvency practitioners, courts and other bodies place there the notices that the Insolvency Act 1986 and the insolvency rules require to be advertised, and it files them under corporate insolvency.

Is a Gazette notice the same as a Companies House record?
No. Companies House is the company register; the Gazette publishes notices. An insolvency notice names the company and prints its Companies House company number, which is how the two are joined.

Does a liquidation notice always mean the company is insolvent?
No. In a creditors’ voluntary liquidation the company is insolvent, but in a members’ voluntary liquidation the directors have declared it solvent and are winding it up. Prometiam leaves members’ voluntary liquidations out of its insolvency notices and serves creditors’ voluntary and compulsory liquidations.

Are UK notices linked to company records in Prometiam?
Yes. GB notices are served through GET /insolvency/search?country=GB with the Companies House company number as printed on the notice, so they join to the company record from GET /companies/search?country=GB. Corporate insolvency only: personal insolvency is never returned.

Are strike-off notices insolvency notices?
No. They are dissolutions. The strike-off proposal is served as a registry-compliance signal on the company record.

Are personal insolvencies included?
No. Only corporate insolvency is served, and personal insolvency is never returned.