Company liquidation in Serbia

In Serbia the calendar is public. The opening of a liquidation is advertised in the register of business entities, and the length of that advertisement decides the earliest day the company can leave the register.

Setting a company up in the same register is company registration in Serbia; our remaining tasks there are gathered on the Serbia page.

What the file needs at the start

• A decision of the members to open the liquidation, naming the liquidator. On that appointment every other representative loses the right to act for the company.
• Enough property to meet every obligation: this is the route written for a company that can pay.
• A registration application for the opening and for the publication of the notice, with proof that the fee is paid.
• A person with an address in Serbia who will keep the books and documents; that person's name and address are registered too.
• Certificates that the tax obligations have ended — one from the tax administration, one from the local authority, neither older than 5 days when the deletion is filed.
• No tax audit under way: from the moment the tax authority tells the register that it is auditing the company, the register cannot delete it or register a change of its founder, name or seat.

The periods that make up the wait

• The notice of the opening stays on the register's site for 90 days and calls on creditors to report their claims.
• Claims can still be reported for 30 days after that period ends. After that they are precluded.
• Known creditors are written to separately, within 15 days from the day the liquidation starts.
• The initial liquidation report is drawn no earlier than 90 and no later than 150 days from the start, adopted within 30 days and registered within 15 of being adopted.
• So the application for deletion cannot be filed until 120 days have run from the day the notice went up, and not before that report is registered.

What each step costs in the register

What the deletion leaves behind

Members of a limited liability company answer for the company's obligations after it is deleted, each up to the amount received from the surplus, and those claims fall away 3 years after the deletion. The liquidator answers separately for damage caused in the role, under the same 3-year limit.

Sources: the 90-day notice, the 30-day preclusion, the restart on a change of address, the letters to known creditors, the initial report between day 90 and 150 and the liability after deletion — articles 533, 534, 536 and 545 of the Companies Act as set out in the liquidation instructions of the Business Registers Agency; the fees — its published schedule.