Data
Charges at companies in liquidation, administration or a voluntary arrangement
Most companies in administration have a charge on record: 85.8%, or 3,070 of 3,577. For companies in liquidation it is about a third (33.2%), and for active companies 15.6%. Counted from the Companies House register at 1 November 2026, private limited companies only. The liquidation figure includes solvent members' voluntary liquidations.
85.8%
of companies "In Administration" have a charge on record (3,070 of 3,577)
33.2%
of companies in liquidation have a charge on record (35,096 of 105,726)
15.6%
of active companies have a charge on record (741,705 of 4,761,802)
Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance, from the Companies House free company data product dated 1 November 2026. Private limited companies only. How we counted. Counts and shares only: no company is named.
Cite this dataset: Parker, A. (2026). UK company charges statistics from the Companies House register of charges, November 2026. Zenodo. https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.23977084
By status
Charges on record, by company status
A charge on record means the register shows at least one charge registered against the company, at any date and held by anyone. A charge not recorded as satisfied means at least one of those charges has no statement on the register saying it has ended.
| Company status | Companies | With a charge on record | Share | With a charge not recorded as satisfied | Share |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Liquidation | 105,726 | 35,096 | 33.2% | 25,579 | 24.2% |
| In administration | 3,577 | 3,070 | 85.8% | 2,709 | 75.7% |
| Voluntary arrangement | 569 | 370 | 65.0% | 307 | 54.0% |
| Proposal to strike off (not an insolvency) | 408,752 | 18,747 | 4.6% | 13,292 | 3.3% |
| Active | 4,761,802 | 741,705 | 15.6% | 608,049 | 12.8% |
A proposal to strike off is not an insolvency. It is in the table for comparison, next to active companies. Companies in receivership are left out.
The administration row counts the status "In Administration" only. The register uses three other spellings for administration ("In Administration/Administrative Receiver", "In Administration/Receiver Manager" and "ADMINISTRATION ORDER"). Counting all four together gives 86.0% (3,541 of 4,118), from the same Companies House file.
Why it matters
What a charge on record means in liquidation or administration
A charge holder is a secured creditor, so where its charge is still live it ranks ahead of trade suppliers and other unsecured creditors (Insolvency Act 1986, section 175 sets where preferential debts sit against a floating charge). 75.7% of companies in administration and 24.2% of companies in liquidation have a charge that is not recorded as satisfied. The order of payment, and how fixed and floating charges differ in it, is on charges and insolvency. A holder of a qualifying floating charge can appoint an administrator itself (Insolvency Act 1986, Schedule B1, paragraph 14): see qualifying floating charges.
Any company's charges, and whether each shows as outstanding or satisfied, can be read free on the Companies House register. If a charge was repaid but still shows as outstanding, the company can file form MR04 to record that it has ended. The Companies Act 2006 does not require that statement (section 859L only sets out what happens once one is delivered), so some charges counted here as not satisfied will already have been repaid.
Limits
What these figures do not show
- Whether money is owed. A charge not recorded as satisfied does not mean the debt is unpaid, or that anything can be recovered from the assets.
- Who holds the charge. The counts include any charge holder, not only lenders.
- Solvent or insolvent liquidation. The register does not separate solvent members' voluntary liquidations from insolvent ones, and a liquidation status can be old.
- Dissolved companies. Companies already removed from the register are not in the file, so these are companies still on the register, not every company that has failed.
- Cause and effect. The figures say nothing about whether having a charge makes a company more or less likely to fail.
Method
How we counted
- Source. The Companies House free company data product dated 1 November 2026: one row per company on the register, with its status, category and its number of charges, outstanding, part satisfied and satisfied.
- Which companies. Category "Private Limited Company" only. Each row of the table counts one status value exactly as the register spells it, listed above.
- Definitions. With a charge on record: the number of charges is above zero. With a charge not recorded as satisfied: the number of outstanding charges is above zero.
- Data quality. 1 malformed line in the file was skipped and not guessed at.
- Downloads. The same counts as CSV and JSON, under CC BY 4.0, with the other charge figures on this site.
- What the figures are not. Not an official statistic. Information only, not advice. If the business is in difficulty, a licensed insolvency practitioner is the right first call (find an insolvency practitioner on GOV.UK).
- Corrections. If a figure changes, the fix goes in the methodology changelog.
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Adam Parker
Founder of Muswell Rose Consulting Ltd, which trades as Established Finance · Managing Director of Penny, an invoice finance business, from July 2020 to November 2023, and working in mortgages, commercial finance and fintech lending since 2010 (career history; career record).
Last updated:
Common questions
Questions about this
How many companies in administration have a charge registered?
85.8% of private limited companies with the status "In Administration" on the Companies House register at 1 November 2026 had at least one charge on record (3,070 of 3,577). 75.7% had a charge not recorded as satisfied. Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance.
How many companies in liquidation have a charge registered?
33.2% of private limited companies in liquidation on the Companies House register at 1 November 2026 had at least one charge on record (35,096 of 105,726), and 24.2% had a charge not recorded as satisfied. The register does not separate solvent members' voluntary liquidations from insolvent ones. Source: Companies House register of charges, analysed by Established Finance.