Edgar Mukasa
On 30th December 2025, the registrar of companies in Uganda issued a public notice having deregistered 50,003 companies due to failure to file their annual returns for the last 5 years despite reminder notices dated 20th July 2023, 14th August 2023 and 30th August 2023 and impending consequences resulting from no action being taken to rectify the situation.
I suppose that there is a million companies registered in Uganda or more but reflecting on the impact of the 50,003 being stricken off brings questions to mind including:
– How do the shareholders recover the share capital invested on registration of these companies if they missed the memo laying out the requirement to file said annual returns?
– Do those companies retain the legal capacity to execute / complete any contracts entered while they were still on the register?
– Do the tax authorities (Uganda Revenue Authority) have recourse to recover any back taxes outstanding from these companies?
– How do the other stakeholders (Government departments, debtors) enforce their rights for any outstanding obligations?
– Aren’t more companies going to take this as a “short-cut” for deregistration in Uganda as opposed to following the what is often involving liquidation process?
On the other hand, its comforting to note that one can still have their deactivated company reinstated by submitting an application to the registrar, payment of the reservation fees equivalent to UGX 20,000 (USD 6) and filing all pending returns for the back periods.
The list of deregistered companies is available on the Uganda Registration Services Bureau (URSB) website (https://ursb.go.ug/) and a befitting next step is to check it out so that there isn’t any surprises as organisations set out for bigger and better achievements come 2026.
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Edgar is an Associate Director in KPMG Uganda with over 13 years experience working as a tax advisor in KPMG.
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