Company registered but never traded. Now its deregistered. Do I have to file return?

 Author: NikkiATO(Community Moderator)Community Moderator

18 Feb 2026

Hi @AUQuery,

Yes, a company must lodge a final tax return before it's deregistered by ASIC. @Bruce4Tax is right though - If your company has already been deregistered, we can't process any tax return lodged after deregistration.

When you voluntarily deregister a company, you need to make sure all the company's tax obligations are up to date before deregistration happens. This includes lodging and confirming we've processed all overdue and final tax forms, including tax returns and activity statements.

Once a company is deregistered, it ceases to exist as a legal entity. This means we'll stop processing forms lodged after deregistration and cancel the company's ABN and all registrations.

If you haven't lodged the final tax return yet, you'll need to consider reinstating your company with ASIC first. Once ASIC reinstates the company, we'll treat it as if it had never been deregistered, and you can then lodge the required tax return.

You can read more about deregistering a company and the requirements for lodging a company tax return on our website.

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