What to do with company data when shutting down a business

Obligations first

Retention rules

Many countries require financial, tax, payroll and employment records to be kept for a minimum period after a company stops trading. The periods differ by country and record type, so confirm them with your accountant or liquidator before deleting anything.

Personal data

GDPR, the UK GDPR and US laws such as CCPA continue to apply while you hold personal data about employees, customers or contacts. Keep it secure, use it only on a lawful basis and delete it once you no longer need it.

Customer contracts

Some contracts require you to return or delete customer data when the relationship ends. Review these before deciding what to keep, sell or license.

Inventory your data assets

Before choosing what to do, list what you hold, where it lives and how far back it goes:

• Slack or Teams workspaces
• Documents and wikis (Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, Notion, Confluence)
• Support tickets and help-desk history
• Source code and code reviews
• CRM records and sales notes

Note who holds admin access to each tool. If the only admin has already left, recovering access can take time.

Data as an asset in a wind-down

Company data may be realisable value for creditors or shareholders. If a liquidator or administrator has been appointed, they generally control company assets and should be involved in any decision to sell or license data. If you are winding down solvently, the board makes the decision, ideally with legal advice.

Your options

Delete

Once retention periods have passed and contracts are honoured, secure deletion reduces risk. It also removes any remaining value.

Archive

Export to secure storage you control. This keeps you compliant with retention rules and preserves options, but someone must remain responsible for it.

Sell with the business

If assets or the brand are being sold, data may transfer with them, subject to privacy law and contracts.

License for AI training

AI labs value long histories of real work. Licensing a de-identified copy can generate value from records that would otherwise be deleted. See how data licensing works.

micro1's Defunct Company Data Partnership

micro1 runs a separate track for companies that have closed or are winding down. It requires 30+ employees (micro1's published requirement), mainly English records and a history of Slack or Teams use. Records are de-identified before licensing: names, emails and personal identifiers are removed or masked, and data is reviewed before any transfer.

For reference, micro1's published range ($100k to $2M+ per data package), subject to micro1's review and approval; not guaranteed. Defunct partnerships go through the same review. Founders working through this themselves should read selling your startup's data when winding down. Liquidators, insolvency practitioners and advisors can refer companies through our partner programme.

Timeline tip: act before tools lapse

The most common way value is lost is simple: subscriptions are cancelled, workspaces are deleted and exports are no longer possible. Before cancelling any tool, confirm what can be exported, who has admin rights and when the provider deletes data after cancellation. Getting a valuation early tells you whether the data is worth preserving.

A wind-down data checklist

1. List every system holding company data and how far back each goes.
2. Confirm who holds admin or owner access to each one before staff leave.
3. Check each provider's export options and what happens to data after cancellation.
4. Export what you need to keep for legal retention, and anything you may license.
5. Store exports securely in storage the company controls, and record who can access them.
6. Identify client data covered by NDAs or deletion commitments.
7. Agree with directors, investors or the liquidator who decides on any sale or licence.
8. Only then cancel subscriptions and delete what is no longer needed.

Common mistakes

The most costly mistake is cancelling tools first and thinking about data later. Once a workspace is gone, its history may be impossible to recover. Another is letting the last administrator leave without handing over access, which can lock the company out of its own records. Some companies delete everything to be safe, without checking which records must be kept for tax, employment or legal reasons. Others keep everything indefinitely, which creates ongoing privacy risk. A deliberate plan avoids both extremes, and involving your accountant or liquidator early helps you get the retention rules right for your country. This is general information, not legal advice.

Who to involve internally

During a wind-down, responsibility for data can easily fall between people who are leaving. Bring in whoever owns your key systems, usually IT or an operations lead, so exports and access are not a bottleneck. Involve finance to understand how any proceeds will be treated, and legal counsel or an external advisor to review the scope, warranties and deletion terms. If investors hold consent rights over significant assets, brief them early rather than at the point of signing.

It also helps to nominate one person to coordinate the process. They keep the inventory of systems up to date, collect answers from each team, and act as the single point of contact during scoping. That avoids conflicting answers and makes review faster. Keeping a simple written log of decisions, such as what was excluded and why, gives you a clear record if questions come up later.