There is no option to leave a company with an expired licence in ADGM, or to make a company dormant. The only options in ADGM are to either renew the licence, or to apply for a voluntary strike off and have the company removed from the Register.

If a company is left open with an expired licence, the directors could be imposed with significant fines of up to USD 20,000.

If you decide to strike off a company, once the application is submitted to ADGM a 2 - 3 month notice period will be issued. During this period the registration will be inactive but the entity can be re-activated by submitting a shareholder resolution and paying a re-activation fee. Once the notice period has finished, there is no option to re-establish the entity as it will have been removed from the Register.