Over 16,000 companies struck off registry in 17 months

Eliz­a­beth Gon­za­les

Se­nior Re­porter

eliz­a­beth.gon­za­[email protected]

Six days be­fore Pas­sion Desserts told cus­tomers that its stores and op­er­a­tions were of­fi­cial­ly closed, Pas­sion Desserts Lim­it­ed had al­ready been struck off the Com­pa­nies Reg­is­ter.

The com­pa­ny’s re­moval oc­curred on Feb­ru­ary 19, 2026, for an an­nu­al-re­turn de­fault. Its pub­lic clo­sure an­nounce­ment was dat­ed Feb­ru­ary 25.

The tim­ing does not show that the strike-off caused the busi­ness to close. But it was the clear­est ex­act-name over­lap found when Guardian Me­dia com­pared pub­licly re­port­ed clo­sures of 16,128 com­pa­nies struck off the reg­istry from May 22, 2025 to Sep­tem­ber 1, 2026. The Gazette records used for the re­view were ex­am­ined through Oc­to­ber 7, 2026.

The 16,128 fig­ure does not rep­re­sent busi­ness­es shut­ting their doors due to fi­nan­cial is­sues.

The no­tices con­tained 1,563 re­movals dat­ed in 2025 and 14,565 dat­ed in 2026. Of the 16,128 com­pa­nies, 8,555 were re­moved for an­nu­al-re­turn de­faults, 4,782 for fail­ing to ap­ply for con­tin­u­ance, 2,789 were list­ed as de­funct and two were dis­solved.

Each named com­pa­ny was count­ed once. Pro­posed re­movals, re­peats and old­er re­moval no­tices re­pub­lished dur­ing the pe­ri­od were ex­clud­ed.

A strike-off can hap­pen af­ter a busi­ness has stopped trad­ing. It can al­so in­volve a com­pa­ny that was nev­er an ac­tive store­front or em­ploy­er.

Aside from com­pa­nies be­ing struck off the reg­istry, there were over 30 named busi­ness­es, brands or lo­cal op­er­a­tions that an­nounced or were re­port­ed as clos­ing, ceas­ing a lo­cal op­er­a­tion or per­ma­nent­ly shut­ting an out­let. Six­teen of those closed be­tween Oc­to­ber 9, 2025 and Oc­to­ber 9, 2026.

Pas­sion Desserts was the on­ly com­pa­ny that an­nounced its clo­sure and was list­ed un­der com­pa­nies struck off the reg­istry.

Two oth­er names in the reg­is­ter re­sem­ble busi­ness­es in the clo­sure list. In De­mand Burg­er Joint Ltd was struck off as a de­funct com­pa­ny on No­vem­ber 3, 2025. Jam­rock Bites Lim­it­ed was re­moved in Feb­ru­ary 2026 for an an­nu­al-re­turn de­fault.

The pub­lic re­ports show a heav­ier con­cen­tra­tion of clo­sures in the most re­cent year.

They were not all the same kind of clo­sure. Nu­trien be­gan a con­trolled shut­down of its Trinidad ni­tro­gen op­er­a­tions on Oc­to­ber 23, 2025 and on Oc­to­ber 5 this year an­nounced that the Point Lisas op­er­a­tion would re­main shut in­def­i­nite­ly. Stan­dard Dis­trib­u­tors closed its phys­i­cal stores as the busi­ness changed own­er­ship and shift­ed to­ward cred­it and e-com­merce. Movi­eTowne closed its To­ba­go cin­e­ma while its Trinidad cin­e­mas re­mained open. The Home Store closed Ch­agua­nas af­ter three oth­er branch­es had al­ready shut. Readymix per­ma­nent­ly end­ed its ag­gre­gates and ready-mix op­er­a­tions on March 31.

Oth­ers were stand-alone restau­rants and bars. D’Bo­cas closed af­ter 37 years in Port-of-Spain. Burg­er Joint and Jam­rock Au­then­tic Jerk closed on Ari­api­ta Av­enue. The Res­i­dence closed at One Wood­brook Place. Rib Shack closed af­ter near­ly a decade. Cra­paud Foot closed af­ter about 18 months.

Econ­o­mist Ronald Ramkissoon said while the 16,000-plus com­pa­nies struck off the reg­istry does not trans­late to com­pa­nies shut­ting down, he said the wider busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment, how­ev­er, has been dif­fi­cult.

“The busi­ness en­vi­ron­ment has been very dif­fi­cult for en­tre­pre­neurs, busi­ness peo­ple, small busi­ness­es, large busi­ness­es,” he said, point­ing par­tic­u­lar­ly to the scarci­ty of for­eign ex­change.

The rea­sons for the clo­sures vary from com­pa­ny to com­pa­ny. But the list comes as busi­ness groups en­ter an­oth­er Bud­get re­peat­ing many of the same pres­sures: for­eign ex­change, weak de­mand, un­paid State bills, VAT re­funds and ris­ing op­er­at­ing costs.

The Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion has raised the VAT re­fund back­log, for­eign ex­change and sup­port for SMEs and ex­porters. The Coali­tion of Ser­vices In­dus­tries has called for faster Gov­ern­ment pay­ments. Trade Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj said that af­ter 12 con­sul­ta­tions in­volv­ing more than 1,000 busi­ness lead­ers, Cus­toms and for­eign ex­change were the two is­sues that kept re­turn­ing.

To­ba­go busi­ness­man Cur­tis Williams said de­layed State pay­ments were al­ready squeez­ing busi­ness­es.

“Some of us are on our knees be­cause we don’t have no cash flow. Some of us can’t even pay our work­ers. And these things are ham­per­ing a lot of small busi­ness­es on the is­land,” he said.

Ramkissoon said forex short­ages, VAT re­fund de­lays, un­paid Gov­ern­ment bills and weak de­mand are not iso­lat­ed com­plaints.

“They are symp­toms of the wider econ­o­my; they are symp­toms of a weak­ness, of a wider weak­ness in the econ­o­my,” he said.

He said de­layed VAT re­funds can al­so work against growth: “When you do not pay back the VAT re­funds to busi­ness­es, you are re­duc­ing their ca­pac­i­ty to ex­pand and to grow, and to do more busi­ness from which you get tax­es.”

In the fi­nal weeks be­fore the Bud­get, dif­fer­ent sec­tors have raised sim­i­lar pres­sures.

Trade, In­vest­ment and Tourism Min­is­ter Satyaka­ma Ma­haraj said on Oc­to­ber 8 that Gov­ern­ment had held 12 con­sul­ta­tions in­volv­ing more than 1,000 busi­ness lead­ers. He said two is­sues kept re­turn­ing: Cus­toms and for­eign ex­change.

James said the coun­try still needs to build in­dus­tries ca­pa­ble of earn­ing for­eign ex­change, rais­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and cre­at­ing high­er-in­come jobs. He iden­ti­fied ed­u­ca­tion, health­care, cre­ative in­dus­tries and fi­nan­cial ser­vices among those ar­eas.

“The way you de­vel­op the econ­o­my,” James said, “is that you raise liv­ing stan­dards while you are solv­ing the for­eign ex­change prob­lem. And that re­quires the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the econ­o­my.”

Asked what one thing he need­ed to hear from Fi­nance Min­is­ter Dav­en­dranath Tan­coo on Mon­day to con­vince him the coun­try was chang­ing di­rec­tion, James said: “That’s easy.”

“The chang­ing the sys­tem of gov­ern­ment. That’s our most im­por­tant and biggest de­vel­op­ment project,” he said. “You have to set up the gov­ern­ment prop­er­ly to en­able eco­nom­ic de­vel­op­ment and di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion.”