Do You Still File a RELIEF SLSP When Your Business Closes for Good?

Yes — a business that closes entirely still owes a final RELIEF SLSP covering every VAT-registered sale and purchase up to the date it stops operating, even if that final period is only a few weeks of a quarter. Total closure is not the same question as downgrading below the VAT threshold: it ends every tax type at once, and under RMC No. 47-2026 the BIR won’t finalize the closure until that final RELIEF SLSP and its supporting return are actually filed — the normal 25-day quarterly deadline doesn’t apply the way it would for an ongoing business.

Closing entirely is a different question from downgrading out of VAT #

A business that retires or ceases operations entirely is not the same case as one that simply falls below the ₱3,000,000 VAT threshold and downgrades to percentage tax. How to Cancel Your VAT Registration and Shift Back to Non-VAT with the BIR and Do You Still File RELIEF SLSP for the Quarter You Cancel Your VAT Registration? both cover a business that keeps operating after the change — it just stops being VAT-registered and starts filing BIR Form 2551Q instead of BIR Form 2550Q. A business that shuts down entirely has no “instead”: every tax type it’s registered for — VAT or percentage tax, withholding, income tax — ends on the same date, and its BIR registration itself gets cancelled, not just its VAT tax type. That distinction changes which issuance governs the closing paperwork and, as covered below, how the deadline for the final RELIEF SLSP actually works.

What RMC No. 47-2026 requires before the BIR finalizes your closure #

Revenue Memorandum Circular (RMC) No. 47-2026, issued May 19, 2026, streamlined the paperwork for closing a BIR registration, but it didn’t remove the substantive filings a business must complete before the RDO will process the closure — see How to Close or Cancel Your BIR Business Registration Under RMC No. 47-2026 for the full closure procedure. Before the BIR cancels a registration, the taxpayer must:

• File BIR Form 1905 applying for closure/cancellation at the RDO with jurisdiction over the business.
• Surrender the original Certificate of Registration (BIR Form 2303) and any unused invoices or receipts.
• File all outstanding tax returns up to the date of closure — including the final VAT or percentage tax return, final expanded withholding tax and compensation withholding returns, and a final income tax return covering the short period up to cessation.
• Settle any outstanding tax liabilities the RDO identifies before it will complete cancellation.

For a VAT-registered business, the “final VAT return” line item is not just BIR Form 2550Q on its own — it’s the return plus its RELIEF SLSP DAT attachment, since RELIEF is required of every VAT-registered person under Revenue Regulations No. 16-2005, as amended, for any quarter they were VAT-registered for any part of it. A closing business is VAT-registered for part of its final quarter almost by definition, so the RELIEF requirement doesn’t disappear just because that quarter never finishes.

Does a short stub period still need a full RELIEF SLSP? #

Yes — a RELIEF SLSP covering only a few weeks is still a full RELIEF SLSP, not a shortened or optional version of one, whether the business closes on day one of the quarter or completes the whole quarter before shutting down. What changes between the two scenarios isn’t the filing requirement itself; it’s the deadline and how the closure process reacts to it.

The practical difference shows up in timing pressure, not in scope: a business that closes on, say, the 10th of the second month of a quarter has far less runway to reconcile its books and generate a clean RELIEF SLSP than one that simply finishes its last full quarter and then closes. Neither gets to skip the filing.

The deemed-sale inventory line most closing businesses miss #

Retiring from business doesn’t let a VAT-registered taxpayer walk away from unsold inventory tax-free — the NIRC treats that inventory as a deemed sale, and it has to appear on the final RELIEF SLSP. Section 106(B) of the National Internal Revenue Code (NIRC) lists the transactions deemed sale for VAT purposes, and item (4) covers exactly this situation:

“Retirement from or cessation of business, with respect to inventories of taxable goods existing as of such retirement or cessation.”

That means output VAT is due on the fair market value of whatever taxable goods remain on hand as of the closure date, even though nothing was actually sold to a customer. Because that deemed sale happened while the business was still VAT-registered, it belongs on the sales side of the final RELIEF SLSP alongside every real sale made during the stub period — a line item it’s easy to forget once the business has effectively stopped trading.

Worked example: a retail store closing mid-quarter #

Lantern Home & Kitchen Store (fictional), a VAT-registered sole proprietorship selling housewares, decides to shut down permanently and stops accepting customers on November 8, 2026 — roughly six weeks into Q4 2026 (October–December). Working with her bookkeeper, the owner pulls records and finds:

• VATable sales, October 1–November 8: ₱620,000, with ₱74,400 output VAT
• VATable purchases from suppliers, October 1–November 8: ₱410,000, with ₱49,200 input VAT
• Remaining unsold inventory as of November 8: valued at ₱95,000 fair market value, subject to deemed-sale output VAT under NIRC Section 106(B)(4): ₱95,000 × 0.12 = ₱11,400

The store’s final RELIEF SLSP for Q4 2026 covers October 1 through November 8 only — not the full quarter, since the business never traded past that date — and its Summary List of Sales includes the ₱620,000 in real sales plus the ₱95,000 deemed sale (₱11,400 output VAT) as a separate line. That RELIEF SLSP, the final BIR Form 2550Q it supports, and BIR Form 1905 applying for closure are filed together at the RDO under the RMC No. 47-2026 process, ahead of the standard Q4 quarterly deadline the store would have faced had it stayed open — because the RDO won’t cancel the registration until that final filing clears.

Summary #

Closing a business entirely is not the same RELIEF SLSP question as downgrading below the VAT threshold — every tax type ends at once, and RMC No. 47-2026 ties the final RELIEF SLSP to the closure process itself rather than the normal quarterly cycle. A stub period, whether it’s six weeks or a nearly-complete quarter, still requires a full RELIEF SLSP covering real sales and purchases plus the NIRC Section 106(B)(4) deemed sale of any remaining inventory. File it as part of the BIR Form 1905 closure package, not on the calendar date you’d otherwise expect. For the eligibility and mechanics of a threshold-driven downgrade instead of full closure, see How to Cancel Your VAT Registration and Shift Back to Non-VAT with the BIR; for that scenario’s own transition-quarter RELIEF SLSP rules, see Do You Still File RELIEF SLSP for the Quarter You Cancel Your VAT Registration?