Updated September 4, 2026. Quick answer: a dissolved District of Columbia corporation reinstates by filing Certificate of Reinstatement, filed via DLCP Form GN-5 (“Reinstatement of Domestic Filing Entity”), with the District of Columbia Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP), Corporations Division under D.C. Code § 29-106.03 (reinstatement); § 29-106.01 (grounds for administrative dissolution); § 29-106.02 (administrative dissolution procedure) for $300, with no statutory deadline to do it.
If you’d rather have the reinstatement filed for you
Bizee can prepare and file the District of Columbia reinstatement paperwork described above on your behalf. State filing fees and any back taxes owed are separate, and you pay those directly either way.
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The filing, and what District of Columbia calls it
The District calls this process ‘reinstatement.’ It is triggered when the Mayor (acting through DLCP) administratively dissolves a domestic filing entity, including a business corporation, under § 29-106.02 – most commonly for failing to pay a fee or penalty within 5 months of its due date, failing to deliver a biennial report within 5 months of its due date, or lacking a registered agent in the District for 60 days. A dissolved corporation may apply to DLCP for reinstatement by filing Form GN-5, certifying that the grounds for dissolution have been cured (biennial report filed, registered agent appointed, all fees/penalties paid) and paying the amounts owed; once the Mayor verifies and grants it, reinstatement relates back to the effective date of the dissolution as if it never occurred.
How long you have to reinstate
District of Columbia sets no deadline for reinstating a dissolved corporation. Neither § 29-106.03 nor DLCP’s Form GN-5 states a time limit for applying for reinstatement after administrative dissolution. The statute simply provides that a dissolved entity ‘may apply to the Mayor for reinstatement’ and sets out required application contents and payment of accrued fees/penalties, with no expiration window mentioned. That does not mean waiting is free; back fees and penalties keep accruing the whole time the entity sits dissolved. (D.C. Code § 29-106.03)
What you must pay before it goes through
District of Columbia will not reinstate the corporation until every year it sat delinquent is paid for. Before reinstatement is granted, the entity must pay all fees and penalties that were due at the time of dissolution plus all fees and penalties that would have become due while it was dissolved. In practice this means filing every delinquent biennial report and paying, per DLCP’s Corporations Division fee schedule, the $300 reinstatement fee, the $300 biennial report fee for each missed 2-year cycle, and a $100 late-filing penalty per missed cycle. (D.C. Code § 29-106.03(b); DLCP Form GN-5, Ver. 3 (Oct. 2022); DLCP Corporations Division fee schedule)
Whether your name is still yours
Your original name is not guaranteed to still be yours. D.C.’s entity-name statute (§ 29-103.01) requires a name to be distinguishable from other currently active registered, reserved, or assumed names, but does not separately address a dissolved entity’s name specifically. DLCP’s own Form GN-5 includes field 2, ‘Entity’s Alternate Name,’ instructing it ‘should only be used if entity’s true name is not available’ – confirming another entity can take a dissolved corporation’s name while it is administratively dissolved, requiring the corporation to adopt a different name to be reinstated. Check District of Columbia’s business-name database before assuming the reinstatement filing will go through under the old name. (DLCP Form GN-5, Ver. 3 (Oct. 2022), field 2; D.C. Code § 29-103.01)
What the filing costs
District of Columbia’s Certificate of Reinstatement, filed via DLCP Form GN-5 (“Reinstatement of Domestic Filing Entity”), with the District of Columbia Department of Licensing and Consumer Protection (DLCP), Corporations Division carries a $300 filing fee. $300 reinstatement fee per DLCP’s Corporations Division fee schedule for domestic business corporations, separate from and in addition to delinquent biennial report fees ($300 per missed 2-year cycle) and late penalties ($100 per missed cycle) that must also be paid to cure the dissolution grounds.
What this page does not answer
Reinstating the entity at the state level and squaring things up with the IRS are two separate processes. Late federal returns, penalty abatement requests, and reinstating a lapsed EIN’s associated accounts are governed by federal law, not by District of Columbia’s corporation statute, and this page does not source them. We have the state-filing answer at primary and the federal-cleanup answer not at all.
This page covers a for-profit business corporation. If you are reinstating an LLC in District of Columbia instead, the filing, fee and statute are different: see reinstating an LLC in District of Columbia.
Sources
Every citation on this page is statutory or the Secretary of State’s own official filing instructions. No formation service, no registered-agent marketing page and no aggregator is cited anywhere in this cluster as a source of law; those are the only publishers of the competing versions.
- D.C. Code § 29-106.03 – Reinstatement: https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/29-106.03
- D.C. Code § 29-106.02 – Procedure for administrative dissolution: https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/29-106.02
- D.C. Code § 29-106.01 – Grounds for administrative dissolution: https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/29-106.01
- D.C. Code § 29-103.01 – Entity name availability/distinguishability: https://code.dccouncil.gov/us/dc/council/code/sections/29-103.01
- DLCP Form GN-5 – Reinstatement of Domestic Filing Entity (Ver. 3, Oct. 2022): https://dlcp.dc.gov/sites/default/files/dc/sites/DLCP/publication/attachments/GN-5%20Reinstatement%20of%20Domestic%20Filing%20Entity.pdf
- DLCP Corporations Division Fees – Domestic Business Corporation fee schedule: https://dlcp.dc.gov/node/1621906