UBO register: who can see the owner of your company

The ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) is the natural person at the end of the chain: not the nominee shareholder, not the holding company, but the human who owns or controls it. A UBO register, also called a beneficial ownership register, PSC register, register of significant controllers or transparency register, is the official list of those people for each company. The glossary entry has the short version.

Registers exist because of FATF Recommendation 24, revised in March 2022. It requires "adequate, accurate and up-to-date information on the beneficial ownership and control of legal persons" that authorities can obtain "rapidly and efficiently", through a register or an alternative mechanism. Countries may make it public. They don't have to.

Here is what a typical entry holds, and the part most registers hide from anyone outside the authorities:

Most registers test in the same order, the order FATF and the EU use:

1. Ownership. Anyone holding more than 25% of the shares or votes, directly or through other companies. The EU AML Regulation moves this to "25% or more" from 10 July 2027.
2. Control by other means. Anyone who can appoint or remove most directors, or who exercises "significant influence or control", whatever they hold. This catches the person behind a nominee shareholder: the UK and Hong Kong rules count a nominee's shares as the nominator's.
3. Senior managing official. If nobody passes either test, the register records the top manager instead, so the entry is never blank.

The ownership test looks through holding companies. Multiply the percentages down the chain to find your share in the company at the bottom. Try your own structure:

Arithmetic only. Many laws count you as owning everything a company holds once you control it (more than 50% in the UK PSC rules), and any control right beyond shares can name you at 0%. Check the rule in the table for your country.

Every jurisdiction Heirson forms companies in, plus the UK and the US federal rule. Click a column heading to sort, or filter by who can see the register. Each row links to the law or the registry it comes from, and to our page for that country.

Showing all 28 registers. Rows marked "from summaries" rest on a law firm or provider summary of the law; the rest on the law, the regulator or the registry. As at 13 November 2026.

From 2020 the EU required every member state to open its register to "any member of the general public". On 22 November 2022 the Court of Justice struck that rule down in WM and Sovim (C-37/20 and C-601/20), holding that open access was a serious interference with the rights to privacy and data protection. Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Austria, Ireland, Cyprus and Malta were among the states reported to have closed or limited their registers soon after.

The EU then rebuilt access around a legitimate interest test in the sixth AML Directive, Directive (EU) 2024/1640, and moved the rules on who is an owner into a directly applicable AML Regulation (EU) 2024/1624:

• 22 November 2022Public access "in all cases" declared invalid. Registers close or restrict.
• 10 July 2025National law must give access to anyone who can show a legitimate interest: at least name, month and year of birth, country of residence, nationality and nature and extent of the interest (Art. 74).
• 10 July 2026Full access rules due (Arts. 11, 12, 13 and 15): authorities get immediate, free, unfiltered access without alerting the company; banks get timely access during due diligence.
• 25 September 2026The Commission sends formal notices to 18 member states for incomplete transposition, as reported in the specialist press.
• 10 November 2026Registers must answer a legitimate interest request within 12 working days, extendable in surges.
• 10 July 2027The AML Regulation applies: ownership threshold "25% or more", changes reported within 28 calendar days, and the rest of the Directive in force.

Who has a legitimate interest?

The Directive presumes one for journalists and civil society working on money laundering, academics, anyone likely to do a deal with the company, banks outside the EU doing due diligence, and several public bodies. Others can apply case by case. The company is not told who looked, but the register logs access, and an owner can ask for the occupation of a journalist or NGO that searched. Owners at real risk of fraud, kidnapping, violence or harassment can ask for an exemption (Art. 15).

United Kingdom: still public, now with ID checks

The UK left the EU before the ruling and kept its persons with significant control register open. Anyone can see a PSC's name, nationality, month and year of birth, service address and nature of control. A PSC is anyone with more than 25% of shares or votes, the right to appoint or remove most directors, or significant influence or control. Since 18 November 2025, PSCs must also verify their identity with Companies House; a new PSC does it within 14 days of being added. See our UK limited company page.

United States: the federal register shrank

The Corporate Transparency Act started BOI reporting in 2024. An interim rule of 26 March 2025, made final from 14 August 2026, exempted every company formed in the US and every US person. Today only foreign companies registered to do business in a state file, within 30 calendar days. A Wyoming or New Mexico LLC owned from abroad files nothing with FinCEN, but its owner still appears on the EIN application and on Form 5472 each year, and every US bank still identifies owners.

Offshore centres: registers built for the authorities

The classic offshore centres all keep owner data, almost always away from the public. The BVI moved filing to the Registrar on 2 January 2025 and opened paid legitimate interest searches on 1 April 2026. Cayman opened legitimate interest access on 28 February 2025, searchable only by company name. Panama, the Bahamas, Seychelles and Belize keep registers for the authorities alone. Hong Kong asks the company to keep its own register in the city for officers to inspect. Nevis and the Marshall Islands have no central register at all: the agent or the company holds the record and hands it over when asked.

None of this makes an owner invisible. It decides who can find you without a court order. Our guide to anonymous companies sets out what privacy is still legal, and the nominee director guide explains why nominees don't change the register entry.

Think of owner data as a ladder. Each rung up sees more, and the top rung sees you wherever the company is formed:

The CRS and its list of participating countries explain rung five. It is the one that matters for tax, and it doesn't depend on any register being public.

Your registered agent usually files the first entry as part of formation. The duty that catches owners out is the change: a share sale, a new partner, a trust taking over the shares. Tell your agent the same week. These are the published fines for missing it: