Beneficial ownership records, by jurisdiction.
A curated guide to authoritative beneficial-ownership registers across major commercial-law jurisdictions. Beneficial-ownership transparency varies widely; this page consolidates the current landscape.
How beneficial-ownership records work
Beneficial ownership disclosure has become a major focus of international anti-money-laundering and anti-corruption frameworks since the FATF Recommendation 24 revisions and the EU 4th, 5th, and 6th AML Directives. Implementation varies dramatically across jurisdictions:
- Fully public registers — UK PSC, Slovakia, Denmark, and a small number of other jurisdictions publish their beneficial-ownership data openly.
- Registered but access-restricted — most EU member states (under the Court of Justice ruling on the 5th AML Directive), Canada’s federal corporate framework, US FinCEN (post-narrowing in 2024–25), and others maintain registers but restrict access to authorities, financial institutions with AML obligations, and those with a “legitimate interest.”
- No public register at all — many jurisdictions do not yet maintain a beneficial-ownership register, or do so only at the entity level without a centralised search.
- Implementation gaps — even where a register exists, compliance is self-reported and inconsistently verified. Beneficial ownership disclosure should be treated as a starting point, not as authoritative attribution.
FATF Recommendation 24 (revised 2022) sets the international standard. Whether a register is accessible to a given researcher depends on jurisdictional rules, the researcher’s status (regulated FI versus journalist versus general public), and recent court decisions on privacy and disclosure.
United Kingdom
UK Companies House — Persons with Significant Control (PSC) Register
Type: Public beneficial-ownership register. · Maintained by: Companies House.
Cost / access: Free, no registration. Document downloads free.
Useful for: Persons with significant control of UK-registered companies and LLPs — typically those holding more than 25% of shares or voting rights, those with power to appoint or remove a majority of directors, or those exercising significant influence or control. The UK was the first major jurisdiction to publish a public PSC register.
Limitations: PSC information is self-reported and not independently verified by Companies House. False or incomplete declarations are a criminal offence but enforcement is limited.
Official link: www.gov.uk/government/organisations/companies-house · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
European Union
EU Beneficial Ownership Registers — National (BO Register, RBE, Transparenzregister, etc.)
Type: EU member-state beneficial-ownership registers. · Maintained by: Each EU member state, under EU AML Directive transposition.
Cost / access: Access varies — many restricted since the Court of Justice 2022 ruling (WM and Sovim S.A. v Luxembourg Business Registers).
Useful for: Beneficial ownership of EU-registered legal entities. Each member state operates its own register under the 5th and 6th AML Directives.
Limitations: Access conditions vary significantly. Following the CJEU 2022 ruling, public access has been restricted in many member states; access is typically limited to authorities, obliged entities (banks, lawyers, accountants under AML supervision), and persons with a demonstrated “legitimate interest.”
Official link: e-justice.europa.eu · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
United States
FinCEN — Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Reporting
Type: US federal beneficial-ownership register. · Maintained by: Financial Crimes Enforcement Network.
Cost / access: Restricted access. Not generally publicly accessible.
Useful for: Beneficial-ownership information reported under the Corporate Transparency Act for most US legal entities. As at 2026, scope has been narrowed (foreign reporting companies primarily) and enforcement timelines have shifted following litigation.
Limitations: Access is restricted to federal/state law enforcement, certain financial institutions with consent, federal regulators, and foreign authorities under specific arrangements. Not a public register. Current scope is reduced relative to the original 2021 statute; check current FinCEN guidance.
Official link: www.fincen.gov/boi · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
Australia
Australian Government — Beneficial Ownership reform
Type: Status: announced, scope to be confirmed. · Maintained by: Treasury / Attorney-General’s Department.
Cost / access: Status as of 2026-05-24: under development.
Useful for: Australia announced plans to introduce a public beneficial-ownership register through Corporations Act reform; legislative scope and timing remain under discussion. ASIC currently captures limited ownership information through annual returns but does not maintain a dedicated beneficial-ownership register.
Limitations: No dedicated public beneficial-ownership register exists at the time of this entry. Background research can begin from ASIC company extracts and the parent-company information they contain.
Official link: treasury.gov.au/consultation · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
Canada
Corporations Canada — Federal Beneficial Ownership Register
Type: Federal beneficial-ownership register. · Maintained by: Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
Cost / access: Public-access component being phased in.
Useful for: Beneficial-ownership information for federally-incorporated companies under amendments to the Canada Business Corporations Act. Provincial registers operate separately and at different stages of public-access implementation.
Limitations: Provincial corporations are not covered by the federal register. Each province’s rules differ. Quebec’s register (CIDREQ) was a relatively early provincial public register.
Official link: corporationscanada.ic.gc.ca · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
Aggregated reference
OpenOwnership — Beneficial Ownership Register
Type: International beneficial-ownership dataset aggregator. · Maintained by: OpenOwnership (not-for-profit).
Cost / access: Free.
Useful for: Consolidated cross-jurisdiction beneficial-ownership data, with focus on jurisdictions that publish public registers and on aggregating disclosed beneficial owners across multiple datasets.
Limitations: Aggregator, not authoritative. Coverage depends on what underlying jurisdictions publish.
Official link: www.openownership.org · Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.
What’s coming in Phase 3
Singapore beneficial-ownership register (where publicly accessible); Hong Kong Significant Controllers Register; New Zealand beneficial-ownership reforms; UAE Ultimate Beneficial Owner regime; offshore financial centres beneficial-ownership disclosure regimes (UK Overseas Territories Public Registers commitments); Financial Action Task Force (FATF) progress reports on Recommendation 24 implementation.
Disclaimer
General information only. This directory is provided for general information and professional research purposes only. It is not legal advice, financial advice, or due-diligence advice. Information found through any third-party source is not verified by Transglobal Intel Net.
Third-party sources. Transglobal Intel Net does not control, certify, or guarantee the accuracy, currency, or completeness of any source listed. Links are provided as starting points. Each source is maintained independently by its respective authority.
Access conditions. Some sources require payment, registration, lawful-purpose attestation, or local professional access. Users are responsible for compliance with each source’s terms of use and with applicable law.
Not a Transglobal service. Listing a source in this directory does not constitute an endorsement, a recommendation, or a Transglobal service. The directory is a reference index, not an investigative product.
Lawful use only. Users must have a lawful basis for any search undertaken. Users are responsible for compliance with privacy law, data-protection law, anti-stalking law, and any other applicable framework in their jurisdiction.
Reservation. Transglobal Intel Net may add, remove, or modify entries without notice. Outdated entries are reviewed quarterly and updated as resources change.
Last reviewed: 2026-05-24.