The British Virgin Islands' (BVI’s) financial regulator has announced that its registry of corporate affairs will maintain registers of beneficial ownership for all registered BVI business companies and limited partnerships from 2 January 2025.
A new beneficial ownership unit has been set up within the registry to handle the receipt and verification of all beneficial ownership transactions. Information will be filed through the Financial Services Commission’s platform. Existing entities will not be charged for the service until 2 July 2025.
Ensuring that maintenance of beneficial ownership information is directly with a public authority was one of the 20 priority actions required by the Financial Action Task Force's (FATF’s) Caribbean branch. FATF published its review of the BVI's anti-money laundering controls in February 2024. FATF considers this structure to be essential if competent authorities are to be able to obtain adequate, accurate, and current basic and beneficial ownership information in a timely manner.
Guidance on the filing of beneficial ownership information under the BVI Business Companies and Limited Partnership (Beneficial Ownership) Regulations 2024 is being prepared.
The BVI has not yet made clear the extent to which it will open beneficial ownership information to the public, although it announced in December 2023 that it no longer plans to make the register fully available. Instead, it will apply a legitimate interest test to decide whether to release information.