Reporting Guidelines
ATTENTION BUSINESS MEMBER: Important Beneficial Ownership Reporting Updates
Effective January 1, 2024
What's New?
On January 1, 2024, the government will require you as a small business entity to "self-report" beneficial ownership information directly to FinCEN via an online portal. This requirement will be in addition to, and separate from, the beneficial ownership information you are already supplying to financial institutions at account opening. The biggest difference is you must gather this information and report on your own, and the financial institution will not be able to assist you in setting up an account on FinCEN nor in gathering and reporting the information. However, we realize this will be a challenging process to work through, so in order to provide you with as much prior knowledge of the upcoming changes as we can, we have created this simple summary and included a copy of the “Introduction to Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting” booklet created by FinCEN.
FinCEN has published information guides, FAQs and the “Small Entity Compliance Guide” to provide detailed instructions and more information on this new requirement. You can locate this helpful information by going to https://fincen.gov/boi.
Note that you can submit questions or comments to or ask for help directly from FinCEN by sending an email to [email protected] or by leaving a voice message on their helpline at 1-800-767-2825 (toll-free) or 703-905-3591.
Frequently Asked Questions
If you are a small corporation or LLC, you will likely be required to report your beneficial ownership information to FinCEN. There are some exemptions, but a key factor in determining whether your company will have to report is whether you had to file a document with your state's Secretary of State, State Corporation Commission or similar office to create your company or, for foreign companies, register it to do business in the United States.
Like the current rule, a beneficial owner is any individual who exercises substantial control over your company or who owns or controls at least 25% of your company.
There are persons who will be called applicants under this rule (such as certain employees or managers) that you may be required to report on. There can be up to two individuals who qualify as company applicants:
- The individual who took care of filing the documents that first created or registered the company/business with the Secretary of State or other filing agency.
- The individual who is primarily responsible for directing or controlling the filing of those relevant documents. (This may be someone who supervises someone else filing the document with the Secretary of State or other filing agency)
A reporting company will need to provide the following: (1) its legal name and any trade name or DBA; (2) its address; (3) the jurisdiction in which it was formed or registered, depending on whether it is a U.S. or foreign company; and (4) its Taxpayer Identification Number (TIN).
Then, it will need to report on each of the company's beneficial owners and each company applicant (if required), the following information on those people: (1) legal name; (2) birthdate; (3) address (in most cases, this must be a home address); and (4) an identifying number from a driver's license, passport or other approved document for each individual, as well as an image of the document the number is from.
When to file is based on when the company was formed or registered with the state or other filing agency.
- If your company is created or registered BEFORE January 1, 2024, then you will submit the information to FinCEN by January 1, 2025.
- Otherwise, if your company is created or registered AFTER January 1, 2024, then you must report the information within 30 calendar days of the date your company was registered with your state's Secretary of State or similar office.
FinCEN will not accept reports of this information until January 1, 2024. If anyone contacts you requesting this information, do not supply it as FinCEN has stated they will not call or contact you to ask you to supply it.
NOTE: Your company will have 30 days to relay any changes to reported information. For updates, the 30 days start after you become aware of, or have reason to know of, an inaccuracy in a prior report.
Yes, civil and criminal penalties apply for willful non-reporting, which can include fines of up to $10,000 and imprisonment.
PLEASE BE AWARE: This summary is not meant to be all-inclusive but to give you a quick look at what this rule will mean. For detailed requirements and steps to take, please visit the links above as soon as possible so you are prepared.