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FinCEN makes it permanent: US companies are out of beneficial ownership reporting

The US beneficial ownership registry will not cover US companies. A FinCEN final rule issued on 11 August 2026 and effective three days later makes permanent the exemption that had been in place on an interim basis since March 2025. For anyone onboarding a US counterparty, the practical message is simple: there is no federal register to lean on, so the ownership evidence has to come from the counterparty file.

SEP 17, 2026 · 3 MIN READ · BY THE KYCK DESK

What the final rule does

FinCEN issued the rule on 11 August 2026 and it took effect on publication in the Federal Register on 14 August 2026. It adopts, on a permanent basis, the changes made by the interim final rule of 26 March 2025: every entity formed under US law is outside the definition of a reporting company, so no domestic company has to file an initial, updated or corrected beneficial ownership report.

The final rule also goes a step further than the interim one. US persons are exempt whether they appear as beneficial owners or as company applicants, and US persons who had obtained a FinCEN identifier no longer have to keep it up to date.

Who still files

Only foreign reporting companies remain: entities formed outside the United States that have registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction. They report their own details and their beneficial owners who are not US persons, within 30 days of their registration taking effect, and they update or correct a report within 30 days of a change.

What happens to the data already filed

FinCEN has said it will delete the information previously reported about US persons from the beneficial ownership database. Millions of reports were filed during 2024, before the litigation and the enforcement pauses. That information will not become a resource for banks or counterparties.

Why it matters for counterparty due diligence

The expectation that you know who owns your counterparty has not moved. The customer due diligence rule for US financial institutions still asks for the individuals who own 25 percent or more and one person who controls the company, the EU AML Regulation sets the same threshold from July 2027, and US, EU and UK sanctions rules all reach entities that are owned or controlled by listed persons, whether or not the entity itself appears on a list.

What has gone is the idea that a US registry would carry part of that load. For a Delaware or Wyoming company, ownership still has to be established the way it always was: from the counterparty, with documents, up the chain to the individuals at the top, and with a record of what was seen and when. State-level transparency laws may add pieces over time, but they are not a substitute.

KYCK builds the ownership chain into the counterparty file: the counterparty declares its structure through the portal, the documents are collected against each layer, and every owner at or above the threshold is screened and re-screened when the structure changes. Our Corporate Transparency Act briefing has the full timeline, and the earlier story on the 25 percent threshold explains why that number keeps its place.

This article is a summary of a US rulemaking as of September 2026, not legal advice. Confirm current requirements with FinCEN or US counsel.

Sources

• FinCEN news release: FinCEN permanently ends beneficial ownership reporting requirements for millions of small business owners
• Federal Register: Beneficial Ownership Information Reporting Requirement Revision, 14 August 2026
• FinCEN: beneficial ownership information reporting

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