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Impact

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

Find details about the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland's beneficial ownership transparency reforms

Records last updated: 26 August 2025

Contact person: Louise Russell-Prywata

Current ongoing work

Open Ownership is closely involved in providing evidence, advice, and data analysis to support implementation and improvement of beneficial ownership transparency in the United Kingdom (UK), and is a member of the UK Illicit Finance Working Group.

Committed to one or more

  • Live register
    Following the launch of one or more beneficial ownership registers, a country is labelled as Live register.

Implemented one or more

Data on the Open Ownership map is drawn from publicly-available sources and may not be comprehensive for all countries. For countries marked in grey we do not have information. If data is incorrect, or to submit new data, please fill in this form.

Implementation details

Trust Registration

Name
Trust Registration
Scope
Full-economy
Structured data publicly available
No
Published as BODS
No
Available via API
No

People with significant control (PSC) Register

Name
People with significant control (PSC) Register
Scope
Full-economy
Register launched
2016
Threshold used to determine beneficial ownership
25%
Structured data publicly available
Yes
Published as BODS
No
Available via API
Yes
Available on the OO register
Yes

Register of Overseas Entities (ROE)

Name
Register of Overseas Entities (ROE)
Scope
Sectoral: Land, Foreign corporate vehicles, Land and real estate
Register launched
2022
Threshold used to determine beneficial ownership
25%
Structured data publicly available
Yes
Published as BODS
No
Available via API
Yes

Commitment details

Show further detail
  • As a European Union member, the United Kingdom was obliged to create a central, public register of beneficial ownership as part of the EU’s fifth Anti-Money Laundering Directive. Following the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union on 22 November 2022, member states are no longer required to provide public access, and are instead required to, at a minimum, provide access to those that can demonstrate a legitimate interest. [19 April 2018] link to commitment
  • As a European Union member, the United Kingdom was obliged to create a central register of beneficial ownership as part of the EU’s fourth Anti-Money Laundering Directive by 2017. [20 May 2015] link to commitment

Relevant articles and publications