On August 11, 2026, the Treasury Department's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a final rule permanently ending the requirement that U.S. companies and U.S. persons report who actually owns them. The rule took effect on publication in the Federal Register on August 12.
The requirement came from the Corporate Transparency Act, passed by Congress in 2021 as part of a defense spending package. It required most corporations and limited liability companies to identify anyone who owned at least 25 percent of the entity or exercised substantial control over it. The purpose was to make anonymous shell companies harder to use.
FinCEN did not only stop collecting the information. It announced it will delete the beneficial ownership information already reported by U.S. persons who are now exempt.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the department is “eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security.”
Senator Elizabeth Warren called the repeal a “gift to cartels, criminals and U.S. adversaries that exploit shell companies to move millions through our financial system.”
The deletion is the part that cannot be undone by a later administration. A reporting requirement can be reinstated by rule. Records that have been destroyed cannot be recovered, and the ownership history they documented is gone with them.