How to determine the beneficial owner of a trust?

Asked by: Kelly Christiansen  |  Last update: December 25, 2025
Score: 4.1/5 (42 votes)

Types of Beneficial Owners: Who is Considered a Beneficial Owner?
  1. Any individual that owns a minimum of 25% of the legal entity.
  2. Any individual that holds a significant ability to control, manage, or direct the legal entity.
  3. Any trust that owns a minimum of 25% of the legal entity.

How to identify the beneficial owner of a trust?

A beneficial owner is an individual who ultimately owns or controls an entity such as a company, trust or partnership. 'Owns' in this case means owning 25% or more of the entity. This can be directly (such as through shareholdings) or indirectly (such as through another company's ownership or through a bank or broker).

Who is considered the beneficial owner of a trust?

The term “beneficial owner” shall mean each individual, if any, who owns, either directly or indirectly, 25% or more of the equity interests of a legal entity customer.

How is beneficial ownership determined?

Beneficial ownership is determined under both a control prong and an ownership prong. Under the control prong, the beneficial owner is a single individual with significant responsibility to control, manage or direct a legal entity customer.

What are the two prongs for identifying a beneficial owner?

What constitutes beneficial ownership? The U.S. government regulation defines “beneficial ownership' as being made up of two prongs (1) Ownership Prong and (2) Control Prong. A beneficial owner is an individual, if any, who, directly or indirectly, owns 25% or more of the equity interest of a legal entity customer.

Who are the Beneficial Owners of a Trust for the Corporate Transparency Act?

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How do I determine if I'm a beneficial owner?

Generally, someone who holds at least 25% of the capital stake, voting powers, and/or profit rights for an asset is considered a beneficial owner (or ultimate beneficial owner, if their ownership share is among the highest for that asset).

Who should be listed as a beneficial owner?

A beneficial owner of a reporting company (as any entity required to file a BOI report is called) is defined as any individual who, directly or indirectly, either exercises substantial control over a reporting company or owns or controls at least 25 percent of the reporting company's ownership interests.

How do you calculate beneficial ownership?

Beneficial Ownership Percentage is calculated by dividing the number of Ordinary Shares and Share Equivalents of which a person is a Beneficial Owner as of a specific date by the total number of Ordinary Shares outstanding at that moment.

What information is required for beneficial owner?

Corporate transparency reports must also include the below information about any beneficial owners:
  • Their full legal name and date of birth.
  • Their home address; P.O. boxes or lawyer's/adviser's offices cannot be accepted.
  • A photocopy of their U.S. driver's license or passport.

Who is excluded from the beneficial ownership rule?

Are some companies exempt from the reporting requirement? Yes, 23 types of entities are exempt from the beneficial ownership information reporting requirements. These entities include publicly traded companies meeting specified requirements, many nonprofits, and certain large operating companies.

Is a treasurer a beneficial owner?

Beneficial Owners

Individuals considered to “exercise significant control” over your company are those responsible for managing and directing the business and may include executive officers or senior managers, such as CEO, CFO, COO, Managing Member, General Partner, President, Vice President, or Treasurer.

Is an executor a beneficial owner?

Since beneficiaries, settlors, executors and trustees can each be considered beneficial owners, the ownership interests held in an estate or trust could be considered simultaneously as owned or controlled by multiple persons.

Who are the beneficial owners of a charitable trust?

Who is a “beneficial owner”? The “beneficial owners” are the natural persons who ultimately own or control the trust and/or the natural persons on whose behalf a transaction or activity is being conducted. For a trust, the beneficial owners include: The settlor.

What is a beneficial owner of a trust?

Who is defined as a 'beneficial owner' of a trust? The TPCA defines 'beneficial ownership' to include the founders, trustees, named beneficiaries and any individuals who exercise effective control of any trust. A 'beneficial owner' is always a natural person.

Is there a way to find out who owns a trust?

To find out who owns the assets in a revocable trust, look to whoever is the trustee. If the trustee is also the grantor, then the grantor still owns and controls the assets. If the grantor assigned another person or entity as the trustee, the trust owns the assets, which are managed by the trustee.

Can a trustee be a beneficial owner of a trust?

Who is the beneficial owner? If a trust, directly or indirectly, has 25% or more ownership interest in your company, the trustee is the beneficial owner. Where there are multiple trustees or co-trustees, the name, address, date of birth and identification number of at least one trustee must be provided.

What is the IRS definition of beneficial owner?

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) defines a beneficial owner as the person who is required under U.S. tax law to report the income or asset on a tax return. For example, if an individual is the beneficiary of a trust that holds income-generating assets, the IRS would consider them the beneficial owner of that income.

Does a trust need to file a boi report?

Beneficiaries of a trust that owns at least 25% interest in a reporting company are required to report BOI if: The beneficiary is the sole permissible recipient of the trust's income and principal. The beneficiary has the right to demand a distribution of or withdraw all of the trust's assets.

Which beneficial owner identity must be verified?

With respect to the requirement to obtain beneficial ownership information, financial institutions will have to identify and verify the identity of any individual who owns 25 percent or more of a legal entity, and an individual who controls the legal entity.

How do you determine a beneficial owner?

Determine beneficial owners: Covered entities must first identify any individual or entity that owns more than 25% of shares, has voting rights or controls the company. Prepare information: Entities should then gather owners' names, birth dates, nationality, residential addresses and details of their control.

What is the threshold for determining beneficial ownership?

Beneficial Owner: Each individual with 25% or more equity interest in the legal entity, whether directly or indirectly. A legal entity will have a minimum of one and a maximum of five beneficial owners. That is the according the lowest equity interest threshold that FinCEN has established.

What is the formula for ownership?

To calculate what percentage ownership you have in an equity investment, you would divided the # of shares acquired/purchased by the total # of shares outstanding.

Who is the beneficial owner of an irrevocable trust?

For change in ownership purposes, the present beneficiary of an irrevocable trust is considered to be the owner of the present beneficial interest in property held by the trust.

Who is not a beneficial owner?

In addition, “beneficial owner” does not include a minor child (although the information of their parent or guardian has to be reported); an individual acting as a nominee, intermediary, custodian, or agent of another individual; an employee acting solely as an employee; an individual whose only interest in the company ...

What is required for beneficial ownership?

Important to remember the 5% threshold for beneficial ownership declaration, with an aggregate of 100%. Currently the Companies Act provides for 5% of beneficial interest in securities, thus the norm was upheld in terms of beneficial ownership. Any beneficial ownership / control below 5%, need not be declared.