Reminder obligation to collect and hold information on your beneficial owners: UBO fines - 16/08/2023

As a reminder, the deadline for collecting and holding information on your beneficial owners (UBO) was set on September 30th 2019 or a month after the creation date of the entity. Since the first fines were sent out in November 2021 and again in December 2022, a period of tolerance has applied for certain people who thought they had collected and held information in this regard but had not observed the procedure correctly.

As of today, the period of tolerance ends for people who did not observe the procedure correctly and did not collect and hold information on their beneficial owners. Youtube videos, user manuals and FAQs are available if any difficulties are encountered during this procedure.

In case of problem, we are also available via MyMinfin or you can call us at 02/572.57.57.

Legal changes about the consultation of the UBO Register - 24/02/2023

On February 17th 2023, the Royal Decree amending the Royal Decree of July 30th 2018 on the operating procedures of the UBO register and the law amending the AML (anti-money laundering) law were published in the Belgian Official Journal and came into force on the same day.

The new provisions modify, among other things, the procedure for consulting the UBO register, in order to comply with the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union of November 22nd 2022. From now on, members of the general public will have to meet three (non-cumulative) conditions in order to get access information on the beneficial owners of companies, a(i)sbls/ (international) non-profit associations, foundations, trusts and similar legal structures. Pending IT developments in order to adapt the UBO register to these new legal provisions, consultation requests can be sent by email to ubobelgium@minfin.fed.be.

Temporary Suspension Of Public Access To Information On Beneficial Owners - 23/11/2022

Following the judgement of the Court of Justice of the European Union of November 22nd 2022, access for members of the general public to information on beneficial owners is temporarily suspended. A solution allowing access to data pursuant to the aforementioned judgement will be communicated shortly. Access for competent authority and reporting entities is maintained.  

Notification as regards the obligation to collect and hold information on beneficial owners before a fine is being imposed - 12/07/2022

Notification letters for lack of UBO information collecting and holding have been sent to legal representatives of entities that have not registered beneficial owners for their entity.

If you have received this letter, you should log in to the UBO register and enter information on the beneficial owner(s) of your entity. You can send a request to be heard via electronic means. However, if you carry out your UBO registration following receipt of the letter, you will not receive an administrative fine and there is therefore no need to contact us.

As each legal representative of the entity has received the same letter, it is not necessary for each of them to carry out the UBO registration or to contact our service individually. A single legal representative can then carry out the UBO registration and/or contact our service if necessary.

For more information on how to log into the UBO register and how to enter information on beneficial owners, you can consult our FAQ and the user manuals below, or contact us at ubobelgium@minfin.fed.be or call us at 02/572.57.57.

Administrative Fines For (International) Non-Profit Associations And Foundations - 16/12/2021

Following the communication of the Minister of Finance to the House of representatives on December 9th 2021, all (international) non-profit associations and foundations are granted clemency till December 31st 2021 to register their beneficial owners in the UBO register. They can therefore fulfil their obligations until then, failing which administrative fines will be imposed on them as from January 2022. 

UBO registration via an electronic register - 17/09/2021

When registering beneficial owners, if information entered in the UBO register come from an electronic register as provided for in articles 5:24, 6:24, and 7:28 of the Companies and Associations Code, no supporting document should be added during the registration procedure, provided that this register meets the conditions set out in articles 7:12 to 7:15 of the Royal Decree of April 29th 2019 implementing the Companies and Associations Code. No sanction for lack of documentary evidence will therefore be applied to UBO registrations made on the basis of information from an electronic register.   

Link between the UBO register and the Belgian Official Journal - 16/08/2021

The parties responsible for providing information and their representatives now have the possibility of confirming that the information mentioned in the Belgian Official Journal allow to prove that information entered in the UBO register are adequate, accurate and current. This means that they do not have to add supporting documents if these documents are already available in the Belgian Official Journal.  

New Module For authorised Representatives - 04/08/2021

Representatives now have access to a new module in the UBO register application. The purpose of this module is to facilitate the follow-up of their work on the registration of beneficial owners, by providing them with a list of active mandates and an overview of the situation of each principal. They can also consult the information on each of these mandates, including the last annual confirmation date and whether or not at least one supporting document is present.