Cayman Islands Beneficial Ownership Regime

The beneficial ownership regime of the Cayman Islands (the “Regime”) came into force on 1 July 2017. The overriding objective of the Regime is to ensure transparency of the beneficial ownership of Cayman Islands registered entities.

The Regime is set out in Part XVIIA of the Companies Act (Revised), Part 12 of The Limited Liability Companies Act (Revised) and Part 8 of the Limited Liability Partnership Act (Revised). The Regime requires ordinary resident companies, ordinary non-resident companies, exempted companies, limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships registered of incorporated in the Cayman Islands (known as “In-Scope Entities”) to maintain a beneficial ownership register (“BoR”), subject to certain exemptions. The registered office of each entity maintains the BoR and uploads the relevant information via the Corporate Administration Platform System (“CAPs”) to the Cayman Islands Register of Companies (“RoC”).

The BoR is not publicly available and may only be accessed by RoC. The purpose of the Regime is to enable RoC to provide access to information contained on a BoR in response to lawful requests made by stipulated government authorities and law enforcement agencies. The overriding objective of the Regime is to ensure transparency of the beneficial ownership of Cayman Islands registered entities.

To learn more on the Beneficial Ownership Regime - the legalities, exemptions, penalties, compliance and other important information - read our Guidance Note in full here.