Under a heavily capitalised headline, FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for U.S. Companies and U.S. Persons, Sets New Deadlines for Foreign Companies", FinCEN issued a statement "consistent with the U.S. Department of the Treasury's March 2, 2025 announcement."

• The Treasury's statement is here: https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sb0038
• FinCEN's statement is here: https://www.fincen.gov/news/news-releases/fincen-removes-beneficial-ownership-reporting-requirements-us-companies-and-us
• The Interim Final Rule, which is the operative part of the process, is here: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/26/2025-05199/benefic…

The Rule adopts a rather neat way of resolving the apparent complexity . It does not attempt to repeal the requirement (which would fail because the Rule is subsidiary to the Act which created the requirement) but nor to suspend it as such. It simply states that 

"domestic reporting companies" are exempted from the reporting requirements and do not have to report Beneficial Owner Information to FinCEN, or update or correct the reporting requirements and do not have to report BOI to FinCEN, or update or correct BOI previously reported to FinCEN. previously reported to FinCEN.   

It also extends the deadline for foreign reporting companies to submit their information.

But this creates an enormous hole: "foreign reporting companies" are companies registered overseas: they are not companies owned or controlled by foreigners. 

Given that several e-commerce companies and payment providers, in order to circumvent restrictions on providing services to foreign persons, offer a range of services, starting at less than USD300, to form a company and provide the necessary officers so as to open a US bank account. That company, when owned by foreigners, is not required to submit its ownership information under the new regime.

There are many such offers: this is simply one example - https://www.doola.com/pricing/

It gets worse: where a foreign company is owned in whole or in part by a US citizen, that information is not required on its return under the scheme as it is now formulated. It gets worse: such a US citizen does not need to provide the information to the company.

This creates complexity and conflict with laws in other jurisdictions. That information is required in most jurisdictions as a result of the Financial Action Task Force's requirements which, ironically, originate in the US Senate in the 1980s. 

The USA is - as it so often is - not compliant with the FATF's requirements. The USA - as it so often has - will simply tell the FATF that the USA does as it pleases, as it did until 2001 in relation to KYC which even then was only partially implemented and where large areas of concern remain outstanding, but the FATF does nothing.

Worse, as we saw with the USA's attitude to providing information by securities dealers in the 1990s, it is probable that when information is sought by foreign banks, etc., for KYC purposes, the standard response will be short and ending with "off."

Where does this leave the USA?

Non-Compliance with the FATF

The FATF will do nothing because it never does but individual countries should consider this: how non-compliant does the USA need to be before it is to be regarded as a high-risk jurisdiction. 

Surely, now, that threshold has been reached.