This statutory instrument requires all corporate entities (Companies and Co‐Ops) to have in place a Register of Beneficial Ownership. The current requirement supersedes a previous Statutory Instrument from November 2016. Since November 2016 all corporate entities were required to maintain an internal Register of Beneficial Ownership. Now all corporate entities are required to be ready for the details of the beneficial owners to be filed with the Central Register of Beneficial Ownership Register at www.rbo.gov.ie.

You need to take action now to comply with your requirements

A Beneficial Owner is defined as someone who directly or indirectly has control of more than 25% of the company’s voting rights whether through the holding of ordinary share capital or control of same.

As a director of a Limited Company, you are required to have the Beneficial Ownership Register in place for the company. The Companies Registration Office has confirmed that the database to assimilate and manage the Irish Register of Beneficial Ownership is the RBO website at www.rbo.gov.ie. ALL IRISH COMPANIES are required to maintain a beneficial ownership register and to populate and file the details on its Beneficial Ownership with the public Register of Beneficial Ownership on www.rbo.gov.ie. Non‐compliance with the ownership legislation is a criminal offence and may be punishable by way of a fine of €5,000 (on summary conviction) or up to €500,000 if convicted on indictment.

This is a new element of compliance and is separate to the preparation of and filing of company tax returns with Revenue or financial statement returns to the Companies Registration Office.