The UBO register

Donnerstag 31 März 2022

The UBO register is a register in which all the 'Ultimate Beneficial Owners' or 'beneficial owners' of a company or other legal entity (association, foundation, etc.) are registered. You can register your beneficial owners by logging into the application on the MyMinfin portal.
The law of 18 September 2017 on the prevention of money laundering and terrorist financing and on the restriction of the use of cash (“Law”) provides for the establishment in Belgium of a register of beneficial owners UBO.
This is initially a mandatory requirement of Europe in order to facilitate the detection (of the financing) of terrorism and the fight against money laundering.
The law transposes European Directive 2015/849 on the prevention of the use of the financial system for the purpose of money laundering or terrorist financing ('AML Directive') which obliges Member States to take legislative and regulatory measures to that :
- Companies and other legal entities incorporated in their territory have the obligation to obtain and maintain adequate, accurate and current information on their beneficial owners;
- A centralized register containing information on the beneficial owners of these entities is put in place in order to facilitate access to this information.
The law thus provides for the obligation for companies, non-profit organizations, foundations, trusts, trusts and similar legal arrangements, to collect and keep adequate, accurate and current information on their beneficial owners, and to transmit this information to the UBO register in the month of their creation.
The members of Belgian e-shops are a priori mainly concerned by direct UBOs, i.e. natural persons who hold more than 25% of the capital and/or funds of the institution.
Different rules apply in the case of a non-profit association or foundation, in this case the UBOs are the people who are members of the board of directors or the people who deal with the management daily. The founders of an association are also considered the UBOs of that organization.
The risk of not registering in the UBO file: you risk a fine of €250 to €50,000. But given the means of the administration and the objective of the law, it is unlikely that very small structures will be worried. leseshopsbelges-ubo.webp

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