Legal basis, case studies, FAQs and information on registers of other countries

Here you will find an overview of the applicable legal provisions and the information available on other Member States.

General legal bases

The Register of Beneficial Owners is an implementation of Art. 30 and 31 of Directive (EU) 2015/849 (4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive), as amended by Directive (EU) 2018/843 (5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive). The Beneficial Owners Register Act (BORA) implements the Register for Companies and Other Legal Persons and the Register for Trusts, which were provided for in the 4th and 5th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, in a central register. A translation of the federal act is also available under the link here. On 26 April 2018, the Federal Ministry of Finance published a comprehensive decree with respect to identifying, verifying the identity and reporting beneficial owners, which presented the legal opinion of the Finance Ministry on a wide range of questions. The decree can be found under the direct link here (PDF, 1 MB). A translation is available here (PDF, 1 MB).

The BORA BMF decree

On 26 April 2018, the Federal Ministry of Finance published a comprehensive decree on the identification, verification and reporting of beneficial owners, which sets out the legal view of the ministry for a wide range of issues. You can find the updated decree via Findok of the Federal Ministry of Finance by following this direct link. A translationis availiable here (PDF, 1 MB).

FAQ

Answers to the most important questions on the topics of reporting, identification and verification of beneficial owners and user charges can be found here. (PDF, 827 KB)

Information on registers of other Member States and third countries

As part of the introduction of the compliance package, extensive information on the legal forms and documents available in other Member States and third countries will be produced. A first step is to provide information on the registers existing in other Member States and third countries, on how to use them and on the competent authorities.

Here you can get directly to the information about the Registers of the other Member States. (Excel, 38 KB)

Legal form-specific documents and country-specific information

For selected jurisdictions, the registry authority provides country-specific information, which is continuously updated and expanded. This includes information on the legal forms typical for the country and on the country-specific documents (in each case for specific, locally available legal forms). Currently, information is available for the following jurisdictions:

Note for the file according to Article 5a (3) BORA

If there are justified reasons against the transmission of a document to the register, a complete note for the file may be transmitted to the register instead of the document pursuant to Article 5a (3) BORA. The templates of the Federal Ministry of Finance may be used for the preparation:

For more information on the compilation of note for the files, please refer to item6.5 of the BORA BMF decree.

Confirmation of ultimate/superordinate legal entities

In order to assess whether there are deviating voting rights or control relationships, a confirmation of a ultimate/superordinate legal entity with its registered office in Austria or abroad can be obtained in accordance with item 6.3 of the BORA BMF decree. The templates of the Federal Ministry of Finance can be used for the preparation: