Beneficial ownership regime in the Cayman Islands

January 2025

The Cayman Islands’ Beneficial Ownership Transparency Act, 2023 (BOTA) came into force on 31 July 2024. The BOTA replaces the previous beneficial ownership regime in the Cayman Islands and significantly expands beneficial ownership transparency requirements to align with the international standards and equivalent regimes in other jurisdictions. The updates introduced under the BOTA aim to enhance transparency concerning beneficial ownership and emphasise the importance of identifying and verifying beneficial owners and controllers of legal entities, which demonstrate the commitment of the Cayman Islands to combat money laundering, tax evasion and terrorist financing.

In this news flash, we outline the highlights of certain key changes of the beneficial ownership regime and obligations of the relevant Cayman Islands legal entities under the BOTA.