The honest headline: most US businesses are now exempt
The Corporate Transparency Act created a federal requirement for many US businesses to report who actually owns and controls them to FinCEN, the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, a bureau of the US Department of the Treasury. A great deal of what still ranks online for "BOI reporting" was written while that requirement was live and broad. It no longer is, and the change happened in two steps that both point the same way: fewer people have to file, not more.
The first change: March 2025
FinCEN's interim final rule, published in the Federal Register on 26 March 2025, redefined "reporting company" to mean only an entity formed under a FOREIGN country's law that has also registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction, by filing a document with a secretary of state or similar office. Every entity formed under US law, and every US person, was taken out of the reporting requirement entirely by that rule. Not a longer deadline, not a lighter form. Removed.
The second change: August 2026, and why it is the one that matters now
FinCEN's final rule was published in the Federal Register on 14 August 2026 as document 2026-16576, and took effect the same day. It made the March 2025 exemption for US companies and US persons permanent rather than interim, and narrowed the remaining foreign obligation further still. A foreign reporting company no longer has to name a US person as one of its "company applicants," on top of already not having to report US-person beneficial owners. A US person holding a FinCEN identifier no longer has to keep that information updated, where a non-US person holding one still does. And a foreign pooled investment vehicle does not have to report a US person who exercises substantial control over it. FinCEN has also said it will delete information it reasonably identifies as belonging to a US person from its database altogether.
Put plainly: if your company was formed under the law of a US state, this tool's answer is simple, and it does not depend on your size, your revenue or how many people own it. That whole category of entity was removed from the definition of a reporting company, so there is nothing left to check it against.
Who is still actually in scope
A foreign entity that has registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction is still a reporting company, just a narrower one than it used to be. It reports its beneficial owners who are not US persons. It does not report US-person beneficial owners, and as of August 2026 it does not report a US-person company applicant either.
This page will not print a specific calendar deadline for that filing. The one-off dates the March 2025 rule set have passed, and the window a newly registered foreign company gets is the kind of figure that moves with a rulemaking. A wrong deadline sitting on a page for a year is worse than being sent to look it up, so fincen.gov/boi is where that particular date belongs and this page does not compete with it.
The federal position, and every date it moved
This tells you the current federal position and dates every change in it. It does not file anything on your behalf, it does not cover any state's own ownership disclosure law, and it cannot promise a rule finished being rewritten twice in eighteen months will never move again. What it can promise is that nothing here is copied from a page written before either change, which is the trap most competing content on this topic has fallen into.
Beneficial owner details never leave your device
A beneficial ownership report carries the one set of facts an identity thief would actually want: full legal names, dates of birth, home addresses and identifying document numbers, for every owner. This checker works out whether you have to file without ever being told any of it. The questions are about structure and dates, the answers are computed in your browser, and there is no account to attach them to.
Common questions
My company was formed in the US. Do I need to file a BOI report?
No. FinCEN's interim final rule of 26 March 2025 removed every US-formed entity, and every US person, from the beneficial ownership reporting requirement entirely, and the final rule published on 14 August 2026 made that exemption permanent. This holds whatever the company is called, however many owners it has, and however small or large it is. If you formed your business under the law of a US state, this tool's answer is simple: nothing to file.
What actually changed, and when?
Twice. First, an interim final rule published in the Federal Register on 26 March 2025 narrowed "reporting company" to mean only entities formed under a foreign country's law that had also registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction. Second, a final rule published in the Federal Register on 14 August 2026, document 2026-16576, made that change permanent and narrowed the remaining foreign obligation further, removing the need to report a US person as a "company applicant" among other adjustments.
Is this definitely permanent, or could it change back?
As far as this rule goes, "final" means final rather than open for further comment, which is a stronger footing than the March 2025 rule had on its own. No rule is beyond a future Congress or a future rulemaking changing it again, and this page cannot promise otherwise. What it can do is tell you the current position, dated, rather than repeat something written before either change happened.
My company was formed abroad. Where do I stand?
It depends on whether it has registered to do business in the US. A foreign entity that has not filed to register with any US state or tribal jurisdiction falls outside the current definition of "reporting company" altogether. One that has registered is still a reporting company, though narrower than before: it only has to report beneficial owners who are not US persons, and, since the August 2026 final rule, no longer has to report a US person as a company applicant either.
What is a "company applicant", and why does the August 2026 change to it matter?
A company applicant is the person who actually filed the paperwork forming or registering the entity. The original rule made a reporting company disclose its company applicants alongside its beneficial owners. The August 2026 final rule removed the requirement to disclose a company applicant who is a US person, on top of the March 2025 exemption for US-person beneficial owners, so both categories of US-person disclosure are now gone for a foreign reporting company.
I already filed a BOI report before any of this changed. What happens to that data?
FinCEN has said it will delete information it reasonably identifies as belonging to a US person, covering beneficial owners, company applicants and FinCEN identifier holders, from its database. That is FinCEN's own undertaking rather than something you need to action, and nothing here suggests you need to submit anything to have your old filing withdrawn.
Does this affect any state-level ownership disclosure law?
No. This tool only covers the federal requirement under the Corporate Transparency Act, administered by FinCEN. A small number of states run, or have proposed, their own separate business ownership disclosure rules, which sit outside this rule entirely and need their own check against that state's own law.
Where do I check this myself, rather than take a tool's word for it?
fincen.gov/boi is FinCEN's own current page on the requirement, and it is the right place to check a specific filing deadline for a foreign reporting company, since that is the one figure this page deliberately does not state as a fixed date.