I don’t want to jinx anything, but it appears the dust may have settled on this, at least for a little while. The law remains unchanged, and the anticipated rule I posted about on March 4 to limit enforcment to foreign companies and persons came to fruition on March 21, 2025, when FinCEN announced that it had issued an “interim final rule” removing reporting requirements for U.S. companies and U.S. persons. Now, what were previously defined as “foreign reporting companies” are just “reporting companies” (because they are foreign).
Foreign entities that meet the new definition of a “reporting company” and do not qualify for an exemption from the reporting requirements must report their BOI to FinCEN under new deadlines, detailed below; HOWEVER, these entities will not be required to report any U.S. persons as beneficial owners, and U.S. persons will not be required to report BOI with respect to any such entity for which they are a beneficial owner.
Upon the publication of the interim final rule (3/26/2025):
- Foreign companies registered to do business in the United States before the date of publication of the rule must file BOI reports no later than 30 days from that date (4/25/2025), and
- Foreign companies registered to do business in the United States on or after the date of publication of the fule have 30 calendar days to file an initial BOI report after receiving notice that their registration is effective.
FinCEN is accepting comments on this interim final rule until May 27,2025, and intends to finalize the rule this year. In general, this rule does not resolve ongoing litigation, so that is something to continue to watch as well. If you are having trouble sleeping and want info on the rule straight from the source or wish to comment: https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/03/26/2025-05199/beneficial-ownership-information-reporting-requirement-revision-and-deadline-extension