FinCEN's Aug. 11 final rule erases the Corporate Transparency Act filing for U.S. companies, deletes submitted data, and, by NFIB's estimate, saves $128 billion.
The Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network issued a final rule on Aug. 11, 2026 that permanently ends the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information under the Corporate Transparency Act. The bureau said it will also delete information previously reported by U.S. persons from the database it built to hold it.
The rule retires a filing obligation that Treasury says reached millions of law-abiding business owners, most of them small. The National Federation of Independent Business, in a statement issued Wednesday, put the savings at more than $128 billion in regulatory and compliance costs. For the owner of a limited liability company or a closely held corporation, the change removes a recurring federal filing, the legal and accounting fees attached to preparing and updating it, and the penalty exposure that came with filing late or filing wrong.
How the Filing Requirement Disappears
The Corporate Transparency Act, an anti-money-laundering law signed in January 2021, required companies to disclose the individuals who ultimately own or control them. FinCEN administered the regime and set an original filing deadline of Jan. 1, 2025 for U.S. reporting companies. That deadline was delayed and suspended numerous times by federal courts before the agency began dismantling the requirement by rule.
The final rule follows an interim final rule issued in March 2025 that eliminated BOI reporting for all entities formed in the United States. That interim measure also relieved U.S.-based individuals of the obligation to report their ownership even when they were beneficial owners of foreign companies doing business in the U.S., according to CPA Practice Advisor (opens in a new tab).
The final rule goes further at the edges. It exempts U.S. persons holding FinCEN IDs from updating or correcting their information, eliminates the requirement for foreign companies to report U.S. person “company applicants,” and exempts foreign pooled investment vehicles registered in the U.S. from reporting the beneficial ownership information of a U.S. person in control.
For a company that already filed, the consequence is subtractive: no update when an owner changes, no correction when a filed detail turns out to be wrong, and, per FinCEN, deletion of the information U.S. persons already submitted.
“Today’s action is a victory for common sense and American small businesses,” said Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. “President Trump promised to cut red tape, and this final rule delivers. Treasury is eliminating a burdensome reporting requirement for millions of law-abiding business owners without compromising our national security.”
Trade Groups Claim $128 Billion in Savings
Brad Close, president of the National Federation of Independent Business, said the rule “protects American small and independent businesses from this onerous reporting mandate and requires the destruction of previously submitted personal data.” He said “Congress needs to finish the fight,” and that the group would press lawmakers to repeal the law outright.
Todd McCracken, president and chief executive of the National Small Business Association, called the statute “a massive burden on America’s job creators which will do next to nothing to actually stop money-laundering,” and said his group had opposed it “for three administrations now.” President Donald Trump has described the reporting requirements as “outrageous and invasive” for U.S. small businesses.
Prosecutors and Watchdogs Push Back
The rule drew objection from anti-corruption groups and prosecutors. Erica Hanichak, co-director of the FACT Coalition, said the rule “keeps the floodgates open for criminals to launder money through U.S. shell and front companies” and had “handed a major victory to U.S. adversaries, corrupt officials, fraudsters, and tax evaders.”
Nelson Bunn, executive director of the National District Attorneys Association, said the exemption for domestic entities and owners has “significantly hindered prosecutors’ ability to identify the bad actors from legitimate businesses when investigating U.S. shell companies used by transnational cartels, human traffickers, and cyberscammers.”
The objection is not confined to the left. Frank Russo, a senior policy advisor at the Conservative Political Action Conference and a partner at Modern Fortis, said “the underlying transparency law is still valuable, but Treasury’s rule has failed to strike the appropriate balance in implementing it, crippling public safety officers’ ability to protect and serve their communities.”
What Has Not Changed
The Corporate Transparency Act itself is still law. FinCEN’s rule changes who reports under it, not whether the statute exists, which is why the NFIB is directing its campaign at Congress rather than Treasury. A later rulemaking could revisit the exemptions without any act of Congress.
Foreign entities that qualify as reporting companies must still report beneficial ownership information for foreign individuals. A U.S. business with a foreign-formed affiliate in its structure therefore still has a reporting question to answer, even though the U.S. entity and its U.S. owners do not.
Where the Next Decision Sits
FinCEN has issued frequently asked questions on the final rule and said it will update its guidance on FinCEN.gov to reflect it. Treasury has not disclosed a timetable for deleting the U.S. person records already in the database. The next decision belongs to Congress, which has not scheduled a vote on repealing the 2021 statute; until it does, the obligation that ended on Aug. 11 rests on a rule that a future Treasury can rewrite.
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