UBO Threshold Lookup
Search any jurisdiction for its beneficial ownership threshold, whether a central register exists, and who can access it — so you know how deep to unwrap an ownership chain before you start.
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—The threshold is where you start, not where you stop
Twenty-five per cent is the most common beneficial ownership threshold in the world, and it is also the most commonly misapplied rule in corporate onboarding. It is not a test you pass by checking whether any single shareholder holds more than a quarter of the shares. It is the ownership limb of a two-limb test, and the second limb is where most missed UBOs live.
Ownership is only the first limb
Nearly every regime that sets an ownership threshold also requires you to identify anyone who exercises control by other means — a person who can appoint or remove the majority of the board, who holds a golden share or veto right, who controls the entity through a shareholders' agreement, or who directs it in practice regardless of what the register says. A company can quite legitimately have no shareholder above the threshold and still have a single controlling mind. Stopping at the ownership calculation misses that person entirely.
Indirect holdings aggregate
Ownership is calculated on a look-through basis through every layer of the structure, not layer by layer. A person holding forty per cent of a holding company that holds seventy per cent of the applicant holds twenty-eight per cent indirectly and is a beneficial owner in a twenty-five per cent regime. Structures are frequently arranged so that no single layer breaches the threshold while the aggregate look-through position does. This is the single most common cause of a UBO being missed in manual onboarding.
Where the trail runs out
When no natural person meets the ownership test and no one can be identified as exercising control, most regimes require you to identify the senior managing official as the beneficial owner of last resort — and, critically, to record why you fell back to that position. A file that names a managing director as UBO without explaining why the ownership and control tests produced nobody is a file that will attract a finding.
Registers are a check, not a source
Where a central register exists, it is evidence to be corroborated rather than a verified answer. Registers depend on self-declaration by the entity, they are often not verified by the registrar, and they can be materially out of date. Several regimes explicitly require obliged entities to report discrepancies between the register and what their own due diligence establishes.
Unwrap the structure without unwrapping your week
Manual UBO reconstruction is the longest single task in corporate onboarding and the one most likely to produce an error nobody notices until an inspection.
Interactive structure builder
Build the ownership chart layer by layer in the interface, with entities, individuals, trusts and nominee arrangements represented as they actually are.
Automatic look-through
Effective holdings are calculated through every layer and aggregated across paths, so an indirect position that breaches the threshold is flagged automatically.
Jurisdictional thresholds
Apply the threshold that governs the relationship rather than a single global default, and record which rule was applied to which entity.
Screening every UBO
Every identified beneficial owner is screened for sanctions, PEP status and adverse media in the same run as the entity itself.
Change detection
Ownership changes trigger re-verification and re-screening rather than waiting for the next periodic review to catch them.
Evidenced decisions
Where you fall back to a senior managing official, the reasoning and the approver are recorded against the file rather than left implicit.
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