Implementing the Centralized Public Registry of Beneficial Owners

On July 19, 2024, through General Resolution 5529/2024, the Argentine Tax Authority (AFIP) established the implementation of the Centralized Public Registry of Ultimate Beneficial Owners. The Registry was created through Law 27739, which amended the current regulation on the prevention and punishing of Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing, and the Financing of Mass Destruction Weapons Proliferation (AM/TF/TP). 

The Register will collect the information included in the information regimes in force for financial and non-financial trusts incorporated in Argentina or abroad, and in the annual information regime for the registration of transactions and the updating of corporate authorities.

The Resolution defines ultimate beneficial owners as those individuals who hold at least 10% of the shares or voting rights in a legal entity and/or is otherwise able to exercise their final control by other means. In this regard, the Resolution provides that the 10% threshold does not apply in the case of entities incorporated, domiciled, based on, or located abroad that do not make public offerings of their securities.

The Resolution also provides a differentiated access to the Register:

1. Who can access all the information in the register: the General Prosecutor's Office, the Judiciary, Financial Intelligence Unit (UIF), the Argentine Central Bank, the National Securities Commission, the National Insurance Superintendence, the National Institute of Associativism and Social Economy, public registries, and bodies representing the supervision and control of legal persons.
2. Who will have access to the information on ultimate beneficial owners and may make it available to the reporting entities at their request: all legal entities or other contractual entities or legal structures incorporated in Argentina, or foreign entities that carry out activities in Argentina and/or own property and/or assets located and/or placed in Argentina, and individuals residing in Argentina, or undivided estates established in Argentina who own corporate or equivalent shares in entities incorporated, domiciled, or located abroad, including sole proprietorships, including those individuals residing in Argentina who act or participate, under any denomination, in trusts, trusteeships, trusts, foundations, or of equivalent legal nature, established abroad in accordance with the legislation in force in the respective country.
3. All other individuals and/or legal persons will have access to their information as ultimate beneficial owners or to the information of their ultimate beneficial owners, respectively.

The Resolution has been in force since July 19, 2024.