After your LLC or corporation has been officially formed under state law, you’ll need to file a Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) Report with the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN). This report communicates basic information about your company and the individuals with the most control over business decisions and profits to the federal government.
Unlike state filings, the information contained in your BOI report does not go on the public record—it can only be accessed by authorized parties. Mandated by the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), the BOI report is intended to help law enforcement agencies and banking organizations prevent and detect fraud, money laundering, and other financial crimes.
The BOI Report requirement is currently under review by both FinCEN and Congress, but the deadline for existing businesses to file the BOI Report is March 21, 2025. We’ll keep our pages up to date as court rulings play out, so you’re not left out of the know about this important business filing.
To understand what kind of information you need to provide to FinCEN on your report, let’s start with a few key terms:
Your report must include the following details:
Reporting Company:
Beneficial Owner(s) and Company Applicant(s):
This is the same information you must disclose in order to obtain a FinCEN identifier.
The filing requirement went into effect January 1, 2024, but there are separate due dates for new and existing businesses.
BOI reports must be filed online using the FinCEN’s Business Ownership Secure System (BOSS) database. There is no filing fee.
To help you avoid additional paperwork and filing headaches, we offer professional BOI report filing service for just $25.
Here are a few special filing rules to remember:
Companies formed before 2024 don’t need to provide information on company applicants.
You don’t have to provide identifying information for beneficial owners who are minors. Instead, you can list the information for their parent(s) or legal guardian(s).
When a beneficial owner is another company, the information for the owners of that company must be listed, not just the name of the comp
If any of the information on your BOI report changes, you’ll need to update your report within 30 days of the change. Similarly, if you realize that any of the information on your report is inaccurate, you must correct it within 30 days.
You can make corrections and updates online through the FinCEN database. There’s no charge for making changes to your report.
If you run a small business, it’s very likely that you’ll need to file. The CTA lists 23 exemptions to filing, which apply to more sizable ventures and businesses that are already highly regulated. These include:
Large operating companies with 20+ full-time employees and over $ 5 million in gross receipts or sales for the previous year
Inactive entities that haven’t engaged in business and also haven’t sent or received over $1,000 to or from any other entity over the past 12 months
Banks and credit unions
Insurance companies
Accounting firms
Investment companies and brokers or dealers
Public utility companies
Most non-profit organizations are also exempt.
Currently, FinCEN will not be collecting any fines or penalties while the BOI Report/CTA is still under review. However, prior to the pause, there was a fine of $591 per day up to $10,000 and 2 years in jail.
We will continue to update this resource as new developments occur.