Jersey is the offshore jurisdiction that breaks the stereotype. In 2024 the Council of Europe's MONEYVAL ranked its anti-financial-crime effectiveness among the highest in the world — and singled out its beneficial-ownership regime for praise. Yet the data that matters most to a compliance team — who ultimately owns a Jersey company — still isn't public. And right now, the island is consulting on whether to change that.
01The Jersey paradox: transparency without a public UBO register
Jersey is a small island with an outsized financial system. It is one of the world's leading domiciles for alternative funds and private wealth, and it sits above an enormous volume of cross-border ownership chains. For a compliance team, that makes it a jurisdiction you cannot avoid — and one where the ownership question is genuinely hard.
Here is the paradox. Jersey runs one of the most highly rated beneficial-ownership regimes in the world — a fully populated central register that competent authorities and obliged entities can rely on. But that register is not open to the public. There is no walk-up UBO lookup for a foreign bank, a journalist, or an NGO. What the public registry does expose is more than Cayman shows — including shareholders — but the beneficial owner at the top of the chain sits behind controlled access. The story of Jersey in 2026 is the story of who is allowed through that door, and the consultation, now closed, that may widen it.
Jersey collects accurate beneficial-ownership data and shares it freely with authorities and, since February 2025, with regulated obliged entities for due diligence. The general public still cannot search it — and a 2025–26 consultation, now closed, has tested whether vetted "legitimate interest" applicants should be let in next.
02The DPI Law: Jersey's beneficial-ownership framework
Jersey's regime runs on the Financial Services (Disclosure and Provision of Information) (Jersey) Law 2020 — the "DPI Law" — with its 2020 Regulations and the DPI Amendment Law 2025. It works alongside the Money Laundering (Jersey) Order 2008 (the MLO), which sets the customer-due-diligence obligations for regulated businesses.
The mechanics are registry-based rather than service-provider-based. Most Jersey legal entities — companies, partnerships, foundations — must identify their "associated parties": the individuals who ultimately own or control them. A nominated person for each entity is responsible for collecting that information at registration and keeping it current, and it is filed with the central register operated by the JFSC. The data is held privately on that register; the entity's public record shows the company exists, but the beneficial owner sits on the restricted layer.
Two things are easy to conflate. The public Registry (companies, partnerships, foundations, business names) is searchable online and shows basic, shareholder and director data. The OEBO register — the Obliged Entity Beneficial Owner register — is the restricted beneficial-ownership layer, accessible only to authorities and, since 2025, vetted obliged entities. Same JFSC, two very different access regimes.
03Who counts as a beneficial owner
Jersey applies the familiar 25% threshold, but with a controller overlay that catches people the percentage alone would miss. The JFSC's guidance runs a three-tier test:
- Ownership. Any individual who holds, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of the shares, voting rights or partnership interests. All shareholdings at every level of the chain must be considered.
- Control. Any individual who exercises control by other means — including through indirect holdings, voting arrangements or contractual rights — irrespective of whether they hold any legal ownership at all. The threshold can be lowered below 25% on a risk-sensitive basis.
- Senior managing official. Where no individual is identified under the first two limbs, the people who run the entity are recorded as the beneficial owners — the fallback that prevents an entity from reporting "none".
Trusts and foundations get their own drill-down rules. For a Jersey entity held in a trust, information is provided where a trustee owns or controls the entity; for a foundation, an individual must be identified for each relevant category — founder, endower, beneficiaries and anyone who can direct or veto the council. Following a 2025 consultation, the Registry also began collecting the nature and extent of each beneficial interest, not just the identity — bringing Jersey into line with how the UK and EU registers have evolved.
04How the rules apply by entity type
"Jersey entity" is not one thing, and the beneficial-ownership obligation does not fall on all of them equally. The DPI Law catches companies, foundations and most — but not all — partnership forms, and it exempts listed groups. Getting the scope right matters: assume an entity is in scope when it isn't, and you waste effort; assume it's out when it's in, and you miss a filing you should have checked.
| Entity type | In scope? | How the test applies |
|---|---|---|
| Company (incl. protected / incorporated cell companies) | Yes | Standard 25% + control test; cells are treated as companies, with ownership ring-fenced per cell |
| Foundation | Yes | Drill down to founder, endower, beneficiaries and anyone who can direct or veto the council |
| Incorporated limited partnership (ILP) | Yes | Has legal personality — on the register; partners above threshold are controllers |
| Separate limited partnership (SLP) | Yes | Has legal personality — on the register |
| Limited liability partnership (LLP) | Yes | Separate legal personality; partners with control or >25% interest are beneficial owners |
| Classic limited partnership (LP) | No | Not a legal person — outside the DPI Law and the OEBO register (resolve via the GP) |
| Unit trust | Indirect | The trust itself is not registered; it surfaces through the trustee that owns or controls an entity |
| Listed entity (or wholly-owned subsidiary of one) | Exempt | Entities on a regulated market are exempt from filing and updating BO information |
05Beneficial ownership in a fund
With £466bn of fund NAV under administration, the fund is the Jersey structure a compliance team meets most often — and it is where the beneficial-ownership question is most misunderstood. The instinct is to try to identify every investor. That is the wrong instinct.
A fund's beneficial owner is defined by control, not by counting limited partners. The people who run the fund — the general partner, the manager and the principals who ultimately control them — are the beneficial owners. Passive limited partners are generally not beneficial owners, with one critical exception: an investor who holds or comes to hold more than 25% of the interests, or who otherwise exercises control, becomes a controlling beneficial owner in their own right.
The JFSC's own guidance gives the worked example: if a partnership's limited partners divest down to four, each holding 25%, those four become controlling beneficial owners and trigger a notification to the Registry. The lesson for a verifier: you don't chase every LP — you identify the GP/sponsor control chain, then check whether any single investor crosses the 25% line. Carry, co-invest and incentive vehicles add their own layers and should be resolved separately.
06Trusts: the hardest case
Jersey is one of the world's leading trust jurisdictions, and the trust is where the ownership-percentage model breaks down completely. A trust has no shares and no separate legal personality, and it does not appear on any public register. It has four roles — and none of them "owns 25%" in the ordinary sense:
- Settlor — the person who placed assets into the trust.
- Trustee — the legal owner and administrator of the trust assets, usually a regulated Jersey trust company.
- Beneficiaries — the people who benefit, who may be a defined class rather than named individuals.
- Protector — where one exists, a person who can direct or veto trustee decisions.
Here is the rule that catches verifiers out. Under the DPI Law, trust information reaches the register only where a trustee owns or controls a Jersey entity. The trust is not itself a register entry — it surfaces through the company or partnership it holds. So for a trust-held Jersey company, the public record may show a corporate trustee as the controller, while the settlor, beneficiaries and protector sit entirely off-register. They are identified by the regulated trustee as part of its own customer due diligence under the MLO, not published anywhere you can search.
A corporate trustee on a Jersey entity's record is not a resolved UBO — it is a signpost. The underlying natural persons (settlor, beneficiaries, anyone who can control distributions) live with the regulated trust company service provider, reachable through counterparty disclosure, not the registry. Treating the trustee as the answer is one of the most common ways a Jersey ownership chain is closed prematurely.
07Nominees: when the shareholder isn't the owner
Jersey's public shareholder data is a genuine advantage — but it carries a trap that the Cayman model, for all its opacity, does not invite. Because Jersey publishes registered shareholders, it is tempting to treat the registered shareholder as the beneficial owner. Often, for a simple company, they are the same person. Sometimes they are not.
A registered shareholder can be a nominee — an entity or individual holding legal title to shares on behalf of someone else. The DPI Law anticipates this: where legal title to shares is held by a nominee (other than a locally regulated nominee) on behalf of a third-party beneficial owner, that underlying beneficial owner must be disclosed on the register — on the restricted layer, not the public one. So the public record shows you the legal owner; the person behind a nominee arrangement is exactly the data the public registry withholds.
Practical signals that the registered shareholder may not be the UBO: a corporate shareholder rather than a named individual; a recognised professional-nominee name; or the same shareholder appearing across many unrelated entities. Where you see them, the public shareholder data is the start of the question, not the answer.
08What the public registry shows — and what it doesn't
This is where Jersey diverges sharply from Cayman. Jersey's public Registry — searchable online through the JFSC's myRegistry portal — is genuinely useful. Unlike Cayman, where the register of members is private and unfilable, Jersey exposes shareholder data. For a smaller company, the registered shareholders are often the beneficial owners, which makes the public record a real starting point rather than a dead end.
| Data layer | On the public Registry | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Company name, number, status, incorporation date | Public | Searchable online via myRegistry |
| Issued capital and share types | Public | Available on the entity record |
| Shareholders / members | Public | A real differentiator — Cayman keeps members private |
| Directors / "significant persons" | Partial | Significant individuals are listed |
| Beneficial owners / controllers | Restricted | Held on the OEBO register — authorities and obliged entities only |
| Nature & extent of control | Restricted | Collected from 2025; not on the public record |
09The OEBO register: obliged-entity access
The headline change of the last 18 months is that the beneficial-ownership register is no longer authorities-only. On 11 September 2024, the States Assembly approved an amendment to the DPI Law, and from 24 February 2025 regulated obliged entities — "relevant persons" under the DPI Law — and their representatives have been able to access the OEBO register through the myJFSC portal, strictly to assist with their CDD obligations under the MLO.
10What the register actually holds
The central register holds a fuller picture of a beneficial owner than any single access tier can see. Understanding the difference between what is collected, what an obliged entity can view, and what is public tells you exactly how much a given search will return.
| Field | Collected on register | Obliged entity (OEBO) | Public |
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name & former / other names | Yes | Yes | Significant persons only |
| Date of birth | Yes | Yes | Significant persons only |
| Nationality | Yes | Yes | Significant persons only |
| Occupation | Yes | Yes | Significant persons only |
| Correspondence address | Yes | Yes | Significant persons only |
| Residential address | Yes | Restricted | No |
| Place / country of birth, gender | Yes | Restricted | No |
| Nature & extent of interest | From 2025 | Yes | No |
| Any individual under 18 | Yes | Never shown | No |
11Where to search a Jersey company — and what it costs
Jersey is friendlier than most offshore registries: basic company data is genuinely public and searchable online. But it follows the pay-per-document model for anything detailed, and the beneficial-ownership layer is closed to outsiders. The table maps every channel.
| Source | What you get | Access | Cost |
|---|---|---|---|
| JFSC Registry — myRegistry company search | Name, number, status, capital, shareholders, significant persons | Public | Free basic search |
| JFSC Registry — certified copies & certificate of good standing | Copies of filed public documents; certified confirmation of good standing | Order at point of sale | Per-document fee, charged at order |
| Company incorporation | New Jersey company (5-day) | Registry fee | £165 (name reservation £10) |
| Limited partnership registration | New separate / incorporated limited partnership (2-day) | Registry fee | £305 (name reservation £10) |
| OEBO register | Beneficial owners and controllers | Obliged entities only | myJFSC access (CDD only) |
| OEBO register — legitimate interest | Beneficial owners and controllers | Consultation closed | Fee to be set by Registry |
| OEBO register — open public search | — | None | Not available |
12The access architecture: who can see what
Putting the layers together, Jersey runs a tiered model that is more open than Cayman at the public end and comparable at the restricted end.
| Who | Access | Basis |
|---|---|---|
| Competent authorities & law enforcement | Full | JFSC, the FIU, police and tax authorities access the central register without restriction. |
| Jersey-regulated obliged entities | CDD search | OEBO access via myJFSC since 24 February 2025 — strictly for due diligence, audit-logged. |
| Representatives (e.g. AML service providers) | CDD search | Appointed accessing parties acting for a regulated obliged entity. |
| "Legitimate interest" applicants | In consultation | Journalists, civil society, counterparties — route consulted on (consultation closed 30 Jan 2026), not yet live. |
| The general public | No UBO search | Company, shareholder and director data is public; beneficial ownership is not. |
13The transparency spectrum
It helps to place Jersey on the global access curve rather than judging it in isolation. Beneficial-ownership transparency runs from fully public at one end to authorities-only at the other, and the post-Sovim world has bunched most serious jurisdictions in the middle.
| Tier | Examples | Who gets UBO data |
|---|---|---|
| Fully public | United Kingdom (PSC register) | Anyone — free, with bulk and API access |
| Legitimate-interest live | Cayman Islands; several EU states | Vetted applicants who prove a legitimate interest |
| Obliged-entity + LI proposed | Jersey, Guernsey, Isle of Man | Regulated obliged entities now; legitimate-interest route consulted on |
| Authorities + obliged entity | Most of the EU post-Sovim | Competent authorities and CDD-performing firms |
| Closed | British Virgin Islands | Authorities only — no obliged-entity or public route |
14The legitimate-interest question
Jersey's access roadmap was knocked off course by the same ruling that reshaped the EU. Obliged-entity access was originally meant to arrive in 2023. Then, in November 2022, the Court of Justice of the European Union struck down fully public beneficial-ownership registers in the WM and Sovim ruling. Although the judgment binds only EU member states, it prompted Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man to pause and reconsider their earlier commitments to public registers.
What emerged was a two-limb plan: Limb A, obliged-entity access — delivered in February 2025 — and Limb B, access for unregulated persons who can demonstrate a legitimate interest. Limb B is the live story of 2026.
The politics matter. The UK has welcomed Jersey's move but frames legitimate-interest access as an interim step toward a fully public register across the Crown Dependencies and Overseas Territories. Jersey's government has held the same line as the EU after Sovim and as Cayman: unrestricted public access would not be compatible with privacy rights under the European Convention on Human Rights. So the realistic posture for a foreign compliance team through 2026 is unchanged — resolve the chain around the Jersey entity, use the public shareholder data, and treat any resulting legitimate-interest route as a targeted investigative tool rather than a data feed.
When the register is gated, resolve the chain around it
You can't pull a Jersey beneficial owner from an open register, and obliged-entity access is a Jersey-regulated channel. What you can do is combine Jersey's public shareholder data with the registries above and below it, and resolve the natural person at the top. Zavia.ai connects directly to government registries in 100+ countries, follows the ownership chain across borders — Jersey to Luxembourg to the UK and beyond — and returns an auditable map to the natural-person UBO, with sanctions and PEP overlays.
15The Crown Dependencies, moving in step
Jersey is not acting alone. In December 2023 the three Crown Dependencies — Jersey, Guernsey and the Isle of Man — made a joint commitment to deliver obliged-entity access and then develop legitimate-interest access. They are converging on the same destination, but on slightly different tracks and timetables, and the differences matter when a chain runs through more than one island.
| Dimension | Jersey | Guernsey | Isle of Man |
|---|---|---|---|
| Register operator | JFSC Registry | Guernsey Registry | Isle of Man registry |
| Who files | Nominated person | Resident agent | Nominated officer |
| Obliged-entity access live | 24 Feb 2025 | Aug 2025 | Committed |
| Legitimate-interest tier | Consultation closed 30 Jan 2026 | Consultation Feb–Apr 2026 | Proposals expected |
| BO identification threshold | 25% + control | 10% of voting rights (resident-agent duty) | 25% |
16Penalties and enforcement
Jersey backs the regime with real teeth, and 2025–26 is when enforcement intent became visible.
- Misuse of the OEBO register. Accessing beneficial-ownership data for any purpose other than CDD is a breach of the DPI Law, referable to the Attorney General for prosecution — with imprisonment of up to five years. Obliged-entity boards are responsible for ensuring staff understand the law and that access is removed when employment ends.
- Discrepancy notifications. Where the Registry's data and an entity's own records diverge, the entity must assess and act — notifying the Registry within 21 days of becoming aware of any error, and filing an updated submission. Failure raises the entity's risk rating and can trigger an ad hoc inspection.
- False legitimate-interest applications. Under the proposed Limb B route, submitting false or misleading information in an access application would carry financial and criminal penalties.
- Wider enforcement tools. Jersey entered its first Deferred Prosecution Agreement in December 2024, has civil-forfeiture mechanisms, and has introduced a criminal offence of failure to prevent money laundering — the toolkit MONEYVAL credited it for building.
17The gatekeepers: TCSPs and the four cornerstones
Why did MONEYVAL call Jersey's beneficial-ownership data fully populated and accurate when so many registers are neither? The answer is structural, and it is the single most important thing to understand about how Jersey actually works. Jersey runs what its Registry calls a "four cornerstones" approach to keeping ownership data honest:
- A Registry gatekeeper function — a rigorous incorporation and registration process that vets new entities against a Sound Business Practice Policy before they exist.
- Regulated gatekeepers — Trust Company Service Providers, which administer over 77% of Jersey companies and carry their own AML/CFT obligations under the MLO and the JFSC Handbook.
- A company obligation — entities must keep and maintain their information at the registered office.
- Registry Supervision — a function built to monitor compliance proactively, including the search-legitimacy inspections that began in January 2026.
The practical takeaway is that most Jersey entities are not self-administered — a regulated professional sits behind them as the nominated person who collects the data, files it and runs due diligence on the underlying parties. For a verifier, that TCSP is both the reason the register is reliable and the realistic route to the trust, nominee and underlying parties the public record won't show you.
18The MONEYVAL benchmark
If there is one fact that reframes how to think about Jersey risk, it is the 2024 MONEYVAL evaluation. MONEYVAL — the Council of Europe's monitoring body, applying the FATF methodology — conducted its on-site assessment in late 2023 and published its report on 24 July 2024. The verdict was unusually strong.
MONEYVAL rated Jersey Compliant or Largely Compliant on 39 of the 40 FATF Recommendations, found its effectiveness among the highest of any jurisdiction evaluated, and specifically commended the beneficial-ownership regime for the accuracy and transparency of its information — describing the register as fully populated. Jersey, in the assessors' framing, avoided the grey list by a wide margin and is a standard-bearer other finance centres aim to emulate.
It was not flawless. MONEYVAL criticised Jersey's sanctioning approach as too reliant on remedial action, with modest financial penalties relative to the breaches detected, and called for more proactive money-laundering prosecutions. The data is excellent; the question the report raised is whether enforcement bites hard enough. The first DPA and the new failure-to-prevent offence are part of the answer.
19The offshore divergence: Jersey vs Cayman vs BVI
The British offshore centres no longer move as a bloc, and the differences are now operationally meaningful. Jersey sits at the transparent end; the British Virgin Islands was added to the FATF grey list in June 2025; Cayman sits in between — off the grey list since 2023, with a live legitimate-interest register.
| Dimension | Jersey | Cayman Islands | BVI |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lead framework | DPI Law 2020 (amended 2025) | BOTA 2023 (2026 Revision) | BOSS Act / BO regime |
| Threshold | 25% + control | 25% | 25% |
| Filing model | Nominated person → JFSC central register | Licensed CSP → central platform | Registered agent → BOSS |
| Shareholders public? | Yes | No | No |
| UBO access | Obliged entities; LI in consultation | Legitimate-interest live | Closed |
| FATF / MONEYVAL standing | Top-tier (2024) | Off grey list (2023) | Grey-listed (2025) |
20Multi-layer structures: Jersey at the top of the chain
Like Cayman and Luxembourg, Jersey is rarely the operating business. It is the fund, the holding company, or the trust — the structuring layer through which capital is pooled and held. Jersey is home to private-equity, real-estate, debt and infrastructure vehicles, including some of the world's largest funds. The natural person you are looking for is usually several jurisdictions away.
Jersey relevant entities also sit inside the Taxation (Companies — Economic Substance) (Jersey) Law 2019, which requires entities carrying on relevant activities to demonstrate adequate substance on the island. For a verifier, an entity's substance position is a useful signal about whether a Jersey layer is a genuine operating node or a pass-through holding vehicle.
21Sanctions and illicit-finance exposure
A strong regime does not make exposure disappear — it makes screening the decisive control. Jersey's scale as a wealth and funds centre means sanctioned and politically exposed individuals appear in its structures, and the island has built a sanctions regime aligned with the UK's.
Jersey implements the UK-aligned Russia and Belarus sanctions regimes, and designated persons must report relevant assets to the island's sanctions unit. The practical implication is the same as everywhere else, only sharper given Jersey's wealth profile: once you have resolved the natural person at the top of a Jersey chain, screening that person against sanctions and PEP lists is the control that matters — not an optional extra. The structure exists to separate the legal entity from the human; closing that gap is the job.
22Common failure modes and red flags
Jersey rewards a careful verifier, but it has a specific set of traps that close a chain too early. The recurring ones:
- Treating the registered shareholder as the UBO. Public shareholder data is a starting point, but a nominee or corporate shareholder can mask the real owner. Confirm before you conclude.
- Missing the control limb. The 25% test is only the first tier. Someone can control an entity through voting arrangements or contractual rights while owning nothing on paper.
- Stopping at a corporate shareholder. A holding company on the record is a layer, not a person. Resolve the chain above it.
- Treating a trust-held entity as resolved at the trustee. The trustee is a signpost to the settlor, beneficiaries and protector — not the beneficial owner.
- Ignoring cell-company structure. In a protected or incorporated cell company, assets and ownership are ring-fenced per cell; the parent tells you little about an individual cell.
- Assuming foreign access to the OEBO register. A firm with no Jersey regulatory footprint cannot search it; relying on a route you don't have leaves a gap in the file.
- Relying on stale or unverified data. The JFSC does not validate what nominated persons file, and there is a duty to report discrepancies — so cross-check, and refresh on a sensible cycle.
23How to verify a Jersey UBO: workflow
A practical sequence for verifying a Jersey beneficial owner from outside the island:
- Confirm the entity. Search myRegistry for name, number, status and type — and capture the registered shareholders and significant persons. For many smaller companies this already surfaces the likely beneficial owner.
- Pull the history. Order entity profiles and prior annual returns to see ownership and director changes over time — the public record the basic search doesn't flag.
- Check the structure type. Is it a fund (JPF, expert or CIF), a holding company, or a trust-held vehicle? Each routes the UBO question differently — trusts surface only where a trustee owns or controls the entity.
- Resolve the chain. Where a corporate shareholder masks the natural person, follow the chain through the upstream registries (Luxembourg, UK and beyond) to the controller.
- Use the right access tier. A Jersey-regulated obliged entity can search the OEBO register for CDD; a foreign team relies on counterparty disclosure plus chain resolution, pending any legitimate-interest route.
- Screen and document. Run the resolved natural person against sanctions, PEP and adverse-media sources, and keep an auditable trail — an evidenced gap is more defensible than an unsupported declaration.
24Practical takeaways
| Scenario | What you can rely on | What you must supplement |
|---|---|---|
| Smaller Jersey company | Public shareholder data on myRegistry often surfaces the beneficial owner directly | Confirm against entity disclosure; check for nominee or corporate shareholders |
| Jersey fund / GP structure | Regulatory status; public partner/shareholder data; high MONEYVAL confidence | The controlling sponsor and the chain above; OEBO data via a regulated channel |
| Trust-held Jersey entity | Registry shows the entity and a controlling trustee where one owns/controls it | The trust's own parties — settlor, beneficiaries — off-register |
| Foreign obliged entity, no Jersey presence | Public company and shareholder data | The OEBO layer — via counterparty disclosure and chain resolution today |
Jersey rewards a verifier more than most offshore jurisdictions: the public shareholder data does genuine work, and the underlying register is accurate enough that MONEYVAL singled it out. The constraint is the access tier, not the data quality. Build the workflow around the public layer plus cross-border chain resolution, and treat the legitimate-interest consultation as the thing to watch in 2026.
Jersey corporate & ownership data — however you build
Skip the per-document ordering and the registry-hopping. Get structured Jersey company, shareholder and cross-border ownership data sourced directly from official registries — resolved to the natural person at the top of the chain.
25Glossary
26Frequently asked questions
Is there a public beneficial ownership register in Jersey?
No. Jersey collects beneficial-ownership data on a central register operated by the JFSC, but it is not open to the public. Company, shareholder and director data is publicly searchable via myRegistry; the beneficial-ownership and controller layer (the OEBO register) is restricted to competent authorities, law enforcement and, since 24 February 2025, Jersey-regulated obliged entities for due diligence. A legitimate-interest access route for vetted applicants is under public consultation but not yet live.
What is the OEBO register?
The Obliged Entity Beneficial Owner register is the restricted beneficial-ownership layer held by the JFSC under the DPI Law. It records the "associated party" individuals who own or control most Jersey entities. Since February 2025, regulated obliged entities and their representatives can search it through the myJFSC portal, strictly to support customer due diligence, with every search audit-logged.
Can a foreign bank access the Jersey beneficial ownership register?
Not directly today. OEBO access is a Jersey-regulated channel for Jersey obliged entities and their appointed representatives. A foreign bank with no Jersey presence relies on the public shareholder data, counterparty disclosure and cross-border chain resolution. The legitimate-interest consultation, which closed on 30 January 2026, may create a future application-based route for vetted outside parties, but it is not yet in force.
Does Jersey's public registry show shareholders?
Yes — and this is a key difference from Cayman. Jersey's public Registry exposes shareholder/member data, share capital and significant persons alongside basic company details. For smaller companies the registered shareholders are often the beneficial owners, so the public record is a genuine starting point. Where ownership and control diverge, or a corporate shareholder masks the natural person, you still hit the restricted layer.
What is the beneficial ownership threshold in Jersey?
25%. An individual holding, directly or indirectly, more than 25% of shares, voting rights or partnership interests is a beneficial owner. A control limb also captures anyone who exercises control by other means — irrespective of legal ownership — and the threshold can be lowered on a risk-sensitive basis. Where no one is identified, senior managing officials are recorded as a fallback.
What did the 2024 MONEYVAL report say about Jersey?
It was strongly positive. Published on 24 July 2024, the report rated Jersey's AML/CFT effectiveness among the highest of any jurisdiction evaluated, placed it in the global top ten for FATF compliance (Compliant or Largely Compliant on 39 of 40 Recommendations), and gave it a HIGH risk-understanding rating shared by only Jersey, the UK and Bermuda. The beneficial-ownership regime was specifically commended. The main criticism was that Jersey's use of sanctions and financial penalties was too lenient relative to the breaches detected.
How do I search a Jersey company, and what does it cost?
Use the JFSC's myRegistry portal. A basic company search — name, number, status, capital, shareholders, significant persons — is publicly available. Detailed entity profiles and historical annual returns are purchasable per item. Incorporating a company costs around £165 (with a £10 name reservation). The beneficial-ownership register itself is not part of the public search; it is reachable only by obliged entities via myJFSC today.
What is the legitimate-interest consultation?
It is Jersey's process for deciding whether to let vetted non-regulated applicants — such as journalists, civil-society organisations and potential counterparties — access beneficial-ownership data. A public consultation runs from October 2025 into January 2026. The proposed route would require identity and occupation verification, the target entity, an explanation of the request's relevance, intended use and a data-protection declaration, with a fee set by the Registry and penalties for false applications. The UK is pressing for it as an interim step toward a fully public register.
What are the penalties for misusing the Jersey register?
Accessing the OEBO register for any purpose other than customer due diligence is a breach of the DPI Law, referable to the Attorney General, carrying imprisonment of up to five years. From January 2026 the JFSC's Registry Supervision team inspects samples of obliged-entity searches to verify legitimacy. Entities must also act on discrepancy notifications within 21 days, and submitting false information in a future legitimate-interest application would carry financial and criminal penalties.
How is Jersey different from Cayman and BVI for UBO purposes?
Jersey is the most transparent of the three at the public layer — it exposes shareholder data, which Cayman and BVI do not — and the highest-rated for AML effectiveness after its 2024 MONEYVAL assessment. Cayman runs a CSP-based register with a live legitimate-interest access tier; BVI was added to the FATF grey list in June 2025, so a BVI layer now attracts enhanced scrutiny. For a compliance team, a Jersey layer carries the least reputational drag of the cluster.
