Liechtenstein Beneficial Ownership (UBO) 2026: Stiftung, Anstalt & VwbP Register
Last updated: 27 October 2026 · Reviewed against the VwbPG and PGR (gesetze.li), Office of Justice VwbP guidance (April 2025), the Commercial Register statistics for 2025, the EFTA Court judgment of 7 May 2025, MONEYVAL’s 2022 report and the FATF list of June 2026
Most jurisdictions ask who owns the shares. Liechtenstein built an entire industry on vehicles that have no shares — the Stiftung (foundation) and the Anstalt (establishment), structures engineered to sever legal ownership from beneficial control. That is what makes it one of the hardest beneficial-ownership problems in Europe, and why a compliance team that treats a Liechtenstein layer like a normal company will get the wrong answer.
- Register access: the VwbP is closed to the public. Data is released only on written application to the Office of Justice — free for banks and financial institutions, CHF 10 or CHF 50 per entity for third parties (Office of Justice VwbP Q&A, April 2025).
- The law: the VwbPG of 3 December 2020 has applied since 1 April 2021 and has not been amended since; the consolidated text on gesetze.li still carries a single version.
- Latest change: on 7 May 2025 the EFTA Court (Joined Cases E-1/24 and E-7/24, referred by Liechtenstein’s Administrative Court) read EEA anti-money-laundering law in line with the CJEU’s 2022 WM and Sovim ruling: no general public access, disclosure to third parties on a legitimate interest.
- FATF and MONEYVAL: Liechtenstein is on neither FATF list (jurisdictions under increased monitoring or call for action) as of the June 2026 plenary; the October 2026 plenary sits 26–30 October. MONEYVAL’s 2022 report rated it Compliant or Largely Compliant on 37 of 40 Recommendations.
- What a verifier gets today: a free partial extract from the Commercial Register for registered entities. The 7,145 foundations that are not entered in the register — four in five of all foundations — do not appear there at all (Office of Justice register statistics, 31 December 2025).
01The opacity engine: why Liechtenstein is built differently
Liechtenstein is a principality of 41,237 people (Office of Statistics, 31 December 2025) wedged between Switzerland and Austria, with a wealth-management sector vastly larger than its size suggests. It became one of the world's most important asset-holding centres by designing bespoke legal vehicles — the Anstalt dates to its 1926 company law — whose entire purpose is to hold and protect wealth while keeping the natural person behind it private. Add banking secrecy enacted in the 1960s, and you had a jurisdiction purpose-built for confidentiality.
The scale of that engine is the tell. The Office of Justice counted 22,927 legal units on its books at 31 December 2025 — one for every 1.8 residents — of which 4,030 were Anstalts and 8,936 foundations (Commercial Register statistics). The eleven Liechtenstein banks managed CHF 538.0 billion of client assets at the end of 2025, including their foreign group companies (FMA, Finanzplatz Liechtenstein 2026). A country smaller than most towns runs a balance sheet built on holding other people's wealth, much of it through foundations and establishments that, by design, name no owner.
That history matters because the architecture survives. Liechtenstein is far more transparent to authorities than it was — but the foundation and the Anstalt still do exactly what they were designed to do: separate the legal entity from the human who controls it. The job of this guide is to show where the beneficial owner actually sits, who can reach it, and how to resolve it from outside.
02The 2008 collapse and the pivot to transparency
The turning point has a date. On 14 February 2008, German investigators raided Klaus Zumwinkel, the chief executive of Deutsche Post, over tax evaded through a Liechtenstein foundation. He resigned and was prosecuted. The data behind the case came from Heinrich Kieber, a former IT employee at LGT Bank — owned by Liechtenstein's reigning princely house — who had sold a disc of client records to Germany's intelligence service, and the records went on to tax authorities in several other countries.
A US Senate subcommittee report that July detailed the mechanics: clients held assets through Liechtenstein foundations whose instruments deliberately avoided naming the real beneficiaries, sometimes layered with "transfer corporations" to break the link between the foundation and its money. The foundation, in other words, was the opacity device — and the whole world saw how it worked.
The pivot that followed was rapid. Liechtenstein adopted the OECD tax-transparency standard in 2009, signed a wave of tax-information-exchange agreements — including the UK's Liechtenstein Disclosure Facility — and went on to join the global Common Reporting Standard for automatic exchange. The principality rebranded from tax haven to "white-money" wealth centre. But automatic exchange of tax data is not the same as public disclosure of ownership. The beneficial owner still sits inside the foundation; what changed is who can ask.
03The framework: the VwbPG and the VwbP register
Liechtenstein's beneficial-ownership regime runs on the Act on the Register of the Beneficial Owners of Legal Entities (VwbPG) and its ordinance (VwbPV), implementing the EU Anti-Money Laundering Directives through Liechtenstein's EEA membership. The register itself — the VwbP — is maintained electronically by the Office of Justice (Amt für Justiz), through its Foundation and Trust Supervision / Money Laundering Prevention division (STIFTA/GWP), with filings made electronically. The current Act dates from 3 December 2020 and is published on gesetze.li. It sits alongside the Due Diligence Act (SPG) and its ordinance (SPV), which set the customer-due-diligence rules for regulated businesses.
The first register was set up in 2019 under the VwEG of 6 December 2018, implementing the 4th AML Directive; the VwbPG replaced it on 1 April 2021, rebuilding the access framework under the 5th. It records the beneficial owners of Liechtenstein companies, foundations and trusts — and, in a quirk that catches people out, foreign trusts that are managed from Liechtenstein or that form a business relationship there. The data is held privately; the Office of Justice issues official extracts and certificates to the entity itself for CHF 20 each, and discloses data to others only on application.
04The signature vehicles
To verify a Liechtenstein UBO you have to know what you are looking at. The principality's most common vehicles include two — the Anstalt and the trust enterprise — that exist almost nowhere else, and two — the foundation and the trust — that work very differently here than the words suggest.
| Vehicle | Shares / members? | Where the beneficial owner lives |
|---|---|---|
| Stiftung (foundation) | None | Founder, beneficiaries and anyone who controls it — not a shareholder |
| Anstalt (establishment) | None | Holder of the "founder's rights", or the beneficiaries where there are none |
| Treuunternehmen (trust enterprise) | Varies | Founder / beneficiaries, depending on how it is organised |
| Treuhänderschaft (trust) | None | Settlor, protector and beneficiaries who control the arrangement |
| Aktiengesellschaft (AG) | Shares | Holders of 25% or more of shares, votes or profit, or whoever controls by other means |
05Who counts as a beneficial owner
For an ordinary company, Liechtenstein applies the EU-standard test: a beneficial owner is any natural person who, directly or indirectly, holds or controls 25% or more of the shares or voting rights, is entitled to 25% or more of the profit, or controls the entity by other means (Office of Justice guidance, April 2025). Note the wording: Liechtenstein already uses “or more” and counts profit share, where the old EU directive text said “more than 25%”. Where no such person exists, the senior managing officials are recorded as a fallback.
But the VwbPG runs a two-track system that is the key to the whole regime. It separates Schedule 1 entities — corporations and the like — from Schedule 2 entities: foundations, trusts, trust enterprises and Anstalts organised like foundations. The crucial rule: a Schedule 1 company that is ultimately held or controlled by a Schedule 2 entity is itself treated as a Schedule 2 entity. In plain terms — the moment a foundation or trust sits above a company in the chain, the percentage test stops applying and the founder/beneficiary analysis takes over.
| Schedule 1 — corporations | Schedule 2 — foundations, trusts, Anstalts | |
|---|---|---|
| Primary test | 25% or more of shares, votes or profit | No percentage — identify the people behind the structure |
| Who is recorded | Owners above threshold; else controllers | Founder, settlor, protector, beneficiaries and controllers |
| Fallback | Senior managing officials | Members of the governing body where no individual controls |
| If held by a Schedule 2 entity | The company is treated as Schedule 2 — the founder/beneficiary analysis applies all the way down | |
06What the register actually records
When an entity files to the VwbP, it records a defined set of data on each beneficial owner — and the data set is narrower than people expect, which matters when you finally do get sight of it.
| Field | Recorded? | Note |
|---|---|---|
| First name and surname | Yes | The natural person identified as a beneficial owner |
| Date of birth | Yes | Full date, not just month and year |
| Nationality | Yes | Citizenship of the beneficial owner |
| Country of residence | Yes | Country only — the VwbPG does not collect a residential address |
| Nature and extent of the interest | Yes | Whether owner, founder, beneficiary, protector or controller — the "why" |
| Intermediate legal persons in the chain | Captured | Name, registration number, legal form and registered office of entities in between |
07Foundations: where ownership has no percentage
The Stiftung is an autonomous fund with its own legal personality and — this is the point — no members, partners or shareholders. The assets belong to the foundation itself once endowed. It can be a private-benefit family foundation, a charitable foundation, or a maintenance foundation, and it needs minimum capital of CHF/EUR/USD 30,000.
Privacy is built into the form. The foundation declaration (Stiftungsurkunde) is not public, and the by-laws that name beneficiaries are private. A foundation carrying on commercial activity must register in the public Commercial Register — but a private-benefit family foundation that does not trade only notifies its formation to the Office of Justice, and never appears in the public register at all. Its file can be seen only by the depositor and whoever the depositor authorises (Art. 955a PGR). This is the norm, not the exception: at 31 December 2025 the Office held 7,145 unregistered foundations against 1,791 registered ones. For a verifier, four in five Liechtenstein foundations leave no public trace beyond, perhaps, the trustee who administers them.
08The Anstalt: a vehicle with no owners
The Anstalt (establishment) is the structure that exists almost nowhere else, and it is the purest expression of Liechtenstein's design philosophy. It has legal personality, a minimum capital of 30,000 not divided into shares, and — like the foundation — no members or shareholders. It is used as a holding company for intangible assets, an estate-planning vehicle, or an operating business.
What replaces ownership is the concept of "founder's rights" (Gründerrechte). These rights — to amend the articles, appoint the board, wind the entity up — can be held and transferred, and the person who economically holds them controls the Anstalt. So an Anstalt comes in two flavours: one with founder's rights, where the holder of those rights is the beneficial owner; and one organised like a foundation, with beneficiaries and no founder's rights, where the analysis mirrors a Stiftung. Either way, there is no shareholder register to pull — control is the only thing that matters, and it can be invisible from the outside.
09Trusts and the Liechtenstein twist
Liechtenstein is one of the very few civil-law jurisdictions to recognise the common-law trust (the Treuhänderschaft), alongside its own Treuunternehmen (trust enterprise), which has legal personality. A trust here has the familiar cast — settlor, trustee, protector, beneficiaries — and at least one beneficiary is required.
As with the foundation, the privacy is structural. The trust deed is not public; the Office of Justice will confirm that a trust exists but will not disclose its terms. Historically, Liechtenstein trusts could be revocable, with assets returning to the settlor — a feature the 2008 prosecutors highlighted, because it meant the settlor never really let go of control. For beneficial-ownership purposes, the settlor, protector and controlling beneficiaries are what you are looking for, and they are recorded in the VwbP — not in any public file.
10What the public register shows — and how to search it
Liechtenstein does have a public Commercial Register (Handelsregister), maintained by the Office of Justice in Vaduz, and you can search it — but it is far less revealing than Jersey's or the UK's, precisely because of the vehicles above.
The public search portal is at handelsregister.li. Its business index (Firmenindex) shows a free partial extract for every registered entity; a certified full extract (Handelsregisterauszug) is ordered through the same portal for a fee. Since 1 May 2024, Art. 953(5) PGR has required the Office of Justice to publish free of charge the name, legal form, seat, registration and change dates, the register number and European identifier (EUID), the object or purpose, and — for AGs, partnerships limited by shares and GmbHs — the board members and how they sign. Beyond that, the register and its supporting documents are public: anyone may inspect them for a fee (Art. 953(3)–(4) PGR). Zavia's Liechtenstein company directory indexes the registered layer.
| What you want | Available? | How |
|---|---|---|
| Entity exists, type, office, register number, status | Free | Firmenindex search at handelsregister.li |
| Board members and signing authority | Free / extract | Free for AGs, KGaAs and GmbHs (Art. 953(5) PGR); in the certified extract for all forms |
| Certified full extract | Fee | Ordered through the same portal, German language |
| Filings and supporting documents of a registered entity | Fee | Anyone may inspect them for a fee (Art. 953(3)–(4) PGR) |
| Unregistered foundation / trust | Not public | File open only to the depositor (Art. 955a PGR); the Office of Justice will confirm whether an unregistered trust exists |
| Beneficial owners (VwbP) | Not public | Restricted; unauthorised access is a criminal offence |
11The gatekeeper: licensed trustees
If the data is private, how is it accurate at all? Through a gatekeeper model as strict as any in Europe. Under Art. 180a PGR, at least one board member with power to manage and represent a Liechtenstein legal entity must be a licensed trustee or a person authorised under the Article 180a Act — a regulated fiduciary supervised by the Financial Market Authority (FMA) and bound by customer-due-diligence obligations. The exemptions are narrow: entities that must have a manager under trade or other special law, and bodies supervised by a public authority. In law the entity is responsible for identifying its beneficial owners and filing the VwbP; in practice, the licensed board member does the work.
The practical consequence is the same as in Jersey's trust-company model: a regulated professional sits behind virtually every foundation and Anstalt. That is simultaneously why the underlying data exists and is reliable, and the realistic route to the people the public record hides. The licensed trustee is the door — not the registry.
When the owner is engineered to disappear, resolve the structure around it
You cannot pull a Liechtenstein beneficial owner from a public register, and for a private family foundation the entity may not be public at all. What you can do is map the structure around it — the Commercial Register entry, the licensed trustee, the entities above and below — and resolve the natural person at the top of the chain. Zavia.ai connects directly to government registries in 173 countries, follows ownership across borders, and returns an auditable map to the UBO with sanctions and PEP overlays, flagging where a foundation or Anstalt deliberately breaks the trail.
12Access to the VwbP: disclosure on application
Here is the nuance that trips up most analysts: outside the authorities, nobody searches the VwbP. There is no obliged-entity lookup and no public search. Instead, you apply to the Office of Justice for disclosure of a specific entity's beneficial-ownership data, on an official form — and what comes back depends on who you are and what the entity is. Liechtenstein never opened the VwbP to the public, so the CJEU's November 2022 ruling in WM and Sovim (C-37/20 and C-601/20), which struck down general public access in the EU, changed less here than in Luxembourg or the Netherlands. The EEA confirmation came on 7 May 2025, when the EFTA Court answered two questions from Liechtenstein's Administrative Court on refused third-party requests and applied the same Charter-based reading to the EEA.
| Who | Route | Conditions |
|---|---|---|
| Domestic authorities | Direct retrieval | FIU, FMA, National Police, tax administration, public prosecutor, Landgericht and the Bar Association retrieve data online |
| Banks & financial institutions (LI, EEA, equivalent third country) | Disclosure for CDD | Written application for a named entity; free of charge |
| Domestic obliged entities | Disclosure for CDD | Written application for a named entity; non-controlling founders and protectors withheld |
| Third party — stand-alone company | Credible AML purpose | Must credibly declare the data is needed to fight money laundering; CHF 10 per entity |
| Third party — foundation, trust or company held by one | Legitimate interest | Decided by the government-appointed VwbP Commission; CHF 50 per entity |
| The general public | No search | No open beneficial-ownership lookup |
13The MONEYVAL verdict
For all the engineered opacity at entity level, Liechtenstein scores well as a system. MONEYVAL — the Council of Europe body applying the FATF methodology — carried out its fifth-round on-site visit from 6 to 17 September 2021, adopted the report at its 63rd plenary in May 2022 and published it on 29 June 2022. The beneficial-ownership standards it tested are FATF Recommendations 24 and 25 (see our explainer on R.24 and R.25).
The report credited a substantial level of effectiveness on risk understanding, national coordination, financial intelligence, confiscation, terrorist-financing prosecution and international cooperation. But the honest caveat is pointed: among the areas MONEYVAL flagged for further improvement was the transparency of beneficial ownership of legal persons and arrangements — exactly the foundation-and-Anstalt problem this guide is about. The system is well-run; the vehicles still make the natural person hard to reach. Both things are true at once.
14The European overlay: what's coming
As an EEA member, Liechtenstein implements the EU's AML acquis rather than setting its own from scratch — and the EU has just rewritten that acquis (our guide to AMLR, AMLD6 and AMLA covers the EU side). The catch is timing: EU rules bind Liechtenstein only after they are taken into the EEA Agreement.
15Multi-layer structures: Liechtenstein at the top of the chain
Liechtenstein is rarely the operating business. It is the apex — the family foundation or Anstalt that sits above everything else and holds the wealth. The classic chain that compliance teams meet runs from an operating company, up through one or more offshore holding layers, to a Liechtenstein structure, and finally to a natural person who may never appear on any public document.
16Penalties and enforcement
The regime has teeth, and they land on the gatekeeper. Under the VwbPG, an entity must file its beneficial-owner data within 30 days of formation or registration and keep it current within 30 days of any change; where an entity defaults, the Office of Justice takes its own measures to obtain the data, and runs random plausibility checks against what is filed.
The VwbPG carries its own penalties (Art. 31 VwbPG). The Office of Justice fines up to CHF 200,000 anyone who fails to identify or verify the beneficial owners, to file or correct their data completely and on time, or to report a discrepancy, or who obstructs an inspection. Obtaining register information under false pretences, or using disclosed data for a purpose other than the one stated in the application, is a criminal offence tried by the Landgericht: up to three years' imprisonment or a fine of up to 360 daily rates. Negligence halves both ceilings. The penalties land on the members of management who acted or should have acted, with the entity jointly liable (Art. 32).
The practical point for a verifier: because the board, including the licensed trustee, carries personal liability for the accuracy of the filing, the underlying data is generally reliable when you can reach it. The enforcement risk sits with the insider, which is precisely why the insider — not the registry — is the route to the answer.
17Sanctions, automatic exchange and exposure
Liechtenstein's transparency reforms were real, but they operate on two different planes that are easy to conflate. On tax, the principality now participates in the Common Reporting Standard, automatically exchanging account information with many partner jurisdictions. On sanctions, it aligns its regime closely with the EU and international measures, including those targeting Russia. On ownership, however, the data still sits behind the foundation, reachable by authorities and obliged entities rather than the public.
The implication for a compliance team is sharp. Tax transparency does not hand you the beneficial owner; it hands the tax authority the account. Once you have resolved the natural person at the apex of a Liechtenstein structure, screening that person against sanctions and PEP lists is the control that matters — because the entire architecture exists to keep that person and the legal entity apart.
18Common failure modes
Liechtenstein punishes assumptions imported from normal jurisdictions. These are the mistakes that turn up most often in real files.
| The mistake | Why it fails |
|---|---|
| Running a 25% test on a foundation or Anstalt | There are no shares to count — the test returns nothing and you conclude, wrongly, that there is no UBO |
| Stopping at the foundation board or the licensed trustee | The administrator is not the beneficial owner; you have found the gatekeeper, not the principal |
| Assuming a family foundation is on the public register | Non-commercial foundations only notify the Office of Justice — 7,145 of them at the end of 2025, none visible in the Firmenindex |
| Reading “no hit in the Firmenindex” as “does not exist” | Unregistered foundations and trusts are absent from the index by design; ask for an official confirmation or go through the trustee |
| Missing the founder's-rights holder of an Anstalt | Control sits with whoever economically holds the founder's rights — an owner with no visible title |
| Ignoring the Schedule 2 flip | A company held by a foundation must be analysed as a foundation — not on a shareholding basis |
| Treating CRS tax exchange as ownership transparency | Automatic exchange gives the tax authority an account; it does not give you the UBO |
| Relying on a disclosure as complete | Founders and protectors who do not exercise control are withheld from applicants — gaps are by design |
19How to verify a Liechtenstein UBO: workflow
A practical sequence for resolving a Liechtenstein beneficial owner from outside the principality:
- Identify the vehicle type. Is it an AG, a Stiftung, an Anstalt, a Treuunternehmen or a trust? Each routes the question differently — only the AG has shareholders.
- Search the Commercial Register. Use the free Firmenindex at handelsregister.li to capture the entity (if registered), its registered office and its board — including the licensed trustee, who is your route to the underlying parties. Remember a private family foundation may not appear at all.
- Run the right test. For an AG, apply the 25%-plus-control test. For a foundation, Anstalt or trust, identify the founder, founder's-rights holder, settlor, protector and beneficiaries — not a percentage.
- Follow the chain. Where the Liechtenstein entity sits above other companies, the Schedule 2 analysis applies all the way down. Where it sits below offshore or onshore layers, resolve those registers first.
- Use the right access route. A bank or financial institution in Liechtenstein, the EEA or an equivalent third country applies to the Office of Justice for disclosure, free of charge; a third party needs a credible AML purpose (CHF 10), or for a foundation, trust or company held by one, a legitimate interest decided by the VwbP Commission (CHF 50). Expect the entity to be asked for comment within five days. Foreign teams lean on disclosure plus counterparty information.
- Screen and document. Screen the resolved natural person against sanctions, PEP and adverse-media sources, and keep an auditable trail. With engineered structures, an evidenced gap is far more defensible than an unsupported declaration.
20Practical takeaways
| Scenario | What you can rely on | What you must supplement |
|---|---|---|
| Liechtenstein AG | Commercial Register entry, board, licensed trustee | The 25%-plus-control analysis; the chain above if a foundation sits at the apex |
| Foundation (Stiftung) | Trustee and, for commercial ones, the register entry | Founder, beneficiaries and protector — private, via VwbP disclosure or the trustee |
| Anstalt | Register entry and administering trustee | The holder of the founder's rights — the controller you can't see |
| Private family foundation | Little or nothing public | Existence and parties — via counterparty disclosure and the trustee |
Liechtenstein is the jurisdiction where the words "ultimate beneficial owner" do the most work, because the vehicles were engineered precisely to obscure that person. The data exists, it is accurate, and authorities can reach it — but the public cannot, and the structure is designed to keep legal form and beneficial control apart. Build the workflow around the vehicle type and the licensed trustee, not around a shareholder you will never find. For the layers around the apex — the register entry, the board, the companies above and below — Zavia connects to government registries in 173 countries, so you can verify a Liechtenstein UBO's surrounding chain in one lookup instead of chasing each register by hand.
Liechtenstein & cross-border ownership data — however you build
Skip the structure-by-structure unwinding. Get Liechtenstein corporate data and cross-border ownership resolution sourced directly from official registries — mapped through the foundation and Anstalt layers to the natural person at the top.
21Glossary
22Frequently asked questions
Does Liechtenstein have a public beneficial ownership register?
No. Liechtenstein maintains a central beneficial-owner register (the VwbP), operated by the Office of Justice under the VwbPG, but it is not open to the public. Domestic authorities retrieve data directly; banks, financial institutions and domestic obliged entities obtain disclosure for due diligence; third parties must show a credible anti-money-laundering purpose or, for foundations and trusts, a legitimate interest decided by the VwbP Commission. The public Commercial Register shows registered entities and their boards, but not their beneficial owners — and the 7,145 unregistered foundations do not appear in it at all.
What is a Liechtenstein Anstalt, and who is its beneficial owner?
An Anstalt (establishment) is a legal vehicle unique to Liechtenstein. It has legal personality but no shareholders or members, and its capital is not divided into shares. Control runs through "founder's rights" (Gründerrechte), which can be held and transferred — so the beneficial owner is the person who economically holds the founder's rights. Where an Anstalt is organised like a foundation, with beneficiaries and no founder's rights, the beneficial owners are the founder and the beneficiaries instead.
How is the beneficial owner of a Liechtenstein foundation identified?
Not by ownership percentage — a foundation has no shares or members. The beneficial owners are the people behind the structure: the economic founder, the beneficiaries (named in private by-laws or as a discretionary class), a protector who can direct or veto decisions, and anyone else who controls the foundation. These are recorded in the VwbP for authorities and obliged entities, but they are not public, and the foundation declaration that governs them is private.
What is the beneficial ownership threshold in Liechtenstein?
For ordinary companies, 25% or more — a beneficial owner is any natural person holding or controlling, directly or indirectly, 25% or more of the shares or voting rights, 25% or more of the profit, or controlling the company by other means, with senior managing officials as a fallback. But for foundations, trusts and Anstalts, no percentage applies: the test is who founded, benefits from or controls the structure. And where a foundation or trust sits above a company in the chain, that founder/beneficiary analysis applies to the company too.
What information does the Liechtenstein beneficial ownership register record?
For each beneficial owner, the VwbP records the first name and surname, date of birth, nationality, country of residence, and the nature and extent of the beneficial interest — that is, whether the person is an owner, founder, beneficiary, protector or controller. Intermediate legal persons in the chain are captured by name, registration number, legal form and registered office. The data must be filed within 30 days of formation and kept current, and the Office of Justice runs random plausibility checks.
How do I search the Liechtenstein Commercial Register?
Use the official Commercial Register portal at handelsregister.li. Its Firmenindex shows a free partial extract for every registered entity: name, legal form, seat, register number and EUID, purpose, registration and change dates, and the board of AGs and GmbHs. A certified full extract is ordered for a fee through the same portal, and the filings behind an entry can be inspected for a fee. Unregistered foundations and trusts are not in the index, and the beneficial-owner register is not public at all.
Can a foreign bank access Liechtenstein beneficial ownership data?
Not through an open search — nobody outside the authorities can search the VwbP. A bank or obliged entity instead applies to the Office of Justice for disclosure of a specific entity's data, on an official form, to fulfil its due-diligence obligations. The route is open to banks and financial institutions seated in Liechtenstein or another EEA state, and to banks in a third country with equivalent AML supervision, and it is free of charge. An entity can obtain a five-year restriction where disclosure would put a beneficial owner at disproportionate risk, so even a granted disclosure can be incomplete.
What are the penalties for beneficial ownership breaches in Liechtenstein?
Entities must file beneficial-owner data within 30 days and keep it current. Under Art. 31 VwbPG, the Office of Justice fines up to CHF 200,000 for missing, late, incomplete or wrong filings, unreported discrepancies or obstructed inspections. Obtaining register data under false pretences or misusing disclosed data is a criminal offence carrying up to three years' imprisonment or 360 daily rates. Members of management are liable personally, with the entity jointly liable.
Is Liechtenstein on the FATF grey list?
No. Liechtenstein is not on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring as of the June 2026 plenary, and the October 2026 plenary meets 26–30 October. MONEYVAL's fifth-round report, published on 29 June 2022, rated it Compliant or Largely Compliant on 37 of the 40 FATF Recommendations and placed it on regular follow-up. The report still recommended improvements, including in beneficial-ownership transparency.
How is Liechtenstein different from Switzerland for ownership purposes?
Both unwound bank secrecy under pressure and both keep beneficial-ownership data away from the public. The difference is the vehicles. Switzerland's structures are mostly conventional companies, and its federal transparency register, in force since 1 October 2026, is closed to the public (see our Switzerland guide). Liechtenstein's defining vehicles — the foundation and the Anstalt — have no shareholders at all, so the verification problem is structurally harder. A Liechtenstein layer in a chain is the point at which a percentage analysis stops working entirely.
How much does a Liechtenstein beneficial ownership disclosure cost?
Disclosure to banks and financial institutions is free. A third party pays CHF 10 per entity for a stand-alone company and CHF 50 per entity for a foundation, trust, or a company held by one, in advance. An entity ordering its own official VwbP extract or certificate pays CHF 20 each plus postage.
Has the Liechtenstein beneficial ownership register changed in 2025 or 2026?
The law has not: the VwbPG still stands in the version that took effect on 1 April 2021. The change came from the courts. On 7 May 2025 the EFTA Court, in Joined Cases E-1/24 and E-7/24, applied the CJEU's 2022 WM and Sovim reasoning within the EEA, confirming that third parties reach the register only on a legitimate interest. The EU's 2024 AML package will reach Liechtenstein only after it is incorporated into the EEA Agreement.
