Swiss Transparency Register

• As part of this, the Swiss Transparency Register is being rolled out as a non-public central federal register, led by the Federal Office of Justice [transpareg.admin.ch]. 
• The register is intended to enhance the transparency of beneficial owners of Swiss entities and of certain foreign entities with a connection to Switzerland (in particular, a registered branch office in Switzerland, effective management in Switzerland, or ownership of real estate within Switzerland), and thus to strengthen efforts to fight money laundering, organized crime and terrorist financing.
• The entities concerned must disclose their beneficial owners.
• The transition periods for existing entities with an obligation to inform begin on 1 October 2026 and may last up to two years, depending on the entities' legal form and audit status.
• Financial intermediaries, including wealth managers, will have access to the register in order to fulfill their due diligence obligations.
• From 2027, UBS will gradually align register data with client data.

Obligation to inform: In future, entities affected by the LETA¹ will be obliged to identify their beneficial owners, to review the beneficial owners' corresponding details with appropriate due diligence, to disclose them to the Transparency Register, and to keep them updated.

A beneficial owner is considered to be a natural person who ultimately controls an entity because, either directly or indirectly, and either solely or jointly with third parties, he or she holds at least 25% of the share capital or voting rights, or exercises control over the entity through other means [fedlex.admin.ch]. In relation to such persons, there will now be an obligation to acquire, review and report, in particular, first and last names, date of birth, nationality, town/city, zip code and country of residence, as well as information on the nature, extent and structure of the control exercised. Information must also be provided on whether a beneficial owner has an AHV number, and where this is not the case, a copy of the person's ID must be provided. For the entity with an obligation to inform, the particular details to be recorded and reported are the name of the company, its legal form, its registered address and, if available, its enterprise identification number (UID). Further information is available on the official Transparency Register website under "How-can-a-company-register".

For existing entities with an obligation to inform, the transition periods begin when the LETA comes into force on 1 October 2026. The introduction will be staggered and can take up to two years depending on the category applied; the exact deadline is determined according to the statutory and regulatory requirements.

For specific constellations, a simplified reporting procedure is planned, in particular for:

• GmbHs at which all shareholders are natural persons and are, at the same time, the beneficial owners to be disclosed;
• Single-shareholder firms at which the sole shareholder is a natural person, is entered in the commercial register as the sole member of the board of directors and, at the same time, is the sole beneficial owner of the company.