Millions of small business owners spent 2024 bracing for a new federal filing with daily penalties. In March 2025 the rule was cut back, and companies formed in the United States are now exempt. Here is the dated record.
The Corporate Transparency Act, passed in 2021, told tens of millions of small companies they had to file a Beneficial Ownership Information report with the Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN), naming the real people who own or control them. Existing companies were given a deadline of January 1, 2025. The statute set civil penalties of up to 500 dollars a day for failing to file. For most of 2024 that deadline drove a wave of worried headlines, paid filing services, and letters warning owners they were about to be fined.
On March 21, 2025, FinCEN issued an interim final rule, published in the Federal Register on March 26, 2025, that redefined "reporting company" to exclude companies formed in the United States. In FinCEN's own words:
"All entities created in the United States, including those previously known as domestic reporting companies, and their beneficial owners are now exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN."
That is the whole reversal. The filing that anchored a year of deadline anxiety no longer applies to companies formed in any US state.
The requirement now falls only on foreign reporting companies: entities formed under the law of a foreign country that have registered to do business in a US state or tribal jurisdiction. Even they do not report any US persons as beneficial owners. FinCEN set these deadlines:
Watch for BOI filing scams. Because the rules changed twice and the panic was loud, fraudulent letters and emails still circulate telling US business owners they must pay to file a BOI report or face penalties. If your company was formed in the United States, you are currently not required to file anything, and FinCEN never charges a fee to file directly. Do not pay a stranger who contacts you claiming otherwise.
This is dated on purpose. The Corporate Transparency Act has not been repealed and remains federal law; FinCEN called this an interim final rule and took public comment, and as of mid-2026 several bills in Congress would settle the question permanently. That means it can change again by a later rule or a court decision. Treat this page as a dated snapshot and confirm your own status against the primary source before acting.
FinCEN news release, "FinCEN Removes Beneficial Ownership Reporting Requirements for U.S. Companies and U.S. Persons," dated 2025-03-21: fincen.gov · FinCEN Beneficial Ownership Information page (current requirement): fincen.gov/boi · Federal Register interim final rule, published 2025-03-26: federalregister.gov