Beneficial Ownership Information (BOI) reporting is when a company has to provide information about their “beneficial owners”. Beneficial owners are people who own or control the company (directly or indirectly).
Start collecting your owner's info in Gusto for free, then submit the report right from your account.
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The Corporate Transparency Act, which began Jan 1, 2024, requires many companies in the US to share who their beneficial owners are. This helps the government prevent illegal activities by making it harder to hide who really owns a company.
You share this information by filing a BOI report to the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN)—a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Treasury.
You need to file if your company is:
Sole proprietorships usually do not need to file unless they registered to do business in the US with a Secretary of State (or similar office).
Exempt businesses
There are 23 types of businesses that do not need to file, like public companies or nonprofits. FinCEN’s Small Entity Compliance Guide has checklists for each of these exemptions to help figure out if a company is exempt.
Answer a few questions in Gusto, and we can help check if you’re exempt.
The filing deadline is based on when your company was legally created or registered to do business in the US.
You only need to file once, but you must update your report if there are changes to ownership details, like ownership structure or an owner’s address.
You can file your report on the FinCEN website, or use Gusto’s secure reporting service.
We’ll charge a small fee to help you file, and if we spot ownership changes that need to be updated with FinCEN later, we’ll let you know.
Beneficial owners have to be real people, not corporations, trusts, or other organizations. There's no limit on how many people can have “substantial control” over a company.
A beneficial owner is anyone who:
Go to the FinCen website for more detail about beneficial owners.
If you have a unique ownership structure, additional guidance can be found in the BOI Small Entity Compliance Guide.
Only businesses created or registered on or after Jan 1, 2024, need to report their company applicants. If you have to report this, we’ll ask for their FinCEN ID, which is a 12-digit number applicants can get on FinCEN’s website.
A company can have up to two people who qualify as company applicants (FinCEN source):
For more details on company applicants, check Chapter 3.2 of FinCEN’s Small Entity Compliance Guide.
For each beneficial owner, you'll need to provide:
If a beneficial owner does not have any of these documents, a foreign passport may be accepted.
Gusto reporting service FYI
If you use Gusto’s reporting service, we’ll also ask for each owner’s email. Once we have their email, we help you collect and organize their beneficial ownership information, making it easy to review the information in Gusto and submit the report.
If your company’s ownership information changes, you have 30 days to update your BOI report.
This includes reporting any changes to ownership structure, including:
You can do this on the FinCEN website or through a reporting service like Gusto. We keep your information secure and help you stay compliant.
Gusto reporting service FYI
When you file your BOI report through Gusto, we securely store the information in your account so you can easily update it (and refile it) later.
Gusto can help you file a BOI report, and if we spot ownership changes that need to be updated with FinCEN later, we’ll let you know. We securely store the information in your account so you can easily update it (and refile it) later.
You can start getting the owner's details you'll need for the report in Gusto. If there's a cost to you, you'll only pay after you've approved the owner's information and submitted the report.
We’ll email your owners asking them for the information needed for the report.
After all owners have finished submitting their info, you'll get a to-do on your Home page to review their information.
Owners will only be asked for BOI report details if an admin requests them.
Once all the other owners at the company have submitted their information, admins can review it.
To view and manage report details:
Once all owners have submitted their details:
You cannot make changes while the report is being reviewed by FinCEN. We’ll let you know when we get a response from FinCEN.
Q: My company has a unique ownership structure, who counts as an owner?
A: See above for general guidelines and resources for whom an owner is. If you have a unique ownership structure, additional guidance can be found in the BOI Small Compliance Guide.
Q: An owner cannot find the request, what should we do?
A: Make sure the owner signs in to their employee profile. If they have more than one Gusto profile, they may need to switch between them after signing in to find the right one. Admins can also help add their info for them.
Q: Does Gusto send reminder notifications to owners?
A: When owners get a request for their info, they'll get an email. If they do not finish the task in time, we'll send a reminder in a 'things to do' email. The to-do on the owners' Home page will only be removed after they've uploaded their information.
Q: How long does it take for FinCen to review the report after it's been filed?
A: We're unable to give a definitive timeline—agency turnaround times vary based on volume, etc. We'll let you know as soon as we hear back from them.
Q: My company name on the report is wrong, what do I do?
A: If your legal business name listed in Gusto is wrong, you'll need to send us supporting documentation from agencies before we can help with an update.
Q: How do i fix the error "The report you previously filed with the government doesn’t match the information provided below. Please visit FinCEN to get the correct information, update this report, and resubmit"?
A: