Mag. Balazs Esztegar LL.M.
Attorney-at-law Vienna


Piaristengasse 41/10
1080 Vienna, Austria
Tel. +43 1 997 4102
Fax +43 1 997 4102-99
office@esztegar.at

Register for Ultimate Beneficial Owners

The new Register for Beneficial Owners (UBO Register - Wirtschaftliche Eigentümer Registergesetz, WiEReG) took effect on 15th January 2018 and imposes a registration obligation for Austrian corporate entities and other legal entities regarding their ultimate beneficial owners (="real owner").

Therefore these entities have to register their beneficial owners at Statistics Austria. The registration has to be done electronically, appart from the company register ("Firmenbuch"). Subject of the registration are the beneficial owners, i.e. all natural persons that ultimately own or control a legal entity. Accordingly, the new regulation requires the registration of the "real owner" of a company, if the company is (fully or partially) owned by other than natural persons. The first registrations had to be done by 1 June 2018. Failure to register constitutes high fines and may end up in a tax fraud proceeding against the company's general managers.

To determine and identify the "real owner(s)" of the company you have to specify, which natural persons are behind the members of the company, that are not natural persons. Furthermore it is also important to determine, who directly hold an interest in the legal entity (direct beneficial owner). For this it is recommendable to create an organigram, that depicts the company's shareholders' hierarchy. At this point the type and the extent of the ownership are relevant as well.

Our office is pleased to be at your service concerning the registration.