All these organisations are obliged to declare their “Ultimate Beneficial Owner” in what is known as the UBO register held by the Federal Public Service Finance. Initial registration before 30 September 2019 was obligatory.
Every year, vzw’s need to confirm the information in the UBO register is correct. The deadline is August 31st.
Why?
The law is intended to prevent people with malicious intentions from using a business, foundation or other legal entity as a front for activities such as money-laundering or financing terrorism.
That is why all non-profit organisations (as well as foundations and companies) need to register all their potential ‘beneficial owners’ officially in an online database.
Declaring UBOs is obligatory. Failing to do so will lead to fines for the directors or board members of your organisation.
Who is an Ultimate Beneficiary Owner?
For non-profit organisations, the Ultimate Beneficiary Owners or UBOs are:
- the members of the board of directors (Raad van bestuur);
- the day-to-day managers (Dagelijks bestuur);
- the persons authorised to represent the organisation;
- the natural persons for whose benefit the non-profit was founded (if applicable)
These can be described as a ‘group of people’, for example a non-profit founded to support young choreographers can describe its UBOs as ‘young choreographers’. It may be that you have nothing to fill in here, if your organisation was not founded to benefit the environment, for example, rather than natural persons. - all other persons with a say in the non-profit organisation
In theory, the government can already extract the details of directors and board members, day-to-day managers and persons authorised to represent the organisation (categories 1, 2 and 3) from another database, specifically the CBE or Crossroads Bank for Enterprises (KBO in Dutch). However, these details need to be confirmed again in the UBO register.
What information is required?
You will need to enter the following details of all your Ultimate Beneficiary Owners in the register:
- Surname and first name
- Date of birth
- Nationality/nationalities
- Full residential address
- Date when s/he became an UBO
- National registration number, social security number or another means of identification in the country where the UBO has citizenship
- Category/categories of UBO to which s/he belongs (see above)
How does it work?
1. Check whether the information in the CBE is correct.
Use this link to find out which directors and representatives of your organisation are recorded in the CBE.
(If this information is not correct, you will need to resubmit the correct data at the registry of the commercial court. Find out more about this procedure on Scwitch).
2. Log into the online application to add UBOs.
If you are authorised to do so for your organisation, you can log into the UBO application at the MyMinFin portal. You can do this with an e-ID or the app It’s Me.
Once you have logged in, you will see the next steps to take in the guide to the UBO application for non-profit organisations.
The UBOs listed in the CBE are very easy to add to the UBO register.
When?
The deadline for the initial registration in the UBO register was 30 September 2019. Penalties may be imposed from 2020 onwards on non-profits that have not complied with the requirement.
After the initial registration, the non-profit organisation or foundation needs to keep the UBO register up to date, for example by declaring changes of director. Decide who will do this in your organisation.
Even if there are no changes in the board, a vzw is obliged to confirm the information in the UBO is correct. The deadline is August 31st 2021.
Further details
Read more about the UBO registration for non-profits at Scwitch.
See the User manual “wettelijke vertegenwoordiger – vzw” at the FPS Finance’s UBO site.
The FPS Finance has also issued an extensive FAQ about the UBO register.