Beneficial Ownership Register in Mauritius

A beneficial ownership register is the company's own record of the natural person who ultimately owns or controls it. In Mauritius, the duty sits in section 91 of the Companies Act 2001 and applies to every company, not only to groups with complex holding chains. The register is a working document: it has to be accurate on any given day, not just at year end.

This page covers the beneficial ownership register in Mauritius from the company's side: the content of the register, the written declaration, the filing triggers and how long records must be kept. For the question of who qualifies as a beneficial owner in the first place, see who counts as a beneficial owner.

What the register is, and what it is not

Two different records are easy to confuse.

• The company's register. A separate register kept by the company itself, alongside its other statutory registers.
• The Registrar's register. The Registrar of Companies maintains a Beneficial Ownership Register of its own, fed by the information companies file.

The Companies Act, as updated to 15 May 2026, makes the Registrar's register accessible to all competent authorities and to other prescribed public authorities. It does not describe that register as a public one. Anyone looking for a "UBO register Mauritius" that can be searched like a company name should therefore not assume open access; the position depends on the law as it stands when you ask.

The core duty: identify at all times

Under section 91(3A), as updated on 15 May 2026, a Mauritian company must at all times identify its beneficial owner and, where relevant, any nominee. It must then record them in a register kept separately from the other registers.

The company is the one under the obligation. Shareholders, directors and advisers help, but a missing or stale entry is the company's problem.

Who is a beneficial owner

In outline, the beneficial owner is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls the company, or on whose behalf a transaction is carried out. Ownership or control may be direct or indirect: through shares above a prescribed percentage, through voting rights, through another ownership interest, or through control by other means.

The definition was changed by Act 10/2024 (Government Gazette No. 77 of 25 July 2024). The earlier wording of section 91 used 25% of voting rights as its marker. Treat that as the former definition and check the current text before applying any percentage to a real structure. A holding chain with several layers usually needs a worked analysis; our page on beneficial owner identification goes through the logic.

What must be recorded

For each beneficial owner and each nominee identified, the register must carry the following.

The last row matters in practice. A bare name is not enough: the register must show how the person comes to be the ultimate owner, which usually means a short diagram or a table of the holding chain. See the structure example below for the idea.

A simple holding chain in the register

The register entry for the individual would carry the personal details above, and the scheme would explain why that person is treated as the ultimate owner.

The written declaration

Since the Finance Act 2025 (Act No. 18 of 2025, Gazette of 9 August 2025), the company must make sure its identification of the beneficial owner includes a written declaration from the beneficial owner. Companies incorporated before the rule came into force had to comply by 30 June 2026 at the latest. That date has now passed, so for an older company the declaration should already be on file.

Three practical points follow.

1. The declaration comes from the person. A note from the company secretary or a spreadsheet kept by an adviser does not replace it.
2. The company must keep a record of its identification steps. That includes the declaration itself.
3. The beneficial owner must tell the company of any change in status. The company should build this expectation into its onboarding of shareholders and remind them once a year.

If the declaration is missing for a long-standing company, treat that as a gap to close now, not at the next annual filing. Where the situation is unclear, the next step is an analysis by a qualified adviser, who can look at the actual shareholding.

When the register must be updated and filed

The Companies Act requires beneficial ownership information to be filed through CBRIS, the Registrar's online system, at defined moments. Information is filed:

• at incorporation;
• with the annual return;
• on any share transfer or share issue.

For a shareholding change or a share issue, the beneficial ownership information must reach the Registrar within 14 days of the entry or change in the share register. The clock starts with the share register entry, so the share register itself has to be updated promptly. Delay in one record becomes delay in the other.

Accuracy and availability

Separately from the filing triggers, the company must make sure that any register or information required on beneficial owners is accurate, up to date and available without delay to the competent authorities on request. In other words, the register must be ready to be produced, not reconstructed after the request arrives.

Retention: how long to keep the information

Two different retention rules meet here.

• Companies Act, section 91. The share register must be kept for at least 7 years after the transaction concerned. When a company ceases business, its last directors keep the beneficial ownership information for at least 7 years.
• FIAMLA, section 17F. Customer due diligence records, including identity documents of clients and beneficial owners, must be kept for at least 7 years after the end of the business relationship. Transaction records are kept for 7 years after the transaction, and copies of suspicious transaction reports for at least 7 years after filing.

The second rule is for entities that are themselves reporting persons, such as a company service provider. The FIAMLA schedule lists company service providers among the professions covered, with the Registrar of Companies as regulatory body. For an ordinary trading company, the practical consequence is on the other side of the table: when you open a bank account or instruct a service provider, expect requests for your beneficial owner's documents, and expect the provider to apply its own KYC checks on corporate clients. For the wider framework, see AML/CFT compliance for Mauritian companies.

A sensible habit is to keep the declaration, the identity evidence and the dated ownership scheme in one folder per company, and to keep superseded versions rather than overwriting them. Our guide to company records and retention covers the wider filing system.

What happens if the register is neglected

The consequences come from two directions.

Company law. The Registrar may strike a company off the register on several grounds listed in section 309(1) of the Companies Act. They include failing to file the annual return and failing to comply with the filing of beneficial ownership information. Striking off is not a minor administrative event for an operating company, since it affects its capacity to act and to hold assets. The general picture is set out in penalties for non-compliance in Mauritius.

Anti-money laundering law. Under FIAMLA, a reporting person, or its officer, employee or agent, who knowingly or without reasonable excuse fails to comply with sections 17 to 17G, destroys a required record, or facilitates a transaction under a false identity, faces a fine of up to Rs 10 million and imprisonment of up to 5 years. This applies to reporting persons, so it bears most directly on service providers and regulated businesses. The risk for an ordinary company is indirect but real: a provider that cannot complete its due diligence will decline or end the relationship. More on this in penalties for failing anti-money laundering duties.

Checklist for a Mauritian company

• The register exists and is kept separately from the other registers
• Each beneficial owner is recorded with full name, residential address, national identity card or passport number and nationality
• Any nominee is recorded where relevant
• The ownership scheme shows how the ultimate beneficial owner is reached
• A written declaration from each beneficial owner is on file
• The company's record of its identification steps is dated and complete
• Shareholders know they must notify any change in status
• Share transfers and issues trigger an immediate update of the share register and the beneficial ownership information
• Information is filed through CBRIS at incorporation, with the annual return and on share changes
• The register can be produced without delay on request from a competent authority

The annual compliance checklist shows where this review sits in the yearly cycle, and the compliance calendar helps place it next to the annual return.

Points to check against current guidance

The Corporate and Business Registration Department (CBRD) lists on its guidelines page a document titled "BO Guidance – Identification of Beneficial Owners under the Companies Act 2001", dated 5 October 2026. It was published after the base date of the research behind this page, and its detailed content has not been reviewed here. Before finalising an identification exercise, read that guidance directly; it may refine how the Registrar expects companies to approach the analysis.

If your structure is layered, involves nominees or spans several jurisdictions, the answer depends on the facts. A FSC-licensed corporate service provider (Management Licence) can carry out the analysis, and you can send a request through the site form if you want it relayed to such a provider.