FinCEN's final rule names homeowners associations, and ends the filing for good
FinCEN's final rule names homeowners associations, and ends the filing for good
2026-09-15 · Mississippi · Compliance
A Mississippi homeowners association incorporated under the Mississippi Nonprofit Corporation Act has nothing to file with FinCEN — no initial report, no updates, no change-of-director filings — and that is now a final rule rather than an interim one. The rule was published at 91 FR 52508 on August 14, 2026 and took effect the same day.1
What the rule does
The March 2025 interim final rule (90 FR 13688) “revised the Reporting Rule by removing the requirements for domestic entities and U.S. persons to report BOI,” deleting the definition of “domestic reporting company” formerly at 31 CFR 1010.380(c)(1)(i).
The August 2026 rule adopts that as final and goes further. It adds a new 31 CFR 1010.380(b)(5), “Special exemptions,” exempting reporting companies from reporting the beneficial ownership information of any U.S.-person beneficial owners or company applicants, and exempting U.S. persons from having to provide it. It removes paragraph (d)(4) and exempts U.S. persons from updating FinCEN-identifier information.
Only entities formed under foreign law and registered to do business in a U.S. state remain “reporting companies” — and even those need not report U.S.-person beneficial owners. FinCEN received 118 comment letters on the interim rule and rejected narrower approaches.
The preamble addresses HOAs by name
This is the detail that makes the rule worth reporting to associations rather than to corporate filers generally. Commenters asked FinCEN to write a targeted homeowners-association exemption. FinCEN answered that the blanket domestic exemption “obviates any need to create additional exemptions applicable to subcategories of U.S. entities, such as homeowners' associations.”
An agency naming your entity type in a final rule preamble is about as close to a direct answer as a category ever gets.
Why Mississippi associations were exposed in the first place
The original 2024 reporting rule carried 23 exemptions, and the tax-exempt exemption turned on § 501(c) status. Most Mississippi homeowners and condominium associations file under IRC § 528, the provision written specifically for residential associations — not under § 501(c).
That drafting choice put Mississippi associations squarely inside the reporting population. Through 2024, boards across the state were being told to collect directors' driver's licences and dates of birth and to file within deadlines that carried civil and criminal penalties. Volunteer directors were being asked to hand personal identity documents to a management company.
The § 528 problem is also why a targeted HOA exemption was requested: the category had been swept in by a definition that was never aimed at it.
The upshot for a Mississippi board now
Stop any filing process still running. Some management companies and law firms built BOI compliance calendars in 2024 and never dismantled them. There is nothing to file and nothing to update.
Deal with the identity documents already collected. This is the part boards are missing. An association that gathered directors' driver's licence images and dates of birth for a filing that no longer exists is holding sensitive personal data for no purpose. The options are destruction or return, and a record of which one answers that.
Do not rely on 2024-vintage guidance. Any memo, newsletter or checklist dated before March 2025 describes a regime that has been withdrawn twice over. Documents from that period are the main reason boards still believe they have an obligation.
The narrow exception, for completeness. The only Mississippi association that could still have any obligation is one formed under foreign — that is, non-U.S. — law and registered with the Mississippi Secretary of State. That is a vanishingly rare structure for a residential association, and even it reports nothing about U.S.-person directors.
What to watch next
The Corporate Transparency Act is still on the books; what has changed is the rule implementing it. A future administration could revisit the scope by rulemaking, and litigation over the statute has been running since 2024. Nothing in that affects an association's position today, and any change would come with notice and comment rather than arriving as a deadline.
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