FinCEN permanently exempts US entities — your board has nothing to file
FinCEN permanently exempts US entities — your board has nothing to file
2026-09-15 · New Hampshire · Compliance
What happened. FinCEN issued a final rule, announced August 11, 2026 and effective August 14, 2026, that permanently removes the beneficial-ownership information reporting requirement for entities created in the United States.1 It finalizes the interim final rule of March 2025 that had first suspended the obligation.
What the rule says
Treasury's announcement states that the rule "permanently removes the requirement for U.S. companies and U.S. persons to report beneficial ownership information to FinCEN under the Corporate Transparency Act."1
FinCEN's own guidance puts it in terms of who is now outside the regime: "all entities created in the United States…and their beneficial owners are now exempt from the requirement to report beneficial ownership information…under the Corporate Transparency Act," and "Reporting companies do not need to report BOI for U.S. person beneficial owners or U.S. person company applicants."2
One category survives. Treasury: "Under the final rule, foreign entities that are reporting companies will still be required to report beneficial ownership information for foreign individuals." Treasury also describes "[d]eletion of previously reported data reasonably identified as belonging to U.S. persons" — so filings already made by domestic entities are being removed rather than retained.
Why this reached association boards at all
A New Hampshire condominium or homeowners association is almost always incorporated — typically as a voluntary corporation under RSA 292, sometimes under RSA 293-A. That made it, on the face of the 2021 statute, a "reporting company," and it made its directors "beneficial owners" exercising substantial control. In 2024 that produced a wave of board packets, management-company advisories and law-firm alerts warning of a per-day penalty for a missed filing and a 30-day clock on every change in board composition.
What it changes operationally
For a New Hampshire association, three separate obligations disappear, and it is worth naming them individually because management agreements and board calendars still carry all three.
The initial report is gone. An association that never filed has no exposure. There is no late filing to make and no voluntary disclosure to consider.
The 30-day update on board turnover is gone. This was the one that actually created recurring work: every annual meeting that seated a new director, every mid-term resignation and appointment, triggered a corrected filing. That obligation no longer exists.
The penalty exposure is gone. The civil and criminal penalties attached to the reporting requirement have nothing left to attach to for a domestic entity.
The affirmative step worth taking is housekeeping rather than compliance. Management agreements signed or renewed in 2024 and 2025 frequently assign the BOI filing to the manager, sometimes for a fee, and sometimes with an indemnity running back to the association. Those clauses now describe work that cannot be performed. A board renewing a management contract should strike them rather than leave a fee attached to a nullity.
A distinction worth keeping straight
The exemption turns on where the entity was created, not on what it does or how small it is. A New Hampshire association incorporated in New Hampshire is an entity "created in the United States" and is therefore outside the regime entirely — it does not need to qualify for any of the older exemptions that boards spent 2024 arguing about, such as the large-operating-company test or the tax-exempt-entity test.
The surviving obligation for foreign-formed reporting companies as to their foreign beneficial owners will essentially never describe a New Hampshire association. It is not a residual risk a board needs to analyze.
What to watch next
The Corporate Transparency Act itself is still on the books; what changed is the rule implementing it. A future administration could attempt to restore domestic reporting by rulemaking, and litigation over the statute has been running since 2024. Neither is a reason for a board to keep a filing calendar open now.
The more immediate thing to watch is the secondary market for stale advice. Board handbooks, manager onboarding packets and association legal-compliance checklists written in 2024 still carry the filing as a live duty, and they will keep circulating. A board that finds the task on its annual calendar should delete it rather than research it again.
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