How do I find the ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) of a company?
Start with the company’s national register: some countries publish beneficial owners, such as the UK’s free PSC register, while many EU registers restricted public access after the Court of Justice of the EU’s November 2022 ruling and now ask for a legitimate interest. Where no public register helps, ask the company for an ownership chart down to the natural persons and corroborate each layer with the registry records of the intermediate companies. Under EU anti-money-laundering rules, holding more than 25% of the shares or voting rights is an indication of ownership, but control by other means counts too.
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How to check it manually
- Pull the company’s registry record and its shareholders, from the register or the latest filed annual return or accounts.
- For each corporate shareholder, pull that company’s record in its own country’s register, and repeat until you reach natural persons.
- Check the beneficial ownership register of each country where it is open to you. In the UK, the PSC register on Companies House is public and free; elsewhere, access rules differ and many changed after 2022.
- Ask the counterparty for an ownership chart and a declaration of beneficial owners, and compare it with what the registers show.
- Look for warning signs: circular ownership, nominee directors or shareholders, trusts or foundations whose beneficiaries are not disclosed, and layers in jurisdictions that publish little.
- Screen each beneficial owner against sanctions and PEP sources, and record the chart, the sources and the date.
What it tells you
- Who is declared as owning or controlling the company, and through which route.
- Where the registers and the counterparty’s declaration disagree, which is itself a finding.
What it doesn’t tell you
- Verified truth: most beneficial ownership data is declared by the company, not proven by the register.
- Owners in countries that do not publish ownership, or whose registers you cannot access.
- Arrangements that are not recorded anywhere, such as undisclosed nominee agreements.
How SONAR automates it
SONAR reports the owners that registers publish, for example the Companies House PSC snapshot for UK companies and the Äriregister open data for Estonian companies, and screens each one against the sanctions lists and the PEP dataset. If a register does not publish owners, the report says so instead of guessing.
SONAR is a due-diligence tool for checking vendors, partners, resellers and suppliers. It compiles public-record data. It is not a regulated AML / KYC provider, does not verify identity documents, and is not legal advice.
You can try it on 2 companies a month for free, no card needed; every report includes a receipt for each source it used.
Frequently asked questions
Is a UK PSC the same as a UBO?
They are close but not identical. A person with significant control (PSC) holds more than 25% of shares or voting rights, can appoint or remove a majority of the board, or has significant influence or control. The PSC register can also list a “relevant legal entity”, a company that is itself the owner, in which case you follow it to the people behind it.
Why can’t I see beneficial owners in some EU registers any more?
On 22 November 2022, in joined cases C-37/20 and C-601/20, the Court of Justice of the EU ruled invalid the rule that gave any member of the public access to beneficial ownership information. Several member states then restricted public access, often to people who can show a legitimate interest.
What if nobody owns more than 25%?
Ownership through other means of control still counts. Under the EU rules, if no beneficial owner can be identified, the company records its senior managing official instead, which tells you who runs it but not who owns it.
Official sources
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