How to find a beneficial owner without a public register

People search “how to find the beneficial owner of a company” when a tax practice is asked for a beneficial owner and finds there is no public register to search. Checked against AUSTRAC's page on ownership and control on 4 October 2026. This is general information, not legal advice. This page does not reproduce that guidance. Why a future register still would not replace the file is beneficial ownership register versus CDD now. The collection steps are how to perform beneficial ownership checks. The sector map is /tranche-2.

There is no lookup that ends the file

A tax practice searching how to find the beneficial owner of a company usually wants a register, a login, and a name. That register is not the tool this file gets to use. You ask the customer who ultimately owns 25 percent or more, and who controls the company by other means, and you follow holdings through any company in the middle until the answer is a natural person.

The customer is a source, not a spectator. If they will not explain a holding company, the chain is unfinished. You do not guess a director into the blank to make the form look done.

• Ask ownership and control separately. A percentage answer does not close the control question.
• Treat a company in the middle as a step. It is not the beneficial owner you record in place of the people behind it.
• Use the extract as a check on the story. It shows officeholders and share information the extract actually contains. It does not print ultimate owners.
• Stop at individuals. The program tells you which of those individuals you verify.

What you open, in order

The order is the customer's account of the chain, the company records that support it, then the individuals. Reversing that order is how a firm prints an extract, sees two directors, and files them as beneficial owners without asking who owns the shares.

Where the search page stops

This page is how you look when there is no public register to finish the job. It is not the legal test of ownership and control. That test is what is a beneficial owner?.

An extract compared with the beneficial owner is a different page, ASIC extract versus the beneficial owner. This page does not replay that comparison.

What the client pays

On FreeAML the firm suite is A$0. The firm emails the client a link. Verification is client-pays. On the public list a personal KYC check is A$20 and a company or trust KYB check is A$40. Use KYB when the customer is a company or a trust. Looking up a company is not the same fee as verifying each individual at the end of the chain. Confirm the live amounts on FreeAML pricing. FreeAML does not certify that you found every beneficial owner or replace the questions you put to the customer.

Frequently Asked Questions