Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO)
A natural person who ultimately owns or controls a legal entity, established through structured UBO determination.
By Noah Böker — Regulatory Strategy, Transparify
Last updated: Content is reviewed on a ~90-day cycle while AMLR implementation evolves through 2027.
Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO) means the natural person(s) who ultimately own or control a legal entity. Establishing a UBO requires UBO determination (assessment), not a mere label from a screening tool.
In professional practice, naming a UBO without documenting ownership-interest and/or control-via-other-means grounds is incomplete.
Transparify uses “Ultimate Beneficial Owner (UBO)” and “wirtschaftlicher Eigentümer” (DE) — never the outdated “wirtschaftlich Berechtigter” in user-facing German copy.
Related reading
Primary sources
- Regulation (EU) 2024/1624 (AMLR)Anti-Money Laundering Regulation — directly applicable from 10 July 2027.
- Geldwäschegesetz (GwG) — Germany