The Corporate Transparency Act has taken another turn, but this one should bring some welcome certainty for U.S. businesses and their lawyers.

In an earlier Lawyers Mutual update, we reported that the Financial Crimes Enforcement Network (FinCEN) and the Treasury Department had suspended enforcement of the Corporate Transparency Act (CTA) against U.S. citizens and domestic reporting companies. FinCEN issued an interim rule in March 2025 exempting domestic companies and U.S. persons from the CTA’s beneficial ownership information (BOI) reporting requirements while it worked toward a final rule.

That final rule has now arrived.

On August 11, 2026, FinCEN issued a final rule making the exemption for domestic companies permanent and further narrowing the CTA’s reporting requirements.

Under the final rule, all entities created in the United States are permanently exempt from filing initial, updated, or corrected BOI reports. This means that U.S. corporations, limited liability companies, and other domestic entities that were originally subject to the CTA no longer have any BOI reporting obligation. Companies that previously filed reports with FinCEN do not need to take any further action.

The final rule also provides additional relief for U.S. persons. U.S. persons who obtained FinCEN identifiers are no longer required to update or correct the information associated with those identifiers. Perhaps more significantly, FinCEN announced that it will delete previously submitted information that it reasonably identifies as belonging to U.S. persons, including information submitted by beneficial owners, company applicants, and FinCEN identifier holders.

The CTA is not entirely gone, however. Reporting requirements remain for certain entities formed under the laws of foreign countries that are registered to do business in the United States. Those foreign reporting companies generally must report information concerning their non-U.S. beneficial owners, although the final rule provides additional exemptions and eliminates certain reporting requirements involving U.S. persons.

For most North Carolina lawyers and their business clients, the takeaway is straightforward: domestic companies are permanently exempt from the CTA’s beneficial ownership reporting requirements.

After years of changing deadlines, court challenges, injunctions, enforcement suspensions, and temporary rules, FinCEN’s final rule provides some much-needed certainty for U.S. businesses and the lawyers who advise them.