CARF for Companies, Trusts and Controlling Persons

Updated 17 October 2026

General information only, not tax advice. We are not HMRC and are not affiliated with it. Check GOV.UK and your platform. Last checked against GOV.UK: 17 October 2026. Anything marked expected should be re-checked. Examples use made-up figures. Do not enter personal identifiers (National Insurance number, UTR, name, date of birth) on this site. This page contains no affiliate links.

Short answer: GOV.UK says an entity user (for example a company, partnership, trust or charity) must give a cryptoasset service provider its legal business name, main business address, company registration number for UK companies, or tax identification number and country of issue for non-UK companies. It adds that some entities also need to give details of their controlling person. You must give these details to every provider you use, even non-UK ones, and inaccurate or missing details could bring a penalty of up to £300 for a UK provider (GOV.UK). In the Regulations, the £300 maximum for a user or controlling person applies only where failing to provide a valid self-certificate is deliberate or due to a failure to take reasonable care (regulation 13); where the user is a partnership or trust, the penalty falls on a partner or trustee (regulation 19).

What HMRC's manual says (IEIM8000435, read 17 October 2026)

• A user's information is reported if they are a reportable user: a user that is a reportable person.
• For an entity user, the provider checks whether the entity is reportable and whether it has controlling persons who are reportable.
• The provider must also check whether the entity has controlling persons who are reportable persons. It does not need to do so if the entity is an active entity (defined in Section IV D11 of the CARF rules) or an excluded person, such as a company whose shares are regularly traded on an established securities market, a governmental entity, an international organisation, a central bank, or most financial institutions. Where controlling persons are identified, the provider obtains self-certifications from them. The manual's examples use anti-money-laundering information to decide this.
• For a trust, HMRC's manual says controlling persons means the settlors, the trustees, the protectors, the beneficiaries or classes of beneficiaries, and any other natural person exercising ultimate effective control over the trust (IEIM8000435). The term is read consistently with the 2012 FATF Recommendations, as updated in June 2019, on virtual asset service providers.
• An entity with no tax residence (such as a partnership) is treated as resident where its place of effective management is (IEIM8000435).

What this means in practice (our reading)

If you run a company or a trust account, expect questions beyond the entity's name: what the entity does and who ultimately controls it. Collect the details before the platform asks (what exchanges ask).

Made-up example

A small family company opens a crypto account. The platform decides from its AML records that the company is not an active entity, so it asks each controlling person for a self-certification of tax residence.

Related

Penalties · Common mistakes · Key dates

FAQ

Does a sole trader count as an entity? GOV.UK lists companies, partnerships, trusts and charities; a sole trader's treatment is not stated on the page.

Who is an active entity? Defined in Section IV D11 of the CARF rules, which we did not read.

What we could not verify