Art. 64 Trustee obligations | Anti-money laundering regulation (AMLR) | AML

This article sets out the core transparency obligations for trustees of express trusts and persons in equivalent positions in similar legal arrangements that are administered in, or connected to, a Member State.

It is the legal arrangement counterpart to Article 63, which covers the equivalent obligations for legal entities.

The article covers the full lifecycle of information management: what must be collected and held, when it must be reported to the central register, how it must be kept current, and what must be disclosed to obliged entities during customer due diligence.

It also addresses the obligations of others within the structure — such as beneficial owners and those in multi-layered control structures — to feed information up to the trustee.

A fallback mechanism is provided for situations where beneficial owners of party legal entities cannot be identified, requiring a formal statement and the details of senior managing officials instead.

Important points:

Trustees and equivalent persons must register beneficial ownership and basic information with the central register within 28 calendar days of the trust or arrangement being set up, and report any changes within the same timeframe, with at least annual verification that information held remains current.
Trustees and equivalent persons are required to disclose their status and provide beneficial ownership and asset information to obliged entities when customer due diligence measures are being applied.
All beneficial owners, agents, and parties within the control structure of the legal arrangement are required to provide trustees with all information and documentation necessary for trustees to meet their obligations under this Chapter.

1. In the case of any legal arrangement administered in a Member State or whose trustee or the person holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement resides or is established in a Member State, trustees and persons holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement shall obtain and hold the following information regarding the legal arrangement:
  1. basic information on the legal arrangement;
  2. adequate, accurate and up-to-date beneficial ownership information as provided under Article 62;
  3. where legal entities or legal arrangements are parties to the legal arrangement, basic information and beneficial ownership information on those legal entities and legal arrangements;
  4. information on any agent authorised to act on behalf of the legal arrangement or to take any action in relation to it, and on the obliged entities with which the trustee or person holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement enter into a business relationship on behalf of the legal arrangement.
2. The information referred to in the first subparagraph shall be maintained for 5 years after the involvement of the trustee or the person holding an equivalent position with the express trust or similar legal arrangement ceases to exist.
1. The trustee or the person holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement shall obtain and report to the central register beneficial ownership information and basic information on the legal arrangement without undue delay after the setting up of the express trust or similar legal arrangement and, in any case, within 28 calendar days thereof. The trustee or the person holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement shall ensure that any change of beneficial ownership or of the basic information on the legal arrangement is reported to the central register without undue delay, and in any case, within 28 calendar days thereof.
2. The trustee or the person holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement shall regularly verify that the information they hold over the legal arrangement pursuant to paragraph 1, first subparagraph, is updated. Such verification shall be performed at least annually, whether as a self-standing process or as part of other periodical processes.
1. The trustees or the persons holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement referred to in paragraph 1 shall disclose their status and provide the information on the beneficial owners and on the assets of the legal arrangements that are to be managed in the context of a business relationship or occasional transaction to obliged entities when the obliged entities are applying customer due diligence measures in accordance with Chapter III.
1. The beneficial owners of a legal arrangement other than the trustees or persons holding an equivalent position, its agents and the obliged entities servicing the legal arrangement, as well as any person and, in the case of legal arrangements, their trustees, who are part of the multi-layered control structure of the legal arrangement, shall provide the trustees or persons holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement with all the information and documentation necessary for the trustees or persons holding an equivalent position to comply with the requirements of this Chapter.
1. Trustees of an express trust and persons holding an equivalent position in a similar legal arrangement shall make the information collected pursuant to this Article available, upon request and without delay, to competent authorities.
1. In the case of legal arrangements whose parties are legal entities, where, after having exhausted all possible means of identification pursuant to Articles 51 to 57, no person is identified as beneficial owner of those legal entities, or where there is substantial and justified uncertainty that the persons identified are the beneficial owners, trustees of express trusts or persons in an equivalent position in similar legal arrangements shall keep records of the actions taken in order to identify their beneficial owners.
1. In the cases referred to in paragraph 6 of this Article, when providing beneficial ownership information in accordance with Article 20 of this Regulation and Article 10 of Directive (EU) 2024/1640, trustees of express trusts or persons in an equivalent position in similar legal arrangements shall provide the following:
  1. a statement that there is no beneficial owner or that the beneficial owners could not be determined, accompanied by a justification as to why it was not possible to determine the beneficial owner in accordance with Article 51 to 57 of this Regulation and what constitutes uncertainty about the ascertained information;
  2. the details of all natural persons who hold the position of senior managing officials in the legal entity that is party to the legal arrangement equivalent to the information required under Article 62(1), second subparagraph, point (a), of this Regulation.