Sanctions Evasion Reference

Secrecy jurisdiction

A jurisdiction whose company, banking or trust law limits the information available about ownership and control to foreign authorities and counterparties.

also known as

offshore financial centre

reviewed

2026-08-20

The term describes an effect rather than a formal legal category. What matters in practice is a combination of features: no public register of beneficial ownership, permitted nominee and bearer arrangements, corporate directors, minimal filing obligations, and slow or conditional cooperation with foreign requests for information.

The picture changes constantly as registers open and close, so the useful analytical question is never “is this a secrecy jurisdiction” but “what specifically can and cannot be established about a company registered here, and how long does it take”.

Where this term is used

  • What is a front company? — A front company is a business that trades normally but exists largely to hide another party's involvement in its transactions. The real activity is the cover; the concealed party is the point.
  • What is a professional enabler? — A lawyer, accountant, formation agent or broker whose services are what makes a concealment structure work, and whose repeated involvement across unconnected clients is itself the evidence.
  • What is shell company layering? — Layering is the use of successive companies in different jurisdictions between an asset and its owner, so that no single register, filing or payment record shows the connection between them.

Related terms

  • Shell company — A registered company with no significant operations, assets or employees, used to hold assets or to sit in a chain of ownership.
  • Layering — Inserting successive intermediate parties, transactions or jurisdictions between an asset and its owner so that the connection cannot be established from any single record.
  • Beneficial owner — The natural person who ultimately owns or controls an entity, or on whose behalf a transaction is conducted, regardless of whose name appears on the register.

Sources

  1. Concealment of Beneficial Ownership. Financial Action Task Force and Egmont Group, 2018.
  2. Offshore Leaks Database. International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, 2026.

All glossary terms