What can public authorities in Europe see of your wealth today? And what will they be able to see from 2029? The answer lies in three legal acts, one feasibility study and a set of registers that already exist.
In short: a central EU asset register has not been decided. The European legislators have already set it aside once. At the same time, by 2029, anti-money laundering law is building exactly the infrastructure such a register would need, and the depth of recording that exists today is considerable. What is missing is not the technology. What is missing is a political decision.
What has been decided
The European anti-money laundering package entered into force in 2024 and applies from July 2027. It contains no asset register. The term does not appear once in the three legal acts adopted. What it does contain is something else, and in its effect something more remarkable:
Bank account registers are being connected across Europe. Every member state already keeps a central automated record of who controls which accounts. By 10 July 2029 these national systems will be linked to one another. They cover not only bank accounts but also securities accounts, crypto-asset accounts and safe deposit boxes.
Property data gets a single access point. Also by 10 July 2029, every member state must give the competent authorities direct, free access to information on property ownership, expressly including the natural persons behind it. The minimum content covers location, area, owner, encumbrances and the purchase price, together with the history of ownership and prices going back to July 2019.
Beneficial ownership registers are already connected. Who stands behind a company economically can be looked up across Europe.
Companies outside the EU that hold EU property must disclose their owners. Retroactively: anyone holding property in the EU through a company outside the EU must report the beneficial owner if the property was acquired since January 2014. The deadline is January 2028.
The UK, outside the EU, took this step earlier. Since 2022 an overseas entity that owns land in the UK must be on the Register of Overseas Entities at Companies House and name its beneficial owners, with full name, date of birth, nationality and address. That also applies retroactively: in England and Wales to land bought on or after 1 January 1999, in Scotland on or after 8 December 2014, in Northern Ireland on or after 5 September 2022.
What has not been decided
The EU-wide interconnection of property data is expressly not part of the law. All that is provided for is a report by the Commission by July 2032. Until then, the national access points remain.
A central asset register exists neither as a law nor as a proposal. Nor is there a register of valuables. What was decided is a duty to report to the financial intelligence unit when certain high-value goods are sold, for example vehicles from 250,000 euros and boats and aircraft from 7.5 million euros. That is a transaction report, not a register, and art is not on this list.
The EU cash limit of 10,000 euros also has a defined scope: it applies to trade, not to payments between private individuals.
From a Parliament idea to a study, and then to nothing
The origin lies not with the Commission but with the European Parliament, which initiated the examination of a European asset register through the budget in 2020 and 2021. In December 2021 the Commission awarded the contract to a consortium led by the Brussels research institute CEPS.
The feasibility study was completed in March 2024 and published in July 2024. It examined three scenarios: new national registers for individual types of asset followed by linking them, the mere interconnection of existing registers, and an actual central EU-wide asset register. Its findings named above all the operational and legal hurdles of such a register, in particular the interference with fundamental rights.
What happened next is decisive. The register was part of Parliament's negotiating mandate, and the legislators did not adopt it. The Commission confirmed this in writing in September 2024, in reply to a parliamentary question: the new framework does not provide for the creation of new asset registers, but relies on systematic transaction reports. Instead, a more targeted approach for a limited number of high-value goods was agreed.
At that point the subject was politically settled. It did not stay that way.
What came back in 2026
In April 2026 the Commission's Directorate-General for Taxation and Customs Union published a study on wealth taxation, including net wealth, capital and exit taxes. Manuscript March 2026, expressly a first edition.
It is a commissioned study by external institutes, not a position of the Commission. It carries the usual disclaimer that it reflects the views of its authors.
Its content is remarkable all the same. In the summary of only sixteen pages, the call for comprehensive wealth registers appears four times. It states that comprehensive wealth registers, third-party reporting, digitalisation and consistent enforcement are indispensable complements to a wealth tax. Elsewhere, high-quality registers, extensive third-party reporting, robust enforcement and specialised units for wealthy individuals are described as necessary conditions for effective wealth taxation in open economies.
On exit taxation the paper is just as clear: it serves first and foremost to protect the domestic capital gains tax base, and international mobility responses are often overestimated.
The sentence that carries the most weight, however, does not come from the authors but from the Commission itself. Its notice of publication says the study underlines, in line with earlier Commission analyses, the importance of an effective exchange of information on beneficial owners, on property and on the recording of wealth.
That is not the announcement of a register. It is the confirmation of a direction.
What is already recorded today
| Recording today | What it shows |
|---|---|
| National bank account registers in the EU | Who controls which accounts |
| Automatic exchange of information (CRS) | Balance at year end, interest, dividends and sale proceeds of accounts abroad, reported to your home tax authority |
| Beneficial ownership registers | Who stands behind a company |
| Land register of England and Wales | Owner, last sale price and mortgage of a property, open to anyone for £7 |
| UK Register of Overseas Entities | The beneficial owners of overseas entities holding UK land |
Under the automatic exchange of information, foreign banks report the balance at year end as well as interest, dividend and sale proceeds to the tax authority of your country of residence every year, for UK residents to HMRC. There is no minimum threshold for private individuals. More than 110 states take part. The USA does not.
Two limits of this exchange are fixed in the rules. Directly held property falls outside it, but only as long as it is not financed with debt. And commodity contracts count expressly as financial assets: metal accounts and metal derivatives at a financial institution can therefore be reported. Physical metal in a safe deposit box falls outside, because a safe deposit box is not a financial account. That is a property of the form of custody, not of the country. How to hold precious metals correctly we cover in the section on precious metals.
For crypto assets the situation has just changed. Since January 2026 the European reporting obligation for crypto service providers has applied; the first reporting year is 2026 and the first exchange takes place in 2027. The UK runs the same timetable under the Cryptoasset Reporting Framework: UK providers have collected the data since 1 January 2026, and the first report is due by 31 May 2027. Reported are identity, tax number and, for each crypto asset, the aggregated amounts and the number of transactions. Wallet addresses are not reported, and whoever holds their own coins without a service provider triggers no report. Switzerland, Singapore and the Emirates only join in 2028, the USA in 2029.
And one point that affects more people in practice than anything else: at the latest on death, an almost complete picture emerges. To find out whether inheritance tax is due, the money, property and possessions of the estate have to be valued, and if tax is owed, the value has to be reported to HMRC within one year on form IHT400.
The gap that 2029 closes
How an authority finds the property of a person has so far been a national matter, organised differently in every member state, through land registers, tax offices and notaries.
With the single access point by July 2029, that changes in every member state at once: direct access for the competent authorities, with owner, purchase price and history. Not through an asset register, but through anti-money laundering law.
The UK took a different route. Its land register in England and Wales is public: anyone can download the title register of a property, and with it the owner and the last price paid. For overseas companies holding UK land, the Register of Overseas Entities adds the people behind them.
Looking across the border
Austria has run a central bank account register since 2016. It contains no account balances either. In return Austria has a rule of its own: if the tax authority looks into it, the person concerned is informed.
Switzerland has no bank account register, and its introduction was expressly examined and rejected in the legislative process. In return, it requires every resident to file a complete annual list of all securities, claims and debts, in other words full disclosure of financial wealth to its own tax authority. And since 2023 its authorities have been able to search nationwide for the plots of land belonging to a person.
Set side by side, this shows: recording is no EU speciality, and a jurisdiction outside the EU can be among the most transparent towards its own administration. A location is never automatically protection.
What this means for you in practice
The sober balance looks like this:
Visible today: in the EU, who controls which accounts. Your account balances abroad at year end. Your stakes in companies. Your property, in the UK on a public register. From 2027, your crypto holdings at service providers. On death, practically everything that is held in custody.
Not visible: what happens in the accounts, without a separate step. Assets held physically outside the financial system. Self-custodied crypto assets without a service provider. And, until 2029, the bringing together of all this in the EU into a single query.
From this follows no panic but one sober consequence: protection that depends on not being found does not hold. Perhaps that calculation worked in 1995. Today it does not, and from July 2029 the interconnected registers will be in place.
What holds is the opposite: a structure that stands up even when it is fully known. Accounts outside the EU work on this principle: they protect because they sit in another legal order, not because they are hidden. Which structures we use for this, from the foundation-style Limited (Company Limited by Guarantee) to the Wyoming LLC, is set out under protective structures.
The connection to the bigger picture is obvious: a register is not an end in itself. It is the precondition for being able to levy a charge on wealth.
The next step
The honest answer: not everyone needs a structure because of this. For someone who rents their home and holds a modest portfolio, it would be effort without return, and we say so when that is the case.
But if you hold property, a business or wealth in seven figures, there is one number you should know: how much of it is within reach in an emergency. A personal consultation works this out with you, including for more complex cases with several assets or countries.
The register has not been decided. The infrastructure is being built. The difference between these two sentences is exactly the time you have left.
Frequently asked questions about the EU asset register
Is the EU asset register coming?
It has not been decided. It was part of the European Parliament's negotiating mandate for the anti-money laundering package, and the legislators did not adopt it. The Commission confirmed in writing in 2024 that the new framework does not provide for new asset registers. A feasibility study and political declarations of intent are not law.
Do I have to report jewellery, art or cars?
No. No register of valuables exists in any legal text. What was decided is a report to the financial intelligence unit when certain high-value goods are sold, for example vehicles from 250,000 euros and boats and aircraft from 7.5 million euros. Art is not on this list.
Can authorities see my account balances?
For accounts abroad, yes: through the automatic exchange of information the balance at year end is reported to the tax authority of your country of residence, for UK residents to HMRC, with no minimum threshold for private individuals. The national account registers in the EU record who controls which accounts.
What changes in 2029?
By July 2029 the national bank account registers will be connected across Europe, including securities accounts, crypto accounts and safe deposit boxes. In addition, every member state must give the authorities a single access point to property data, with the purchase price and the history of ownership and prices going back to July 2019. An EU-wide interconnection of property data, on the other hand, has not been decided.
Does a move to Switzerland or to Austria protect me?
Not automatically. Austria has kept a central bank account register since 2016. Switzerland requires a complete annual list of all securities, claims and debts, and since 2023 has allowed its authorities to search nationwide for the plots of land belonging to a person. Both states take part in the automatic exchange of information. A change of location works through tax law and the legal system, not through invisibility.