Panic over the Register of Beneficial Owners in Montenegro

There is panic on Facebook about the need to register in the so-called register of beneficial owners (registr stvarnih vlasnika). What to do, how to act, what a nightmare…

Let me remind you that according to the change in the law, every owner of a company who owns at least 25% of the company’s capital must register in the mentioned register. This is a mandatory requirement, and failure to comply with the law threatens astronomical fines.

Guys, all you are required to do is to go to one website and register there. Honestly, I don’t see any big problem in going to the site and registering. So why all the fuss?

Yes, I agree, the registration is not completely simple — you need to have an electronic certificate for it. But, first, many of you already have it. And second, even if you don’t have a certificate yet, to get it, you only need to fill out two simple documents with data about your company and its director. What’s so difficult about that?

How to register in the Register of Beneficial Owners in Montenegro (registr stvarnih vlasnika)

The instruction is very simple:

Contact your accountant and get detailed instructions on how to get an electronic certificate and how to register in the register of beneficial owners. We sent this instruction immediately to all our clients who use our accounting services as soon as the information about the need to register appeared.
According to the received instruction, prepare documents and enter data into the registr stvarnih vlasnika. If you have the certificate, the procedure takes about 5 minutes. If you need to get a certificate first, your time will be about 1.5 hours.

As you can see, there is nothing scary or complicated about it.

Views of Different Accountants

Accountants reacted differently to the need to register in the register. The reactions of my colleagues can be roughly divided into several groups:

“Ah, a new law came out. Now all my clients will start asking questions about this. What to do? I need to quickly understand this and sign up for a webinar on the latest changes.” The organization that certifies accountants held two webinars on this issue: one lasted 5 hours and the other 2 hours. More than 300 accountants from Montenegro registered for these webinars. Note that access to such webinars is only for certified accountants. I already wrote why it is important to work only with certified accountants and avoid those without recognized education in Montenegro. This is one of the reasons: only certified accountants are always informed about legislative changes. After listening to 5+2 hours of webinars and realizing that tomorrow clients will start asking questions by the dozens, it is logical to create an instruction and send it to all clients without waiting for their questions. This is exactly what I did — I made the instruction and sent it to all my clients. I think many of the 300+ accountants who attended the webinars did the same.
“We have heard nothing and know nothing.” Probably this person does not have an accountant certificate and thus no access to legislative news, and understanding the law alone is not always easy. The discussed law is large and quite complex, with many new rules. Or maybe this accountant just had other matters and missed the webinars.
“We know there is a new law, and we have to register in the register of beneficial owners, but we won’t do anything yet, we will wait and see.” This logic is unclear, but I have heard this opinion too.
“You are all fools, it’s not clear what you are discussing, companies with a single founder are not affected, you don’t need to register in the register.” The idea that companies with one founder are not affected refers to the 2021 law, which is no longer valid because it was replaced by the 2023 law. The only advice here is to read the current law.

Dear friends,
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