Maldives rated 'Largely Compliant' with international tax transparency standard

The Maldives has been rated “Largely Compliant” with the international standard on transparency and exchange of information for tax purposes, following a peer review by the Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes.

The review, published by the OECD on 3 November, assessed the Maldives' legal framework and its implementation of the Exchange of Information on Request (EOIR) standard.

The Global Forum found that the Maldives has strengthened transparency requirements in recent years, including establishing a central beneficial ownership register for companies and introducing requirements for legal entities to report beneficial ownership information to the tax administration.

However, the review also identified areas requiring further improvement, particularly around the accuracy and updating of beneficial ownership information.

Legal and beneficial ownership information received a “Partially Compliant” rating, while the availability of accounting information and banking information were both rated “Largely Compliant”.

The report noted that the Registrar of Businesses had received significant beneficial ownership information for 95% of companies. However, it said supervision of the accuracy, adequacy and currency of that information had not yet been fully established.

The Global Forum also recommended stronger measures to address risks associated with inactive companies and to ensure that relevant ownership and accounting records remain available for at least five years where an entity or information holder ceases to operate.

In other areas, the Maldives received “Compliant” ratings for the tax authority's access to information, taxpayer safeguards, exchange-of-information instruments, its international exchange network, confidentiality and related rights and safeguards.

The Maldives' international framework for exchanging tax information covers 156 jurisdictions, with exchange arrangements currently in force with 148 partners.

The review noted that the Maldives had not received any exchange-of-information requests during the assessment period, although it had sent a small number of requests to other jurisdictions. It recommended continued monitoring of the country's exchange-of-information arrangements as they are used in practice.

The assessment covered exchange-of-information activity from 1 October 2022 to 30 September 2025 and considered the Maldivian legal and regulatory framework in force as of 14 August 2026.

The Maldives joined the Global Forum in 2016. Its previous assessment in 2022 covered only the country's legal and regulatory framework due to limited practical experience with exchange of information at the time.