Compliance and filings

FATCA and CRS

Also called Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act, Common Reporting Standard.

Definition

FATCA (the US Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act) and CRS (the OECD Common Reporting Standard) are automatic tax information exchange regimes under which a fund treated as a financial institution must collect tax residency self-certifications from each investor and report certain account holders to its local tax authority, which passes the information to the investor's home jurisdiction.

Updated October 9, 2026Checked against our editorial standards

Example

A Delaware fund sets up a Cayman feeder for non-US LPs. The feeder is a reporting financial institution under both regimes: it registers with the IRS for a global intermediary identification number, collects self-certifications from its 30 investors, identifies three US persons for FATCA and twelve residents of CRS-participating countries, and files annual reports with the Cayman tax authority. The Delaware fund itself is a US withholding agent rather than a foreign financial institution: it collects a W-9 from each US investor and the correct W-8 from each non-US investor. The United States does not take part in CRS.

Confused with

KYC and AML. Those checks establish identity and source of funds. FATCA and CRS establish tax residency and reportable status. The documents overlap; the purposes and the regulators do not.

W-8BEN-E. The US withholding certificate for a non-US entity. Its FATCA status section covers FATCA only; CRS needs a separate self-certification, usually a form the administrator supplies.

In practice

The work lands on whoever runs the feeder: classifying each entity investor, chasing missing self-certifications, and catching changes in circumstance such as an LP moving country or an interest transferring. The penalty for a non-compliant institution includes withholding on US-source payments, so administrators treat a missing self-certification as a block on admission rather than a follow-up.

Related terms

KYC and AMLKYC (know your customer) and AML (anti-money-laundering) are the checks a fund performs on each prospective limited partner before accepting their subscription: verifying identity and beneficial ownership, screening against sanctions and politically exposed person lists, and documenting the source of funds, with records kept for audit and regulatory review.
Beneficial ownerA beneficial owner is the natural person who ultimately owns or controls an interest in a fund, directly or through one or more entities.
Feeder fundA feeder fund is a separate vehicle that raises capital from a particular group of investors and invests all of it in a main fund, the master fund, so that investors with different tax, regulatory or minimum-commitment needs can access the same portfolio through an entity suited to them.