Most members of the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) have agreed to establish a framework for exchanging information on real estate. This was reported by the official OECD portal.
How the international real estate information exchange system is being created
Representatives of a group of 26 OECD member countries and jurisdictions on 4 December 2025 issued a joint statement on international exchange of real estate information.
The authors of the statement emphasised that in recent years, international tax cooperation has intensified sharply worldwide, particularly in the exchange of fiscal information. This is aimed at ensuring compliance with tax legislation in offshore zones and overcoming attempts to conceal financial reporting.
An important component of this activity is ensuring transparency through the automatic exchange of information on financial assets and crypto-assets, including via the Common Reporting Standard and the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework.
However, despite undeniable successes in the automatic exchange of fiscal information, according to the authors of the statement, there is still no mechanism that allows jurisdictions to exchange information on non-financial assets, particularly real estate.
They emphasised that property ownership and transactions often have a cross-border nature. Therefore, in their view, mechanisms to ensure tax authorities’ access to relevant information need to be improved.
OECD members believe that today it is necessary to establish an international system for exchanging information both on the real estate itself and on the income derived from it. In this regard, a Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Readily Available Information on Immovable Property (IPI MCAA) was concluded. The text of the document was developed within the framework of the OECD’s work.
As the authors of the statement note, the broad implementation of the practices set out in the Agreement is an important step towards ensuring tax transparency with respect to non-financial assets.
This will strengthen our ability to monitor and enforce tax laws, as well as combat tax evasion, which undermines public revenues and unfairly shifts the tax burden onto compliant taxpayers.
- the statement reads.
The procedures for information exchange will be implemented gradually. The system is expected to be fully operational around 2029 or 2030.
The authors of the statement encourage other countries to join this initiative as part of collective efforts “to promote transparency, fairness, and efficiency in global taxation.”
Originally, the initiators of the new system were Belgium, Brazil, Chile, Costa Rica, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Korea, Lithuania, Malta, New Zealand, Norway, Peru, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom, and Gibraltar. Indonesia later joined them. Today, the OECD has a total of 38 member countries.
Why a new international real estate information exchange system is needed
The OECD issued a statement in support of its members’ initiative, emphasising that it welcomes the intention to implement a new international system for the automatic exchange of information on offshore real estate.
This event marks a significant expansion of global tax transparency, extending automatic reporting not only to financial accounts and crypto-assets, but also to real estate, transactions, and related income.
- the Organization’s statement reads.
The new system is based on the OECD’s already established architecture for the automatic exchange of information on financial accounts, crypto-assets, and transactions on digital platforms. The Organisation emphasises that this will fill a long-standing gap in cross-border tax reporting. Initially, the system will contain information on the owner, the value of the property, associated transactions, and rental income.
This commitment by 26 jurisdictions marks an important step forward in our collective efforts to combat tax evasion and enhance transparency in global taxation… By extending automatic exchange to real estate, jurisdictions help shed light on an area that has historically been opaque and challenging for tax authorities in terms of cross-border oversight. We look forward to welcoming other interested jurisdictions in the future to join this important initiative and contribute to a stronger and more transparent international tax system.
- said Manal Corwin, Director of the OECD Centre for Tax Policy and Administration.
The practice of hiding assets and businesses abroad has existed since antiquity. For merchants, it was a way to evade taxes or ensure security from malicious actors; for criminals and corrupt officials, it was a tool for laundering illicit funds.
From around the mid-20th century, governments of developed countries began taking measures to control the ultimate owners of businesses for effective taxation. Against the backdrop of decolonisation, many young independent states and autonomous overseas territories of European powers, due to challenging economic conditions, began offering offshore services to businesses.
They allowed businessmen from developed or resource-rich countries to register companies under zero or minimal taxation, provided they paid standardized registration fees and charges.
At the same time, offshore jurisdictions carefully protected corporate and financial secrecy, refusing to provide authorities in the countries where the companies actually operated with information about their real owners. However, by the end of the 20th century, active efforts were underway within the UN, OECD, and other organizations to combat money laundering and ensure financial transparency at the international level.
Due to the threat of sanctions or being included in “black” and “grey” lists, many offshore jurisdictions were forced to limit corporate secrecy, disclose information about company beneficiaries and transactions. However, real estate remained a “loophole” for those attempting to hide their assets.
It allowed expensive properties to be “hidden” behind shell companies and conduct business that was difficult to detect by financial monitoring, such as renting out real estate. If the new OECD system for exchanging information is widely adopted, hiding data on “shadow” income will become much more difficult.
What is a land registry?
In our video we explain the definition of a land registry, its purpose, contents and how you can use it in legal proceedings.
If you need to check somebody's immovable property, Schmidt&Schmidt will gladly assist you.
We offer extracts from the land registries of more than 60 countries all around the globe. The original extract can be sent to you by mail or as a pdf-file via e-mail. Besides that, land registry extracts can be authenticated with an apostille.
How we can help?
When you need to obtain information about the existence of real estate and its owners abroad, the services of Schmidt & Schmidt are indispensable. With us, you can order extracts from real estate registers in more than 100 countries, including data on owners and transaction history.
