UK Trust Registration Service and US Trusts

The UK Trust Registration Service (TRS) is a beneficial ownership register, not a tax return. The duty to register comes from the Money Laundering Regulations, so a trust can be required to register even where it owes no UK tax at all. That is the trap for American families: an ordinary US revocable living trust — the standard estate-planning vehicle drafted in almost every US law office — becomes registrable the moment its trustees acquire UK land.

Key takeaways

The obligation sits in regulation 45ZA of the Money Laundering, Terrorist Financing and Transfer of Funds (Information on the Payer) Regulations 2017 — which is why non-taxable trusts register too.
All UK express trusts are registrable unless excluded. For non-UK trusts there are two further gateways: acquiring an interest in UK land, and — only where at least one trustee is UK resident — a business relationship with a UK "relevant person".
The headline deadline is 90 days: from becoming registrable, and from the trustees becoming aware of a change. Penalties are not automatic — HMRC warns first, and £5,000 is available if the warning is ignored.
The register captures the settlor, the trustees, named beneficiaries, classes — and potential beneficiaries.
None of it changes the US analysis: a revocable trust is normally a grantor trust ignored for US income tax, and while it stays a domestic trust it is outside Forms 3520 and 3520-A.

This is general information, not advice; registrability turns on the trust's terms, its trustees' residence and what they have actually done.

What the TRS is, and what it is not

HMRC's manual is written for trustees, agents and "UK professionals and organisations who are defined as 'relevant persons' under the Money Laundering Regulations". The register is a record of who put money in, who looks after it and who can benefit. It is not a tax filing and creates no tax charge — a trust with no UK income, gains or inheritance tax event can be squarely in scope, and registering does not make a trust UK resident.

But the register bites beyond registration. Under HMRC's discrepancy reporting rules, before establishing a business relationship a relevant person is "required to check that the trust is registered", and where a material discrepancy cannot be resolved "they must report the discrepancy to HMRC". The UK bank or solicitor the trustees need in order to transact is also the party checking, and reporting, their entry.

Which trusts have to register

Regulation 45ZA creates three categories, restated in HMRC's manual at TRSM22010:

UK express trusts. "All UK express trusts are required to register on the Trust Registration Service (TRS)", subject to the exclusions — no UK land, business relationship or tax liability needed.
Non-UK express trusts with at least one UK-resident trustee. Registrable where the trustees acquire an interest in UK land; held UK land acquired before 6 October 2020 and still held it on 30 June 2026; or "enter into a business relationship with a UK relevant person".
Non-UK express trusts with no UK-resident trustee. Registrable on the land gateways only. HMRC is explicit that where no trustee is UK resident, the business relationship condition does not apply.

Separately, any trust with a liability to UK tax must register as a taxable trust, and the express-trust exclusions do not apply there.

The land gateway

Trustees acquire UK land, for this purpose, when one becomes registered as owner with HM Land Registry of a freehold or of a leasehold "granted for a term of more than 7 years from the date of the grant"; with the Land Register of Scotland as proprietor or tenant under a lease; or with the Land Registry of Northern Ireland of a freehold or a lease granted for more than 21 years.

The trustees must acquire the land directly. A trust holding shares in a company that owns the flat has not acquired an interest in land here — though it has other problems, the annual tax on enveloped dwellings among them.

The business relationship gateway

Where at least one trustee is UK resident, a non-UK trust must register "within 90 days of the commencement of the Business Relationship" — "a business, professional or commercial relationship between the trustees and a UK 'relevant person'" expected "to have an element of duration".

A relevant person is a UK-regulated business: banks and financial institutions, auditors, accountants, tax advisers, legal professionals, trust or company service providers, estate and letting agents, high value dealers, casinos, art market participators and cryptoasset businesses. So instructing a London solicitor can be the trigger, not just opening a bank account. Relationships in existence before 6 October 2020 do not bring a trust into scope.

How an American family trust ends up on a UK register

A US revocable living trust is an express trust — created deliberately, in writing — and it is non-UK. The family buys a house in the Cotswolds, and the solicitor registers the trustees as proprietors at HM Land Registry. That is an acquisition of an interest in UK land by trustees acting as trustees. The trust is registrable on the no-UK-trustee land gateway, and the clock starts.

Nothing here depends on the trust being taxable, on the settlor being UK resident, or on the trust being "offshore" in any pejorative sense. It is the most mainstream American estate-planning document there is, and it meets the test. The purchase side of the transaction is covered in buying a UK home as a US citizen.

Two variations matter. Add an adult child who has moved to London as co-trustee and the business relationship gateway opens too, so the trust can become registrable without touching UK property at all. Take a short lease instead of a long one and the land gateway may not be met.

The exclusions, and the ones that matter here

Schedule 3A carves out a long list, worked through at TRSM23000: trusts created on death, insurance pay-outs, employee share schemes, co-ownership of property, charities, UK registered pension schemes, trusts for disabled beneficiaries, pilot trusts, financial and commercial arrangements, public authorities, trusts imposed by legislation or court order, trusts on an EEA register and children's bank accounts. Three matter here.

Co-ownership. HMRC defines a co-ownership trust as "a trust of jointly held property where trustees and beneficiaries are the same persons", and excludes it. Joint tenancy or tenancy in common makes no difference, nor does the size of each share — but if trustees and beneficiaries are not identical, the exclusion goes. An American couple buying jointly in their own names are usually fine; the same couple buying through a family trust whose beneficiaries include children are not.

Trusts created on death. This is "a temporary exclusion for a two-year period following the death of the person who has died", for an express trust created by will holding only estate property. If the trust still exists two years later, "the trust is required to register from that point", with 90 days from the anniversary. A US revocable living trust is created in the settlor's lifetime, not on death, so the natural reading is that this exclusion does not rescue it when it becomes irrevocable on death — but HMRC's treatment of that pattern should be confirmed before relying on it.

EEA registered trusts. No help to a US trust, on no EEA register.

Deadlines

Non-taxable express trusts: "Since 6 October 2020, all registrable non-taxable express trusts must register within 90 days of becoming registrable."
Taxable trusts created on or after 6 April 2021: within 90 days of the trustees becoming liable to tax, or by 1 September 2022, whichever is later.
Taxable trusts created before 6 April 2021: by 31 January — or 5 October in some cases — following the end of the tax year in which the liability arose.
Keeping it current: for non-taxable trusts, details "must be kept updated within 90 days of the date that the trustees become aware of changes" to the trust details or beneficial ownership. Taxable trusts also declare annually by 31 January after each tax year in which a liability arises.

One live complication. Non-UK trusts that acquired UK land before 6 October 2020 and still held it at 30 June 2026 are brought into scope with a deadline of 1 September 2027 — but HMRC states these trusts "are not currently able to register due to changes to the IT system", with further guidance promised. Trustees there should document their attempts and re-check service availability, which may have moved since this was written.

Penalties: no automatic fine, but real exposure

HMRC's approach is more measured than the headline figure suggests: "no automatic penalties will be issued by HMRC if you register your trust late." Where HMRC becomes aware of a trust that missed its deadline it may send a warning letter; a penalty becomes a live prospect if the trustee then fails to register within that letter's deadline, or to explain why the trust is not registrable. "Penalties for non-compliance will be applied on a case-by-case basis," and where a trustee has failed to register a registrable trust "a £5,000 penalty may be charged", levied on the lead trustee. The update position mirrors it: "There will be no automatic penalty for failing to keep TRS up to date," with the same £5,000 exposure.

So the realistic risk is not a surprise fine but a stalled UK transaction, where a relevant person cannot obtain a Proof of Registration.

What goes on the register, and the privacy cost

For an individual settlor, HMRC requires full name, date of birth, date of death where the trust was set up after the settlor died, country of nationality, country of residence and mental capacity status. For dual nationals, "if one of those countries of nationality is the UK, trustees must select the UK and not any other country".

For individual beneficiaries: full name, date of birth, country of nationality, country of residence and mental capacity. A class is recorded by description, with individually identifiable people recorded as individuals instead. Crucially, potential beneficiaries must also be provided — HMRC notes these "may include individuals referred to as such in documents from the settlor", a direct route from a letter of wishes onto a government register. Trustees, and anyone with control over the trust, are captured too.

So a US family trust that registers hands HMRC a reasonably complete map of the family: who created the structure, who benefits, who might benefit, where they live and what passports they hold. That is not a reason to avoid registration — it is a reason to review the beneficiary class and the letter of wishes before registering.

Who can see it

Access is narrower than a company register. Beyond law enforcement and the relevant persons running their own checks, third parties come in through a Trust Data Request. On the legitimate interest route, "Requesters must demonstrate to HMRC that they have a 'legitimate interest' in the information they require to access" — in practice that they are "involved in an investigation into money laundering or terrorist financing", with reasonable grounds to suspect the trust is being used for those purposes. A second route, not limited to money laundering cases, covers trusts holding a controlling interest — more than 50% of shares or voting rights — in a non-EEA entity.

What is released is limited: for each beneficial owner, full name, month and year of birth, country of residence, nationality and "the nature and extent of the individual's beneficial interest". It "does not include the name of the trust itself", and no information on the trust's assets is released. The wider direction of travel is in beneficial ownership registers and cross-border transparency.

The US side: grantor trust status, and Forms 3520 and 3520-A

A US revocable living trust is normally a grantor trust: because the settlor keeps the power to revoke, its income is taxed to the settlor and the trust is ignored as a separate taxpayer. Nothing on the UK register alters that. The trust is at once transparent for US income tax and a registrable express trust for UK transparency purposes.

What would change the US picture is the trust becoming a foreign trust. The IRS instructions to Form 3520 state that "a foreign trust is any trust other than a domestic trust", and a domestic trust meets two tests: the court test, that "a court within the United States is able to exercise primary supervision over the administration of the trust", and the control test, that "one or more U.S. persons have the authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust". Appointing a UK-resident trustee with real decision-making power — the obvious response to owning an English house — can put the control test in play. Fail either and the trust is foreign:

Form 3520-A. "A foreign trust with a U.S. owner must file Form 3520-A," due "by the 15th day of the third month following the end of the trust's tax year". The US owner "is responsible for ensuring that the foreign trust files Form 3520-A and furnishes the required annual statements to its U.S. owners", and must file a substitute if it does not. Failure carries an initial penalty of the greater of $10,000 or 5% of the gross value of trust assets attributable to that owner.
Form 3520. Filed by US persons for reportable events, foreign trust ownership and certain large foreign gifts or bequests, generally due "by the 15th day of the 4th month following the end of the taxpayer's tax year", with an initial penalty "equal to the greater of $10,000" or an applicable value-based amount.

That asymmetry is the planning point. The UK obligation is triggered by land; the US obligation by trustee control. Solving the first by adding a UK trustee can create the second, far more expensive one — see foreign trusts and Form 3520 for US persons in the UK, and the reverse case in US trusts with UK resident beneficiaries.

Practical steps

1. Establish the trust's character on paper: express or not, UK or non-UK, and every trustee's residence today.

2. List what the trustees have acquired in the UK, in whose names, when, and on what title and lease term.

3. Test each gateway separately — land before 6 October 2020, land after, business relationship. They are independent.

4. Work through the Schedule 3A exclusions. Co-ownership and the two-year death exclusion do real work.

5. Date the trigger and count 90 days. If it has passed, register anyway — volunteering beats answering a warning letter.

6. Review the beneficiary class and letter of wishes first; then keep the 90-day update habit, and run the US analysis before changing the trustee board.

Common mistakes

Assuming no UK tax means no UK register. It is a money laundering obligation; non-taxable trusts register.
Assuming an American trust with American trustees is out of reach. The land gateway applies where no trustee is UK resident.
Missing the business relationship trigger. Instructing a UK solicitor can start a 90-day clock where any trustee is UK resident.
Treating registration as a one-off. The 90-day update rule is where most long-running failures happen.
Adding a UK trustee to fix the UK problem, and converting a domestic trust into a foreign one for US purposes.

⚠ Trust drafting and trusteeship are legal work

This article explains the regime so you can ask the right questions. It is not advice on any particular trust, and nothing here should be used to draft, amend or restructure a trust instrument, or to decide who should be a trustee — those are matters for qualified trust counsel in each jurisdiction. Accountants and tax advisers establish whether the gateways are met, prepare the registration and model the consequences on both sides.

Sources

MLR 2017, reg 45ZA and Register a trust as a trustee
TRSM22010, TRSM22020, TRSM24010, TRSM24020 — registrable trusts, UK land, relevant persons
TRSM23000, TRSM23020, TRSM23050 — exclusions
TRSM40010, TRSM80020, TRSM80030 — deadlines and penalties
TRSM32040, TRSM32050 — settlor and beneficiary information
TRSM60020, TRSM60050, TRSM70010 — data requests and discrepancy reporting
Instructions for Form 3520 and Form 3520-A — court and control tests, due dates, penalties

When to get help

If an American trust owns, or is about to own, anything in the UK, the useful work is short and factual: identify the gateways, date them, check the exclusions, and decide whether the trustee board should change — before it changes by accident. We do that analysis as US-UK tax specialists. Our reviewer is an IRS Enrolled Agent who is also ACCA-qualified, and signs off the work on both sides.

Frequently asked questions

Does a US revocable living trust have to register with HMRC?+

It can, and the trigger is usually UK property. A US revocable living trust is a non-UK express trust, so under regulation 45ZA of the Money Laundering Regulations 2017 it becomes registrable if the trustees, in that capacity, acquire an interest in UK land - even where every trustee is American. HMRC's manual at TRSM22020 treats that as happening when a trustee is registered as owner of a freehold, or of a leasehold granted for a term of more than seven years, at HM Land Registry. Registration is a transparency obligation and does not by itself create any UK tax liability. Whether a specific trust is registrable depends on its terms and facts.

Is the Trust Registration Service a tax return?+

No. The TRS is a beneficial ownership register that exists under the Money Laundering Regulations, and HMRC's manual describes it in terms of obligations owed by trustees, agents and UK 'relevant persons' under those regulations. That is why non-taxable trusts have to register as well as taxable ones. Registering does not make a trust UK resident and does not create a tax charge it did not already have. A trust with a UK tax liability has a separate obligation to register as a taxable trust, and for taxable trusts there is also an annual declaration by 31 January following the end of each tax year in which a liability arises.

What is the registration deadline?+

Ninety days, in most cases that matter here. HMRC's deadlines guidance states that since 6 October 2020 'all registrable non-taxable express trusts must register within 90 days of becoming registrable'. Taxable trusts created on or after 6 April 2021 register within 90 days of the trustees becoming liable to tax, or by 1 September 2022, whichever is later; taxable trusts created before 6 April 2021 follow a 31 January deadline (or 5 October in some cases) after the end of the relevant tax year. A non-UK trust entering a business relationship with a UK relevant person must register within 90 days of that relationship commencing.

How long do trustees have to report a change?+

Also 90 days. HMRC states that for non-taxable trusts the details 'must be kept updated within 90 days of the date that the trustees become aware of changes' to the trust details or the beneficial ownership. That covers a new or retiring trustee, a new beneficiary, a change of address, a change of country of residence and similar. This is where long-running compliance failures usually occur, because the registration itself gets done and then the register is never looked at again. Taxable trusts are subject to the same 90-day rule for changes, plus the annual declaration.

What is the penalty for failing to register?+

There is no automatic fine. HMRC's manual says plainly that 'no automatic penalties will be issued by HMRC if you register your trust late'. Where HMRC becomes aware of an unregistered trust it may send a warning letter to the trustee or agent; a penalty becomes a live prospect only if that letter is ignored or the trustee cannot explain why the trust is not registrable. HMRC says penalties 'will be applied on a case-by-case basis', and that where a trustee has failed to register a registrable trust 'a £5,000 penalty may be charged', levied on the lead trustee. The same approach, and the same £5,000 figure, applies to failing to keep the register up to date.

What information does HMRC require, and who can see it?+

For an individual settlor or beneficiary, HMRC requires full name, date of birth, country of nationality, country of residence and mental capacity status, with a date of death where relevant. Classes of beneficiaries are described, and potential beneficiaries must also be provided - HMRC notes these 'may include individuals referred to as such in documents from the settlor'. Access by third parties is limited. A Trust Data Request on the legitimate interest route requires the requester to show involvement in a money laundering or terrorist financing investigation, and what is released is only each beneficial owner's full name, month and year of birth, country of residence, nationality and the nature and extent of their interest - not the trust's name and not its assets.

Does registering with HMRC mean the trust has to file Form 3520 or 3520-A?+

No - the two systems are independent. A US revocable living trust is normally a grantor trust whose income is taxed to the settlor, and while it remains a domestic trust under the court and control tests it is outside the Form 3520 and 3520-A regime. Those forms apply to foreign trusts. The IRS instructions define a domestic trust as one where 'a court within the United States is able to exercise primary supervision over the administration of the trust' and 'one or more U.S. persons have the authority to control all substantial decisions of the trust'. UK registration changes neither test. What can change them is appointing a UK-resident trustee with real decision-making power.

Should we appoint a UK trustee because the trust owns UK property?+

That is exactly the decision to take slowly, with counsel on both sides. A UK-resident trustee may make UK administration easier, but it opens the business relationship gateway for TRS purposes and - more seriously - can put the US control test at risk. If the trust fails either the court test or the control test it becomes a foreign trust, and a foreign trust with a US owner must file Form 3520-A by the 15th day of the third month after its tax year end, with an initial penalty for failure of the greater of $10,000 or 5% of the gross value of trust assets attributable to that owner. Solving a 90-day registration question can create a permanent reporting burden.