Prime Highlights:
- 26 jurisdictions, including the UK, France, Germany, and South Africa, will automatically exchange information on overseas property to improve cross-border tax reporting.
- The initiative will give tax authorities a clearer view of property ownership, values, transactions, and rental income, helping reduce hidden assets and untaxed income.
Key Facts:
- The first exchanges of information are expected to begin in 2029, with additional countries likely to join in the future.
- No new reporting rules or checks will be added, allowing countries to participate without costly legal or administrative changes.
Background:
In a major push to strengthen tax transparency, 26 jurisdictions have confirmed plans to automatically exchange readily available information on immovable property beginning in 2029 or 2030. The initiative, launched under the OECD’s Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Readily Available Information on Immovable Property (IPI MCAA), brings together countries including Belgium, Brazil, France, Germany, Greece, Indonesia, Ireland, Italy, South Africa, Spain, Sweden and the UK.
The new framework extends the OECD’s existing Common Reporting Standard (CRS) structure, which already governs automatic exchange of financial account data, crypto-asset information and digital platform transactions. By including property information in the system, countries want to fix a long-standing gap in cross-border tax reporting and give tax authorities a clearer view of who owns property abroad.
The OECD says tax authorities often struggle to see what property non-residents own because reporting rules differ greatly from one country to another. This has created opportunities for individuals to under-report or hide assets through overseas real estate. Recent studies show that ownership of property across borders has increased in recent years, and much of it is often not fully reported, causing worries about hidden assets and unpaid taxes.
The automatic exchange will share key details like who owns the property, its value, past transactions, and rental income. This information is already available in national systems such as land registries and tax databases. The agreement won’t add new reporting rules, so countries won’t face extra legal or administrative costs.
The OECD says this step will help tax authorities see if money used to buy property abroad was declared correctly and if the income from it is reported properly. Officials describe the initiative as a significant step toward illuminating an area that has long been difficult for regulators to monitor.
With the first exchanges expected to begin in 2029, the OECD hopes that additional countries will join the agreement in the coming years, further strengthening global cooperation on tax and property transparency.
