The Common Reporting Standard now covers 126 jurisdictions that have signed the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement and automatically exchange financial account information with one another each year.1Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Signatories of the Multilateral Competent Authority Agreement on Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information and Intended First Information Exchange Date The list of CRS countries includes every European Union member state, most major economies, and nearly all significant offshore financial centers. The United States is the conspicuous exception.
Which Countries Currently Participate
As of early 2026, 126 jurisdictions are signed on, and the number keeps growing. Armenia completed its first exchange in September 2025. Cameroon, Mongolia, and Papua New Guinea are all scheduled to begin exchanging data in 2026.
The core of the network came in two waves. A group of 56 early adopters started exchanging data in September 2017. That group included all EU member states along with major offshore centers such as the British Virgin Islands, the Cayman Islands, and Jersey. A second wave followed in 2018 and brought in Switzerland, Singapore, and Hong Kong. Switzerland’s participation was significant because the country had long been synonymous with bank secrecy. Japan, Mexico, South Africa, Australia, and Canada joined during these initial waves and remain active.
Many offshore financial centers signed on early to avoid being labeled non-cooperative by the OECD’s Global Forum. Caribbean jurisdictions and English Channel islands hold enormous volumes of custodial and investment accounts for people who live elsewhere, and their participation closed some of the most heavily used gaps in cross-border tax enforcement.
Why the United States Is Not on the List
The most conspicuous absence from the CRS is the United States. Instead of joining the OECD’s multilateral system, the U.S. runs its own regime called the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act. FATCA requires foreign financial institutions worldwide to identify and report accounts held by U.S. persons directly to the IRS. Non-compliant institutions face a 30 percent withholding tax on certain U.S.-source payments, which gives FATCA leverage even without CRS membership.2U.S. Department of the Treasury. Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act
The critical difference is reciprocity. The IRS receives detailed account information from foreign institutions, but the U.S. does not share equivalent data back. Under FATCA’s intergovernmental agreements, the U.S. provides some information to partner countries, but not account balances or beneficial ownership details at the level the CRS requires. Congress would need to pass new legislation authorizing that data collection before the U.S. could offer full reciprocity.3Congress.gov. The Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) Critics in the European Union and elsewhere argue that this gap effectively makes the United States one of the world’s significant financial secrecy jurisdictions.
Other Countries That Do Not Participate
A number of developing nations also remain outside the CRS network. Some lack the administrative capacity or technical infrastructure to comply with the standard’s requirements. Others have not committed to a timeline. These jurisdictions may still share information through bilateral tax treaties or on-request arrangements, but they do not participate in the automated yearly transfers that make CRS effective.
The OECD’s Global Forum works to bring these jurisdictions in through training and technical support, and the number of participants has grown every year since 2017. Countries that stay outside face increasing pressure from trading partners and international financial institutions that prefer to operate within the CRS framework.
What Gets Reported About Accounts in a CRS Country
If you hold an account in a CRS country and are tax resident in another CRS country, the institution reports to its local tax authority, which then passes the data to your home country. The reports cover depository accounts at banks, custodial accounts at investment firms, and certain insurance contracts with a cash value.
For each reportable account, the institution provides the account holder’s full name, residential address, jurisdiction of tax residence, date and place of birth, and taxpayer identification number.4Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. Standard for Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information in Tax Matters The financial data depends on the account type. Custodial accounts trigger reports of total interest, dividends, and other income paid during the year, plus gross proceeds from selling or redeeming financial assets. Depository accounts trigger reports of total gross interest. Every report includes the year-end balance, or the fact of closure if the account was closed during the year.
One detail worth knowing: for joint accounts, the entire balance is attributed to each account holder separately. If two people share an account worth $500,000, each holder’s home country receives a report showing $500,000, not $250,000.
By 2022, this system was moving data on roughly 123 million financial accounts holding a combined EUR 12 trillion, and governments worldwide had identified an estimated EUR 107 billion in additional tax revenue as a direct result.5OECD. Tax Transparency and International Co-operation
What You Have to Do as an Account Holder
Your main obligation is completing a self-certification form when you open an account at a bank or investment firm in a CRS-participating jurisdiction. The form asks for your country of tax residence and your taxpayer identification number for each country where you are tax resident. On a joint account, each holder fills out a separate form.
This is not a one-time exercise. If your tax residency changes, you generally must notify the institution and provide an updated form within 30 to 90 days, depending on the institution’s requirements. Providing false information can trigger penalties, though the specific consequences are set by each jurisdiction’s domestic law rather than by the CRS itself.
For individuals, the real risk is not usually a CRS-specific fine but what happens when unreported income shows up in your home country’s tax records. Once your tax authority receives CRS data showing an offshore account you never disclosed, you face standard penalties for tax evasion or failure to report foreign income under your own country’s laws.
Coming Changes: Crypto and CRS 2.0
The original CRS was designed for traditional bank and investment accounts, and cryptocurrency slipped through the gaps. Two parallel updates take effect starting January 1, 2026, with first data exchanges expected in 2027.
The first is the Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework, a new standard specifically for crypto-asset service providers. Under the framework, these providers must report transactions where users exchange crypto for fiat currency, swap one crypto asset for another, or make transfers exceeding EUR 50,000 to wallets not associated with a regulated institution. As of early 2026, 48 jurisdictions have committed to implementing the framework on a common timeline.6Government of Jersey. Crypto-Asset Reporting Framework (CARF) and Expansion of the Common Reporting Standard (CRS)
The second update is a set of amendments to the CRS itself, sometimes called CRS 2.0. Electronic money products and central bank digital currencies now fall within the CRS definition of depository accounts. Derivatives referencing crypto assets and investment vehicles holding crypto are now classified as financial assets under the CRS, which closes the loophole that let investors gain crypto exposure through traditional financial products without triggering a report. Financial institutions must also indicate whether an account is a joint account and how many holders it has, whether a valid self-certification was obtained, and the type of financial account involved.7OECD. International Standards for Automatic Exchange of Information in Tax Matters
Crypto assets already reported under the new framework are excluded from CRS reporting to avoid duplication. By the time exchanges begin in 2027, the two systems together are designed to leave virtually no major asset class outside the reporting net.