Business Registers in the Marshall Islands: the IRI Corporate Registry

Overview

Company records for the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) live with one corporate registry, run by International Registries, Inc., or IRI. IRI has administered the RMI Maritime and Corporate Registries since 1990 under an agreement with the government, and it works out of offices in Reston, London, Hamburg, Piraeus, Dubai, Hong Kong, Singapore, and beyond. There is a single registry for the whole entity population, IRI is the practical way into it, and it runs a real-time public Entity Search.

The Marshall Islands operates one of the largest ship registries in the world and has been an offshore corporate centre for decades. It uses the US dollar, charges no tax on offshore income, and bases its corporate statute, the Business Corporations Act, on Delaware law. The thing to understand for KYB is confidentiality. The Entity Search confirms that a company exists and returns its core details, but it will not hand you the names of directors, officers, shareholders, or beneficial owners, because none of that sits on a public register. Those details stay with the entity's registered agent and go to the authorities only under legal process or an exchange-of-information request. In practice, the people behind a Marshall Islands company are usually not visible from public sources.

Official Registers

IRI Corporate Registry (Entity Search)

IRI keeps the corporate register and opens it up through an online Entity Search that returns live results from the Registrar's database at register-iri.com. You can search by entity name or by entity number, the unique identifier assigned when an entity is formed. Because the registry sorts entities by legal form, a search by name has to run across its several categories: corporations, limited liability companies, limited and general partnerships, foreign maritime entities, and registered foreign entities.

A search gives you the name, the entity number, the date the entity came into existence, the current status, and any documents and amendments filed publicly. What it will not give you is the inside of the company. Directors, officers, shareholders, and beneficial owners are not open to public inspection, and financial accounts are not filed for the public either. A free Non-Resident Entity Report confirms the entity's particulars directly from the register.

Registered Agent and Beneficial Ownership

Every non-resident entity has to keep a registered agent in the Marshall Islands. For non-resident domestic entities that agent is The Trust Company of the Marshall Islands, Inc., an IRI affiliate, and the agent holds the ownership and control information. Beneficial ownership is filed with the agent, kept confidential, and released only to competent authorities under legal process or international exchange, while entities also have to maintain a current beneficial ownership register at their registered office. Since none of this is published, it is the main gap to plan around when you diligence a Marshall Islands entity.

The regime has tightened over time. The 2019 amendments to the Business Corporations Act abolished bearer shares and strengthened the beneficial ownership rules, which moved the RMI closer to international transparency standards even as the public register stayed confidentiality-first. On top of that, every Marshall Islands company files an annual Economic Substance Notification with the registry, stating whether it claims a tax-resident-elsewhere exemption or falls under the reduced or full substance test. That filing is a compliance step rather than a public disclosure of who owns the company.

Registration and Publication Requirements

Non-Resident Domestic Corporations (IBCs)

The Non-Resident Domestic Corporation, or NRDC, is the RMI's answer to the International Business Corporation and its best-known offshore vehicle. It is flexible and tax-free, blocked only from a short list of activities such as banking, insurance, trust, and gaming, and from doing business with Marshall Islands residents. Corporate entities can serve as directors, officers, and shareholders, and nominees are allowed, so the individuals ultimately behind an NRDC are usually not something the register will reveal. None of those names go to the Registrar for public record.

Limited Liability Companies

The Limited Liability Company, formed under the RMI Limited Liability Company Act, is the common alternative to the corporation. Like the NRDC, it publishes nothing about its members or managers, whose details stay with the registered agent.

DAO LLCs

The Marshall Islands stands out for one recent move. On 25 November 2022 it became the first sovereign jurisdiction to recognise a decentralised autonomous organisation, a DAO, as a registered legal entity, structured as a DAO LLC. The DAO Amendment Act 2023 and the DAO Regulations 2024 refined the framework, and MIDAO acts as the designated registrar facilitator. By 2026 more than 300 DAOs had registered, among them the governance structures of several large DeFi protocols. For anyone running KYB on a crypto or DeFi structure this is the entity type to watch, because a Marshall Islands DAO LLC gives an on-chain organisation a recognised legal wrapper while keeping the same confidential public register as the country's other entities.

Partnerships

The RMI provides for general partnerships and limited partnerships under its Revised Partnership Act and Limited Partnership Act. They register with IRI by type, and partner details are held privately rather than published.

Foreign Maritime Entities and Foreign Companies

A Foreign Maritime Entity, or FME, is a company formed somewhere else that qualifies to own RMI-flagged vessels, which ties back to the country's role as a major flag state. A company incorporated elsewhere can also register in the RMI as a foreign entity. Either way the entity stays under its home law, so the data you can get locally is limited.

Summary

With Topograph

Topograph pulls Marshall Islands company data from the IRI corporate registry.

Available Data

Company Profile

• Legal name with the entity number
• Entity type, such as non-resident domestic corporation, limited liability company, or partnership, with a standardized English category
• Status and the date the entity came into existence
• The registered agent recorded for the entity

Search

• Lookup by exact entity number, and search by name across the registry's entity categories. Results stream in as each category returns, then get de-duplicated by entity number.

Legal Representatives and Shareholders

• Directors, officers, shareholders, and members are not on the public register and are generally not available. Corporate nominees are common, and ultimate beneficial owners are not published.

Available Documents

Director, shareholder, and beneficial ownership details stay with the registered agent rather than the public register. So for most Marshall Islands entities, the DAO LLCs included, the people behind a company are not something you can retrieve from public sources.

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