British Virgin Islands: An Overview
The British Virgin Islands is a leading offshore international business and finance centre recognised for its stable, innovative and business-friendly legal and regulatory enviornment. The year 2025 was one of progress and transition for the jurisdiction. In early 2025, the changes brought about by the 2024 amendments to the BVI Business Companies Act, 2004 (as amended) (the “BVIBC Act”) were implemented, and 2025 also saw increased approval of licensees as virtual asset service providers.
Economy
The territory’s tourism sector has continued its growth from the previous year, alongside the financial services sector. These two areas represent the main pillars of the BVI economy. The far-reaching tariff and immigration policies imposed by the United States dominated the international arena and had a global impact. Notwithstanding the international issues, the BVI saw a year-on-year increase in cruise ship arrivals, day trippers and yachting activities. Multiple daily direct flights from Miami to the BVI also reflect an increase in visitors to the territory for both business and pleasure.
The territory’s financial services sector continues to do well with respect to company incorporations, limited partnerships and investment funds, which supported an increase in investment fund managers, investment business licensees and trust business. At the end of Q4 2025, the number of active companies stood at 356,256, limited partnerships at 2,471, registered investment funds at 2,221, approved managers at 1,302 and licensed virtual assets service providers at 22.
BVI trusts remain attractive legal vehicles for succession planning, including the BVI’s sought-after VISTA trust and the widely used private trust company (PTC). Domestic real estate and banking activities experienced growth in the past 12 months, buoyed by slightly lower interest rates.
June 2025 marked the highly successful launch of the BVI’s inaugural Fintech on the Seas digital assets conference. The event brought together global leaders in fintech, digital assets and financial services from 17 countries, including founders, technologists, institutional investors and regulators, at the renowned Necker Island and Oil Nut Bay. The conference addressed opportunities from tokenisation and decentralised autonomous organisations (DAOs) to AI and digital currencies. BVI Finance’s annual Destination Digital Report was also presented during the conference, spotlighting a new generation of businesses using BVI structures. The now-annual conference is slated to return in June 2026.
Worldwide Corporate Transactions
As in previous years, BVI entities continue to be involved in significant fintech, capital markets, regulatory and M&A deals worldwide. BVI firms acted in high-value, complex and innovative transactions worth billions of dollars, including acquisitions, complex restructurings, initial public offerings and new fund launches. Transactions were concentrated in the technology, fintech and AI-driven sectors, underscoring the BVI’s appeal as a flexible and globally recognised jurisdiction.
Some noteworthy transactions include eToro Group Ltd’s listing on the NASDAQ, which achieved a valuation of approximately USD5.6 billion, Pitanium Limited’s successful initial public offering of 1,750,000 Class A ordinary shares via the NASDAQ, Basel Medical Group Ltd's initial public offering, also on the NASDAQ, and Mayflower Acquisition Limited’s initial public offering on the main market of the London Stock Exchange.
In the digital assets space, tokenisation and on-chain capital markets continued to gain traction in 2025. BVI structures were featured in a growing number of institutional-grade digital asset platforms and transactions, including the launch of Ondo Global Markets, an on-chain platform providing 24/7 tokenised access to US equities and exchange-traded funds (ETFs). Other launches included Mantle’s Index Four (MI4) – a BVI-domiciled tokenised investment fund – and VanEk’s creation of VBILL, one of the first fully tokenised investment funds approved in the BVI. The territory also featured related industry transactions including Echo’s USD375 million acquisition by Coinbase and the sale of a significant interest in the crypto derivatives exchange Deribit, one of the largest digital asset transactions to date.
Several of the year’s most notable cross-border transactions, such as the GBR5.2 billion disposal of Barchester Healthcare to Welltower, the largest care home transaction ever completed, featured BVI structures. Other high-profile deals included Prosus’ USD1.7 billion acquisition of Despegar.com and the sale of shares worth millions in a BVI tech company by a high-profile international technology entrepreneur.
Restructurings and Dispute Resolution
The BVI continued its role as a leading forum for complex restructurings, insolvencies and high-value disputes. Key matters included the USD3.8 billion restructuring of Digicel Group and the USD372 million restructuring of FTI Consulting. The jurisdiction also handled debt restructurings involving Country Garden and Kaisa Group.
In addition, the BVI saw high-value matters involving shipping and crypto-related entities, including Three Arrows Capital, Torque, Yield App and Globix, alongside the wind down of Bank of Asia.
Dispute resolution activity remained robust, with BVI courts issuing decisions on asset tracing, interim remedies, insolvency proceedings and creditor rights, reaffirming the BVI’s standing as a forum for complex cross-border disputes.
Legislative and Regulatory Developments
On the legislative front, the BVI Business Companies (Amendment) Act, 2024, which was enacted in September 2024, came fully into effect on 2 January 2025. The Act ushered in important changes to the BVI company law regime, including the private (non-public) filing of a company’s register of members and beneficial owners with the BVI Registrar of Corporate Affairs. It is important to note that these filings are non-public and that beneficial ownership information may only be accessed by competent authorities and law enforcement agencies in the lawful discharge of their duties. Filing exemptions are available for some types of entities. The BVI government also published its “legitimate interest” policy relating to the access of beneficial ownership information in certain limited scenarios.
The Virtual Assets Service Providers Act, 2022, commonly called the “VASP Act”, came into force on 1 February 2023. The Act continues to provide a forward-thinking regulatory framework for supervising virtual assets service providers. Virtual assets service provision saw its first set of approvals in 2024, including Portofino Technologies Global, a prominent cryptocurrency market maker known for its over-the-counter trading services for institutional clients. Portofino was approved to offer virtual asset services such as fiat-to-crypto exchange and exchange between various virtual assets. The trend continued into 2025, which saw several additional approvals (totalling 22 by the end of 2025).
International Compliance
Following the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s evaluation of the BVI in 2023, the resulting Mutual Evaluation Report was released in early 2024, and the BVI was placed on the increased monitoring list of the Financial Action Task Force (FATF) in mid-2025. Despite this, clients globally remained bullish on the BVI, and since that time the BVI has made tremendous progress in resolving the issue. This progress was acknowledged by the FATF at its Mexico plenary in February 2026, noting the BVI’s progress in terms of the strengthening of its AML/CFT supervision, improved public availability of corporate information, increased beneficial ownership transparency and greater public awareness of the potential misuse of legal persons.
The BVI government confirmed ongoing work in the identified areas by its National Action Plan, which is currently in the implementation phase. The BVI Financial Services Commission, which is responsible for regulating financial services within the territory, is also working to implement those recommended actions outlined in the Plan.
Global Contributions
The BVI continues to promote global capital flow and facilitate important transactions that would otherwise be very difficult, if not impossible. The jurisdiction remains significant in the global economy and offers clients practical corporate and trust structures for international business. Since the creation of the Ministry of Financial Services in 2023, with a minister dedicated to financial services, the government has been more focused on industry, which continued to grow and evolve throughout 2025.
As in previous years, BVI financial services sector participants, including lawyers, accountants, insolvency practitioners and corporate services professionals, use their significant skills and expertise to advise on and implement innovative, complex and high-value transactions for the global market.
Overall, the outlook for the BVI remains highly positive. Industry practitioners are confident that the territory will remain resilient in the face of global geopolitical and economic challenges, while making a meaningful contribution to the worldwide economy.