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GAO: federal awards generally do not require companies to name their real owners, and a 2025 Treasury rule exempted about 99 percent of the entities that once had to report

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A Government Accountability Office report dated August 31 and publicly released September 30 says the federal award process generally does not require companies to disclose the people who control them. GAO says a 2025 Treasury rule exempted about 99 percent of entities once required to report owners to a federal registry. It counts hundreds of billions of dollars in award categories it calls vulnerable to ownership-related fraud risk, which is not money lost, and lists no recommendations.

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The Government Accountability Office (GAO) says the federal award process generally does not require companies to disclose the people who own or control them. The report is dated August 31 and was publicly released September 30.

Why the owner matters

GAO calls the individuals who ultimately benefit from or control a company beneficial owners. It says registered owners in state records "may or may not be the beneficial owner."

GAO says illicit actors have hidden owners with stolen identities, shell companies and straw owners (people who own a company in name only). Citing Justice Department and IRS press releases, it describes three purported hospice owners who used stolen identities and defrauded Medicare of nearly $16 million. It also cites a June 2025 indictment alleging that a Russia-based criminal organization paid foreign nationals to own medical equipment companies and that people tied to it ultimately received $941 million.

What the records show

A 2006 transparency law requires an awardee to say whether another business owns it, not which individuals do. GAO found no central repository of beneficial-owner information on awardees. Three sources hold pieces:

  • SAM.gov, the General Services Administration's (GSA) registration database, shows the public only the ultimate parent company tied to an award, which GAO says is not necessarily the beneficial owner.
  • State registries: most do not require beneficial owners to be identified. D.C. and New York (for limited liability companies, from January 1, 2026) do.
  • FinCEN's registry, run by Treasury's Financial Crimes Enforcement Network under the Corporate Transparency Act (in effect since January 1, 2024). GAO says a March 26, 2025 interim final rule limited reporting to foreign companies registered to do business in the U.S., exempting domestic ones. GAO says that removed about 99 percent of the roughly 32.5 million entities previously required to report; an August 2026 final rule adopts all the changes. The report's text says about 124,000 remain; its footnote, and the earlier GAO report it cites, give about 20,000.

A fiscal 2021 defense law told GSA to add beneficial-owner information to its awardee database, to the extent practicable, for contracts or grants above $500,000. GAO says GSA has not done so. GSA told GAO in April 2026 it awaits rulemaking; the deadline to draft the rule was extended to at least September 2026.

The money in question

For October 1, 2024 through July 2, 2025, GAO totaled federal obligations in five categories it calls vulnerable to ownership-related fraud risk: $295.0 billion in contracts from agencies on its High-Risk List for contracting; $177.9 billion in set-aside contracts (reserved for businesses owned by qualifying people); $102.6 billion in contracts to limited liability companies and limited liability partnerships; $15.4 billion in contracts to foreign-owned businesses; and $8.5 billion in assistance to foreign entities. GAO says the categories overlap and should not be totaled.

Recommendations and limits

The report lists no recommendations. Agencies gave technical comments or none. The dollar figures are not money lost. GAO did not analyze FinCEN registry data; its examples are a nongeneralizable sample.

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