The third quarter of 2026 was a defining one for compliance in the Cayman Islands.
The Cayman Islands Monetary Authority’s (“CIMA”) anti-money laundering rule (“AML”) and sanctions rule came into force on September 18, turning key obligations from guidance into enforceable requirements, and the Islands formally entered the assessment phase of the Caribbean Financial Action Task Force’s 5th round mutual evaluation.
Together, these developments make it more important than ever for firms to show that their controls work in practice.
This edition summarises the changes that matter most. These include the new independent AML audit, governance and sanctions requirements, the updated FAQs, and the first AML returns for restricted and private trust companies. We also cover the closure of the Department for International Tax Cooperation portal and the move to common reporting standard (“CRS”) Extensible Markup Language (“XML”) Schema v3.0, the warning notice to non-compliant directors, and the general registry fee increases taking effect on January 1, 2027.
