The Good news is still are the list of some 43 nations that don’t participate in CRS automatic exchange of tax information according to OECD as of 18 May 2022. By not exchanging tax information, these countries will offer you maximum banking privacy.
Gone all the days where there was private Swiss bank accounts. It is important to understand the difference between ‘banking privacy’ and ‘banking secrecy’. Today only few countries offer banking privacy and this list is constantly shrinking every year.
Non-CRS List
Algeria, Armenia, Belarus, Benin, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Burkina Faso, Cabo Verde, Cambodia, Cameroon, Chad, Congo (Rep. of the), Côte d’Ivoire, Djibouti, Dominican Republic, Egypt, El Salvador, Eswatini, Gabon, Guatemala, Guinea, Guyana, Haiti, Honduras, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Mali, Mauritania, Mongolia, Namibia, Niger, North Macedonia, Palau, Papua New Guinea, Paraguay, Philippines, Senegal, Serbia, Tanzania, Togo, Uzbekistan, VietNam.
The list is frequently updated by OECD here
What is CRS?
In 2014 the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) has published a global Standard for the Automatic Exchange of Financial Account Information. The so called Common Reporting Standard (CRS) essentially constitutes a regulatory reporting requirement for Financial Institutions seated in participating jurisdictions (currently more than 100 jurisdictions) and pursues the aim to avoid tax evasion.
