Not every change to trust law arrives with a Budget speech attached. On 30 June 2026 the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026 came into force, rewriting parts of the Trust Registration Service regime with very little fanfare. The changes are, on balance, helpful — some trusts can come off the register altogether, and executors get considerably more breathing room. But they also pull a group of overseas structures into scope for the first time. If you have trusts on your books, this is a review worth doing now rather than at the next filing deadline.

Some Trusts Can Now Come Off the Register

The most welcome change is a general de minimis exclusion for genuinely small trusts. The conditions are cumulative, and all must be met: the trust has no interest in land in the UK, is not liable to the relevant UK taxes, holds no assets of appreciable worth above £2,000 in total, has never held property worth more than £10,000 since it was created, and has income of no more than £5,000 a year. Only the first trust on which a settlor claims the exclusion qualifies, so this is not a route to fragmenting a larger arrangement. Trusts already registered that meet the conditions can be removed. For anyone maintaining a portfolio of small, dormant or long-forgotten arrangements, that is a real administrative saving.

A smaller simplification sits alongside it. A liability to stamp duty reserve tax no longer, on its own, makes a trust a taxable trust for registration purposes.

Trusts Arising on Death Have Two Years

The second change matters most in day-to-day practice. Trusts that come into being on a death — under a will or on intestacy, by deed of variation, by statute, or where co-ownership of property comes to an end — now share a single two-year window. Wind the trust up inside it and no registration is needed at all; let it run on and the trust becomes registrable. Deeds of variation in particular previously had only 90 days, which was an easy deadline to miss while an estate was still being valued. Aligning everything at two years removes a trap that caught a good number of otherwise careful executors.

Non-UK Trusts Holding UK Land Are Newly in Scope

The change running the other way affects offshore structures. A non-UK trust that acquired an interest in UK land before 6 October 2020 and still holds it is now registrable, even where there are no UK trustees and no UK tax liability. That reaches a substantial population of Jersey and Guernsey property unit trusts and similar vehicles which had sat outside the regime purely because of when they happened to buy. There is a transitional deadline of 1 September 2027, which sounds generous until you consider how long it can take to assemble beneficial ownership information across an offshore structure. There is also a practical wrinkle worth knowing about: HMRC has confirmed the Trust Registration Service cannot yet accept these registrations at all. The obligation is running; the ability to discharge it is not here yet.

The Task Is a Review, Not a Filing

None of this is difficult in isolation. The difficulty is that it cuts in three directions at once, and the right answer for any given trust turns on facts you may not have looked at in years — when land was acquired, what the trust has actually held since inception, whether a variation was executed during an administration. Penalties remain modest, and HMRC has said it will not charge a penalty for an inadvertent failure put right promptly, though a deliberate failure to register can attract up to £5,000. The bigger risk is not the penalty. It is discovering the position late, when a transaction or an estate is already in motion.

If you would like a second pair of eyes over which of your trusts are now in, out, or newly on the clock, get in touch and I’d be happy to talk through any review you may need.

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This article is general information only and does not constitute legal or tax advice specific to any particular circumstances. It reflects the Trust Registration Service rules as amended with effect from 30 June 2026 by the Money Laundering and Terrorist Financing (Amendment) Regulations 2026 (SI 2026/621), and the position as at September 2026. Please get in touch if you would like to talk through how any of this applies to you or your client.