How the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) is still finding ownership when 99% of companies have gone dark

A new report from the US Government Accountability Office (GAO) warns that a 2025 rule change stripped beneficial ownership reporting from more than 99 percent of US companies. That gap makes it harder to see who is behind a business, and it is the second time in just over a year that the GAO has raised the same concern. Its forensic investigators use primary-source legal entity data from OpenCorporates to keep tracing those connections anyway.