If you onboard companies instead of individuals, a KYB checklist is the fastest way to know exactly what to ask for, in what order, and what proof you actually need before you let a new business customer transact. Know Your Business (KYB) is the corporate cousin of KYC, and the document list is longer, the sources are more fragmented, and the beneficial-owner rules trip up almost every team the first time they build a workflow.
This guide gives you the base KYB checklist that works across jurisdictions, then layers in the extra requirements for the US, UK, EU, and France, plus a risk-based tier so you don’t over-collect from low-risk customers or under-collect from high-risk ones.
The core KYB document checklist
Every KYB program, no matter the country or industry, needs proof of four things: the company exists, someone can legally act for it, real humans ultimately own it, and it isn’t on a sanctions list. The table below is the base set you should start from.
| # | Document | What it proves | How long it stays valid |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Certificate of incorporation or business registration extract | The entity legally exists | Refresh yearly or on material change |
| 2 | Proof of registered business address | Where the business operates | Last 3 months |
| 3 | Articles of association, bylaws, or operating agreement | Who is authorized to act for the company | Until amended |
| 4 | Shareholder registry or cap table | Who owns the company | Refresh at each material change |
| 5 | Ultimate beneficial owner (UBO) declaration with IDs | Who really controls the company | Yearly, or when ownership shifts |
| 6 | Director and officer list with government-issued IDs | Who signs and decides | Yearly |
| 7 | Proof of bank account ownership (voided check, RIB, bank letter) | Where money moves | Last 3 months |
| 8 | Latest financial statements or tax return | Financial standing | Most recent fiscal year |
| 9 | Operating license or industry-specific permit | Right to operate in a regulated sector | Until expiration date |
| 10 | Sanctions, PEP and adverse-media screening result | Risk scoring on the entity and each UBO | Refresh every 6-12 months |
That is the KYB checklist you build every workflow on top of. Everything below is a variation.
Ultimate beneficial owners: the part that trips everyone up
A UBO is any natural person who ultimately owns or controls the company, directly or indirectly. Most jurisdictions set the threshold at 25% ownership or voting rights, though some (Germany, France) also treat “significant influence” as ownership even below that line.
For every UBO you identify, you run a mini-KYC on the person:
- Government-issued photo ID (passport or national ID)
- Proof of home address, issued in the last three months
- Tax identification number
- Sanctions, PEP and adverse-media screening
- Ownership percentage and the corporate chain that gets you there
The trap: layered ownership. If Company A is owned by Company B, which is owned by three individuals, you have to trace the chain until you land on humans. Ask for the ownership diagram in the same step you ask for the shareholder registry, or you’ll be chasing it for weeks. Our KYC document checklist covers the individual-level document set in detail.
Jurisdiction-specific KYB requirements
The base KYB checklist is universal. What changes by country is which registries you can trust, which forms are mandatory, and what the regulator will ask for during an audit.
United States (FinCEN CDD Rule + Corporate Transparency Act)
- IRS EIN letter (SS-4 confirmation)
- Beneficial ownership information (BOI) report matching the FinCEN filing
- W-9 for the entity (see how to collect W-9 forms from vendors)
- State-level certificate of good standing
- OFAC screening on the entity and each UBO
- For customers of covered financial institutions, a completed Certification of Beneficial Owners form
United Kingdom (Money Laundering Regulations 2017)
- Companies House extract
- PSC (Persons with Significant Control) register entry
- HMRC UTR for the entity
- Confirmation statement filed in the last 12 months
- FCA authorization number if the customer is a regulated firm
European Union (AMLD5/AMLD6)
- Trade register extract from the national business registry
- Entry in the national UBO register (Handelsregister, RCS, KVK, etc.)
- VAT number with VIES validation
- GDPR-compliant consent for processing personal data on UBOs — see our guide on GDPR-compliant document collection
France (specific case)
France is one of the easiest jurisdictions to automate because most of the KYB set is already published by INSEE and INPI.
- KBIS extract (less than 3 months old)
- SIRET number with INSEE validation
- Statuts (articles of association)
- Registre des bénéficiaires effectifs (RBE) extract
- URSSAF vigilance certificate for subcontractors
- Attestation fiscale (tax compliance)
Superdocu fetches KBIS, SIRET, URSSAF and transport license data automatically when you enter a SIRET number, so a French KYB workflow can move from 10 uploads to 3 in a single step.
Risk-based KYB tiers
Regulators expect proportional due diligence. Collect the base set from everyone, then layer in enhanced checks for higher-risk customers. Below is the tiering most compliance teams settle on.
Low-risk KYB (simplified due diligence)
For established companies in low-risk sectors and low-risk jurisdictions.
- Business registration extract
- UBO declaration (self-attested)
- Sanctions screening on entity + UBOs
- Bank account proof
Standard KYB
The default for most B2B customers.
- Everything in low-risk, plus:
- IDs on all UBOs above 25%
- Director and officer list with IDs
- Articles of association
- Proof of business address
- Screening on adverse media
Enhanced KYB (EDD)
Trigger EDD when the customer is in a high-risk sector (crypto, gambling, arms, precious metals), a high-risk country, has PEP-linked UBOs, or shows a complex ownership structure.
- Everything in standard, plus:
- Source of funds documentation
- Source of wealth statement for UBOs
- Full corporate chain diagram to natural persons
- Financial statements (last 2 fiscal years)
- Reference letters from other regulated institutions
- Board resolution authorizing the business relationship
- Site visit or video verification for high-value onboarding
Where KYB workflows leak time
The document list itself is rarely the hard part. The friction comes from four places:
- Chasing UBOs across time zones. Every additional signer adds a round of back-and-forth. Solve it by letting the primary contact assign UBO uploads to specific email addresses inside the same workflow.
- Rejected documents with no clear reason. If your compliance analyst rejects a KBIS as “too old” but the contact doesn’t know what “too old” means, expect two more rounds. Reject with a specific reason string like “KBIS must be issued within the last 90 days.”
- Missing periodic refresh. A KYB file passed once is not a KYB file passed forever. Set expiration dates on the documents that decay (KBIS, bank statement, screening results) and let the system chase renewals for you — see our guide on document expiration tracking.
- No audit trail. When the regulator asks who approved what and when, you need timestamps on every decision, not a folder full of PDFs.
How to run a KYB workflow without a spreadsheet
Manual KYB usually looks like an email thread, a shared drive, and a Notion tracker. It works until you hit 30 active files at once, then it collapses.
A dedicated document collection platform lets you turn the KYB checklist into a repeatable workflow: one step for entity documents, one for UBOs (repeatable so the contact can add each owner in turn), one for financials, one for screening. Superdocu handles this pattern out of the box — you build the workflow once, invite the customer with a magic link, and they upload from a branded portal. You review, approve or reject with feedback, and the platform tracks who has done what.
If you’re comparing tools for this specific job, our overview of document collection best practices walks through what to look for. For adjacent workflows, the vendor onboarding checklist and vendor risk assessment checklist cover the procurement side of the same problem.
Frequently asked questions
What is a KYB checklist?
A KYB checklist is the set of documents and data points you need from a business customer to verify the entity, its beneficial owners, and its right to operate before you enter a business relationship. It typically includes the certificate of incorporation, articles of association, a UBO register, director IDs, proof of address, and sanctions screening.
What is the difference between KYC and KYB?
KYC (Know Your Customer) verifies individual customers, KYB (Know Your Business) verifies corporate customers. KYB includes entity-level documents like the business registration and articles of association, plus KYC on every beneficial owner above the ownership threshold.
Who is required to do KYB?
Any regulated firm that onboards business customers: banks, fintechs, payment providers, crypto exchanges, lenders, insurers, real estate brokers, accountants, law firms, and increasingly SaaS platforms with money-movement features. The obligation flows from AML regulations like the US Bank Secrecy Act, EU AMLD, UK MLR 2017, and equivalent laws in most other jurisdictions.
How often should a KYB file be refreshed?
Standard-risk customers should be reviewed at least every 3 years, enhanced-risk customers every 12 months, and low-risk customers every 5 years, with an event-driven refresh whenever ownership, control, or the risk profile changes materially.
Can KYB be fully automated?
Partly. Registry lookups (KBIS, Companies House, Handelsregister), sanctions screening, and document expiration tracking are highly automatable. Human review is still expected for UBO declarations, complex ownership structures, source-of-funds narratives, and any file that fails an automated check.
Building a KYB workflow that scales is not about collecting more documents — it is about collecting the right ones, in the right order, from the right people, and getting proof of the whole thing on record. If you want a workflow builder that ships with UBO steps, expiration tracking, automatic French registry lookups and a branded portal, start a free 7-day trial of Superdocu — no credit card required.