The Slovak Public Sector Partner Register (RPVS), established by Act No. 315/2016 Coll. effective as of February 1, 2017, is often cited in an international context as a pioneering solution in the area of transparency regarding the ownership of companies doing business with the state. It was preceded by the register of ultimate beneficial owners at the Public Procurement Office, which had been in operation since 2015 for companies participating in public procurement.
The RPVS is not just a list of company names.
At its core is the obligation to identify and disclose the beneficial owner (BO)—the actual natural person who stands behind the company, controls it, or profits from it. The law imposes a registration obligation on both natural and legal persons entering into a contractual relationship with the state above the financial thresholds set by law.
Unlike most European equivalents, which at that time were limited to recording formal owners, the RPVS required the disclosure of the actual ownership structure, including trusts, holding companies, and foreign intermediaries.
In an international context, the RPVS is repeatedly cited as a pioneering solution. According to the Open Government Partnership (OGP), Slovakia, along with Denmark, was one of the first countries to publish information on beneficial owners. Slovakia leads several international initiatives aimed at strengthening standards and practices in the area of ownership transparency, including the Summit for Democracy and the Open Government Partnership, and has received international praise for its ongoing efforts to establish an effective regime for ownership transparency.
The OGP documents Slovakia’s commitments in this area under the numbers SK0129 (Publish Beneficial Ownership Data) and SK0143 (Improvement of Beneficial Ownership Data Quality). These commitments reflect a sustained effort: Slovakia has committed not only to publishing data on beneficial owners but also to continuously improving its quality. According to the OGP, the reform has been positively received both domestically and internationally.
The World Bank publication Enhancing Government Effectiveness and Transparency: The Fight Against Corruption (2020) devotes a separate section to the Slovak RPVS in the chapter on ownership transparency. The assessment highlights that the Slovak approach differs from systems in other countries and is particularly instructive due to the steps Slovakia has taken to ensure the accuracy of the reported data. The World Bank particularly commends the verification mechanism through an authorized person, which addresses a key challenge of international FATF standards and EU AML directives — namely, how to ensure that beneficial ownership data is accurate and verified when there is a strong incentive to conceal it.
The American Chamber of Commerce in the Slovak Republic (AmCham) describes the RPVS as a globally unique registry. The specialized legal journal International Financial Law Review (IFLR) describes the Slovak law as so innovative that it was only a matter of time before the proposer drafted a substantial amendment—which IFLR considers a positive testament to the dynamism of the entire system. IFLR also views the tightening of judicial review positively: provisions on court proceedings have been tightened so that the court assesses the accuracy and completeness of data on a specific company, including data on the ultimate beneficial owner.
A distinctive feature that sets Slovakia apart even in the current context is the preservation of public access to the registry. Public access to data is rare across the EU following the 2022 ruling of the Court of Justice of the European Union—several countries have restricted access to data as a result of this ruling. The Slovak RPVS has nevertheless maintained public access, which makes it exceptional in the European context even today. It is precisely this combination—strict verification, public access, strong sanctions, and judicial review of data accuracy—that forms the basis of the international recognition the RPVS has long enjoyed.
