The Common Reporting Standard (CRS) was developed in response to the G20 request and approved by the OECD Council on 15 July 2014. Based on a comprehensive review of the CRS, a number of amendments were adopted in 2023.

The CRS calls on jurisdictions to obtain information from their financial institutions and automatically exchange that information with other jurisdictions on an annual basis. It sets out the financial account information to be exchanged, the financial institutions required to report, the different types of accounts and taxpayers covered, as well as common due diligence procedures to be followed by financial institutions.

The CRS was designed with a broad scope in terms of the financial information to be reported, the Account Holders subject to reporting and the Financial Institutions required to report, in order to limit the opportunities for taxpayers to circumvent reporting. It also requires that jurisdictions, as part of their effective implementation of the CRS, put in place anti-abuse rules to prevent any practices intended to circumvent the reporting and due diligence procedures.