Economic Substance Suspended Late Penalties (2026-05-19)

Summary

This is a short notice from the BVI International Tax Authority (ITA) updating industry on the transition to the VIRRGIN filing system. It confirms that late penalties for economic substance filings remain suspended while technical errors affecting declarations, financial period alterations, bulk filings and restored-entity submissions are resolved.

• Ongoing issue: VIRRGIN continues to experience technical and system errors affecting submission of economic substance declarations and financial period alterations.
• Latest problem area: Errors now specifically affect bulk filings and submissions of declarations for restored entities.
• Penalty status: Application of late penalties for economic substance filings remains suspended until the errors are fixed.
• Next steps: ITA will issue a further notification when penalties are due to resume; no resumption date is yet set.

The notice is informational and does not create new filing obligations; it simply pauses enforcement of late penalties pending system fixes, with entities expected to continue attempting to file through VIRRGIN in the meantime.

Applies to

entities required to file economic substance declarations, restored entities filing economic substance declarations via VIRRGIN