Companies or entities with legal personality must report Who are their shareholders when they are hired as suppliers to the State. This, after a ruling by the Constitutional Court (CC) that declared void the unconstitutionality action against a part of Government Agreement 133-2024 and its reforms, in which these obligations are established.
With the ruling, the provision regains force, which had been provisionally suspended in July 2025, and that requires commercial companies to issue a certification in which they inform who are the shareholders and the natural persons who ultimately own or control the decisions of the legal entity directly or who, indirectly, exercise final effective control of the entity.
This must be signed and sealed by the administrative body of the commercial company.
The report is presented to the General Registry of State Acquisitions (RGAE).
To guarantee compliance with the standard and transparency in registration procedures, the RGAE will issue operational provisions to guide suppliers on compliance with this requirement, which will be disclosed soon, announced the Ministry of Public Finance (Minfin).
According to said entity, the Court’s ruling reaffirms that “the identification of final beneficiaries constitutes an ideal and necessary instrument to prevent opacity, corruption and simulation in public procurement” and strengthens the integrity of this system, which is in accordance with the obligations assumed by Guatemala at the international level in the areas of combating corruption and money laundering.
Sentence and the Minfin
The Ministry explained that the ruling, which corresponds to file 4255-2025 of the CC, was published in the Diario de Centro América on Friday, April 17, 2026.
He added that with such a decision, the CC declared the action of unconstitutionality void against numeral “i” of literal d) of article 9 of Government Agreement 133-2024, referring to the Requirements, Procedures and Procedures for Registration, Prequalification and Other Registry Annotations before the General Registry of Acquisitions and its reforms by Government Agreement 208-2024, in which the aforementioned obligation is established.
This requirement had been provisionally suspended in July 2025 by said Court and according to the Minfin on that occasion, 65% of the State suppliers had already reported to the RGAE the required information about their shareholders.
CONTENT FOR SUBSCRIBERS
The Ministry stated in a bulletin this Tuesday that the ruling determined that the challenged provision is reasonable, as it constitutes a form of control of the suitability and probity of State contractors, and that it also represents a legitimate exercise of the regulatory power of the President of the Republic, adjusted to the legal framework of the State Contracting Law (LCE).
The Minfin lists some of the Court’s arguments, among them it indicates that the CC concluded that such obligation does not violate the inviolability of private documents and records nor does it constitute a limitation on the freedom of industry or commerce guaranteed by articles 24 and 43 of the Political Constitution of the Republic.
Another point mentioned by the institution is that “the CC considers that the requested information is provided voluntarily, within the framework of a specific administrative procedure, with a legitimate purpose of public interest and subject to confidentiality rules,” added the Ministry, and that the court considers that these requirements have a direct and necessary relationship with the purposes of the State Procurement Law “to prevent conflicts of interest and rule out the participation of people who could incur legal prohibitions,” and resolved that the regulation fully complies with the principles of legality, reasonableness and proportionality, in addition to being in harmony with the jurisprudential doctrine of the CC on the protection of the right to privacy.
Also read: Minfin pronounces on the CC’s ruling on the State supplier agreement
Different layout
These requirements for State suppliers are different from those requested for entities with legal personality in Decree 31-2024, which, in addition to creating two new simplified regimes for the agricultural, artisanal and livestock sectors, also reformed the Tax Code.
This established that, when taxpayers registered or updated their Unified Tax Registry (RTU) before the Superintendence of Tax Administration (SAT), they must provide data on their shareholders in general, and not only State suppliers. However, these provisions were declared unconstitutional by the CC in its ruling published in December 2025.