On February 20, 2024 the EU Member States decided to remove four jurisdictions – the Bahamas, Belize, Seychelles, and Turks and Caicos Islands – from the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes (Annex I).

As part of the EU's work to promote tax transparency and fair taxation globally, Member States today removed four jurisdictions – the Bahamas, Belize, Seychelles, and Turks and Caicos Islands – from the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes (Annex I). The Bahamas and Turks and Caicos Islands were fully delisted because they successfully addressed deficiencies in their enforcement of economic substance requirements. Belize and Seychelles were moved to Annex II pending the results of a supplementary review by the Global Forum on Tax Transparency and Exchange of Information. Today's update is another step ahead in the EU's continuous effort to promote tax transparency and fair taxation globally. It confirms a general positive trend for the majority of the jurisdictions concerned, whose engagement in the process continues to produce positive results.

Based on this update, as per February 20, 2024 Annex I of the EU list is made up of the following 12 jurisdictions:

• American Samoa;
• Anguilla;
• Antigua and Barbuda;
• Fiji;
• Guam;
• Palau;
• Panama;
• the Russian Federation;
• Samoa;
• Trinidad and Tobago;
• US Virgin Islands; and
• Vanuatu.

Additionally, as per February 20, 2024 10 jurisdictions feature in a so-called bstate of play document (Annex II) they have taken to improve their tax good governance. The EU will closely monitor these commitments to make sure they are followed up on.

As stated above Belize and Seychelles were moved to the state of play document. Albania and Hong Kong, fulfilled their commitments by amending a harmful tax regime, and will be removed from the state of play document. Aruba and Israel also fulfilled all of their pending commitments (related to the automatic exchange of financial account information in the framework of the common reporting standard) and will therefore also be removed from the state of play document. As a result the state of play document (Annex II) is now made up of the following 10 jurisdictions:

• Armenia;
• Belize;
• British Virgin Islands;
• Costa Rica;
• Curacao;
• Eswatini;
• Malaysia;
• Seychelles;
• Türkiye; and
• Vietnam

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