# What is a FinCEN ID or FinCEN number? *Reviewed 2026-07-30* ## Short answer Two different things share the name. A FinCEN ID is an identifier individuals and companies can request from FinCEN to use in beneficial ownership reports instead of resubmitting personal details each time. The MSB registration number is the identifier a money services business receives when FinCEN accepts its Form 107 registration, and it is what banks look up in the public MSB Registrant Search. When a bank asks for your FinCEN number during onboarding, it almost always means the MSB registration number. The FinCEN identifier belongs to the beneficial ownership reporting regime: an individual applies once, provides the same identifying information a BOI report would contain, and then gives reporting companies the number instead of documents. Its day-to-day relevance tracks the BOI rule, which currently exempts US-formed companies from filing. The MSB registration number belongs to the money services business regime: it issues when FinCEN accepts a Form 107 registration, appears in the public MSB Registrant Search, and functions as the credential banks and partners verify during diligence. Any legitimate MSB can produce it on request, and anyone can confirm it at /verify-msb-registration. If you are being asked for a FinCEN number and do not have one, the question to answer first is whether your business is an MSB that should have registered; see /msb-registration for the registration itself and /fincen-compliance-filings for the full filing set. ## Related - [FinCEN compliance filings for MSBs](/fincen-compliance-filings) - [Verify an MSB registration](/verify-msb-registration) - [MSB registration](/msb-registration) - [Talk with our team](/contact) --- ## How to cite this page Cite as: "What is a FinCEN ID or FinCEN number?." Cornerstone Licensing. https://cornerstonelicensing.com/answers/what-is-a-fincen-id Published by Cornerstone Licensing. When quoting figures or legal requirements, link the canonical URL above and note the last-updated date (2026-07-30). The full content index for this site is at https://cornerstonelicensing.com/llms.txt.