Finance ministers of European Union (EU) Member States have issued their latest assessment of third countries' cooperation on tax matters, with the British Virgin Islands (BVI) and Costa Rica both being removed from the 'Annex 1' list of non-cooperative jurisdictions.

It is an especially significant decision for the BVI, which was placed on the list in February 2023 after the OECD Global Forum on Transparency and Exchange of Information for Tax Purposes (the Global Forum) published the outcome of its peer-review process to assess the BVI’s compliance with international standards for exchange of tax information on request (EOIR), downgrading the BVI's rating to partially compliant. However, the jurisdiction had already amended its framework on EOIR in the BVI Business Companies Amendment Act 2022 and BVI Business Amendment Regulations 2022, which came into force on 1 January 2023.

In August 2023, the Global Forum therefore decided to grant the BVI a supplementary review....