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Politically exposed persons

Banks and other reporting entities must take extra care with customers who hold, or have held, prominent public office. We collect the official registers that name those office-holders so their status can be checked. This page explains what we include and what a PEP record does and does not tell you.

The peps bulk download holds — records from — registers: only those whose terms allow redistribution. See licence positions.

Who counts as a PEP

There is no single worldwide definition. Under Canada's Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, reporting entities must identify three groups:

• Foreign PEPs: people who hold or have held certain offices for a foreign state, such as head of state or government, minister, member of the legislature, senior judge, ambassador, senior military officer or head of a state-owned company. A foreign PEP remains one indefinitely.
• Domestic PEPs: people who hold or have held, within the last five years, comparable federal, provincial or municipal offices in Canada, including mayors and heads of government agencies and Crown corporations.
• Heads of international organisations: people who head an organisation established by the governments of states, or who did so within the last five years.

The law also covers certain family members and close associates of these people. Other jurisdictions use similar categories (FATF guidance, the EU anti-money-laundering directives, US guidance on senior foreign political figures) with different details.

How long we keep a person after they leave office is set out in the PEP methodology.

How we approach PEP data

• Official registers first. We collect from the bodies that publish the office-holders: parliaments, election authorities, government directories, gazettes and public registers.
• Records, as published. Each record is one person on one register, with the role in the publisher's own words (in the listing's program), the register it came from and when we collected it.
• No family members or close associates yet. We do not yet hold relatives or associates of PEPs, nor links between them.
• Each register on its own schedule, shown on its page in the source register.

See PEP methodology for the detail and Using PEP data for practical advice.

What a PEP record means

Being a PEP is not an accusation of wrongdoing. A PEP record means a person holds or held a role that calls for closer attention: confirming the source of funds, approval by senior management, ongoing monitoring. Whether and how to apply enhanced due diligence is the decision of the reporting entity, under its own obligations. We do not assess customers or make that decision.

Office-holder registers often give only a name and a role, with no birth date. Confirm a match against the official source before acting on it.

Under review: a few registers currently filed as PEP sources are not lists of office-holders (for example, registers of political committees, lobbying registrants and a securities regulator's sanctions). They inflate the PEP figures and are being reclassified.

If a PEP is missing

1. The person is on a register we already collect, but not in our data: write to [email protected] with the register and a link.
2. The person is on an official register we do not collect: suggest the source. New government lists help everyone using the data.
3. No official register names them: we cannot add them today. We work from published registers, not from bespoke research into individuals.

Last updated 2026-10-03