Is Mauritius Blacklisted? What the EU and FATF Lists Actually Say

No. On 22 September 2026, when we read both lists, Mauritius was not named on the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, and it was not named on the FATF list of jurisdictions under increased monitoring. The question keeps being asked because the word blacklist is used for at least three different registers, maintained by different bodies, measuring different things, and updated on different cycles.

Where we sit. B Hub Consulting is a management consultancy and advisory firm registered in the Republic of Mauritius. We advise on structuring decisions and market entry. We do not administer companies, file tax returns, sign audit opinions or hold a Financial Services Commission licence, so nothing below is tax or legal advice, and the checks it describes are ones you or your counsel should run directly against the sources.

Three lists get called the blacklist, and they are not the same list

The first is the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes, adopted by the Council of the European Union. It is about tax good governance: transparency, fair taxation and the implementation of anti base erosion measures. It has two parts, and the distinction matters. Annex I is the list proper. Annex II is what the Council describes as a state of play document, covering jurisdictions that do not yet comply with all international tax standards but have committed to reform.

The second is maintained by the Financial Action Task Force and is about money laundering, terrorist financing and proliferation financing, not tax at all. FATF publishes two registers: the high risk jurisdictions subject to a call for action, which is the one people mean by blacklist, and the jurisdictions under increased monitoring, which the press calls the grey list. FATF states that jurisdictions under increased monitoring "are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing".

The third is the European Union’s own list of high risk third countries for anti money laundering purposes, which is adopted by delegated regulation and is a separate instrument from both of the above. We did not read that list on the date of writing, so this article does not state what it contains. That is the honest position, and it is also the point of the check set out further down: a summary written by somebody else, on a date you cannot see, is not evidence.

What the EU tax list said on the day we read it

The Council page states that "On 17 February 2026, the Council adopted the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. There are 10 countries on the list." The ten named in Annex I are American Samoa, Anguilla, Guam, Palau, Panama, Russia, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the US Virgin Islands, Vanuatu and Viet Nam.

Annex II, the state of play document, carried nine jurisdictions: Belize, the British Virgin Islands, Brunei Darussalam, Eswatini, Greenland, Jordan, Montenegro, Morocco and Türkiye. Mauritius appeared in neither annex. For an institutional investor, the Annex II distinction is worth understanding before a committee paper repeats it wrongly: an Annex II jurisdiction is not listed, it is being watched against commitments it has already given.

On 17 February 2026, the Council adopted the EU list of non-cooperative jurisdictions for tax purposes. There are 10 countries on the list.

What the FATF list said on the day we read it

The FATF statement on jurisdictions under increased monitoring, issued from Paris on 19 June 2026, named twenty two jurisdictions: Angola, Bolivia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Haiti, Iraq, Kenya, Kuwait, Lao PDR, Lebanon, Monaco, Nepal, Papua New Guinea, South Sudan, Syria, Venezuela, Vietnam, the Virgin Islands (UK) and Yemen. Mauritius was not among them.

This is the register that matters most in practice to a bank onboarding a counterparty, because correspondent banking and enhanced due diligence policies are usually written against the FATF registers rather than the EU tax list. A jurisdiction’s presence there changes the documentation a counterparty is asked for; its absence removes a reason for enhanced scrutiny without removing the scrutiny itself.

Being off every list is not the same as a structure being sound

This is where the question usually goes wrong. A jurisdiction’s list status is a statement about the jurisdiction’s regime. It is not a statement about your company, your directors, where your decisions are actually taken or whether your arrangement has a commercial purpose a tax authority in another country would accept.

An investment committee that satisfies itself on list status and stops has answered the easy half. The harder half is substance and purpose, which is assessed against your own facts and is the part that fails under examination years later. Our article on why Mauritius works as a structuring gateway to Africa, and where the argument breaks sets out that side, including the conditions under which the structure stops making sense.

It is also worth being clear about who does what on the island, because the two are routinely confused when a structure is being set up. A management company administers the entity and files its returns. A consultancy advises on whether the structure is the right one and how the programme around it should run. The distinction is set out in consulting firms against corporate services in Mauritius.

How to check a jurisdiction’s status yourself, in ten minutes

Every fact in this article was produced by the following method, and it is the method to use when a counterparty, a bank or a board asks the question about any jurisdiction, not only this one. It does not require a subscription or an adviser.

1. 01Go to the body’s own page, not a summary. The Council of the European Union publishes the tax list; the Financial Action Task Force publishes its own registers. A law firm note or a corporate services page is a report of a list, dated whenever it was written.
2. 02Record the adoption or issue date, not the date you read it. Both, in fact. A list adopted in February and read in September is still current, but only if nothing replaced it, and the date on the page is what tells you.
3. 03Read both parts of the EU list. Annex I and Annex II answer different questions, and a jurisdiction sitting in Annex II is frequently reported as blacklisted when it is not.
4. 04Check the FATF registers separately from the tax list. They measure different risks, they are updated on different cycles, and a bank’s policy usually keys off the FATF ones.
5. 05Check the EU anti money laundering high risk list as its own instrument. It is adopted by delegated regulation and is not the same as the tax list, whatever a headline says.
6. 06Write the date into the memo. A committee paper that says a jurisdiction is not listed, without saying which list and as at when, will be wrong eventually and nobody will know when it stopped being right.

If the answer changes between the date of your paper and the date of your investment, that is a fact about the calendar rather than a failure of the check. Lists move. The discipline is recording which list, which version and which date, so the next reader can tell whether your conclusion still holds.

For the structuring argument itself, read why Mauritius works as a structuring gateway to Africa, and for who does what on the island, consulting firms against corporate services. For the conditions your own company has to meet once it is here, read substance for a Global Business Company in Mauritius. Our practice areas set out the mandates we take on, and you are welcome to put the question to us in confidence.