Each year the Global Legal Entity Identifier Foundation (GLEIF) publishes its Annual Report, covering the year just ended. The 2025 Annual Report is now available on gleif.org. We have read it so that UK LEI holders do not have to, and set out below what it says and what it means for entities that hold, or need, an LEI.
At LEI International Private Limited (TNV-LEI), our role is to support UK and international entities with LEI issuance, renewal, transfer and lifecycle management as the global LEI system continues to grow.
This guide explains:
- What the GLEIF Annual Report covers
- How large the LEI population is
- Which regulatory changes drove LEI adoption in 2025, including in the UK
- How the vLEI ecosystem developed in 2025
- What GLEIF's new partnerships mean for UK entities
- Where GLEIF is focusing in 2026
- What UK LEI holders should take from the report
- How TNV-LEI helps UK LEI holders manage their LEIs
What the GLEIF Annual Report Covers?
GLEIF's Annual Report is the foundation's yearly account of the Global LEI System. It carries a statement from the Chair, a statement from the CEO, a review of the year, and GLEIF's audited financial statements. GLEIF publishes it in both human-readable and machine-readable (Inline XBRL) formats, with GLEIF's own LEI embedded in the financial data.
For UK LEI holders, the report is a useful checkpoint. It does not change any UK regulatory obligation on its own, but it shows where the LEI is being adopted, which regulators are mandating it, and where GLEIF intends to take the system next. Everything in this article is drawn from the 2025 Annual Report unless we say otherwise.
The LEI Population in 2025: A New Record
The headline figure is the size of the LEI population. GLEIF reports that 2025 set a new record, with nearly 3 million active LEIs in issuance worldwide.
Regionally, GLEIF notes that Asia-Pacific remains a significant growth region. In 2025, India recorded the highest LEI issuance volumes in the world, while Japan and India had the first and third highest LEI renewal rates respectively. GLEIF also opened a new office in China during the year.
For UK LEI holders, the practical point is that the ecosystem they operate in keeps growing. Counterparties asking for an LEI in 2026 are doing so against a backdrop of close to 3 million active identifiers, not a niche system.
Regulation Drove Adoption in 2025, Including in the UK
The report singles out several regulatory developments that pushed LEI adoption during the year:
- FATF Recommendation 16. The updated Recommendation on payment transparency references the LEI, for the first time, as a key identifier for legal persons in domestic and cross-border payments and value transfers.
- EU Transfer of Funds Regulation and MiCA. The recast TFR requires EU entities to disclose their LEI for digital transfers, and MiCA requires crypto-asset issuers to provide an LEI in their disclosures and Crypto-Asset Service Providers to obtain one before being licensed.
- EU DORA. GLEIF reports that the application of the Digital Operational Resilience Act had a positive impact on LEI adoption in 2025 and marked a major implementation outside capital markets.
- Bank of England CHAPS mandate. From May 2025, the Bank of England has required LEIs to be included in all CHAPS payments for all financial institutions.
- FCA consultation. GLEIF notes that the UK Financial Conduct Authority's consultation points to the LEI as a relevant tool for organisational identification in digital asset markets, alongside a similar consultation by ASIC in Australia.
For UK entities, the CHAPS mandate and the FCA's direction of travel on digital assets are the two items to note. Together with the existing UK MiFIR and UK EMIR REFIT reporting requirements, they mean an active LEI is increasingly a condition of doing business with UK financial institutions, not only a capital-markets reporting field.
The vLEI Ecosystem in 2025
The verifiable LEI (vLEI) is GLEIF's cryptographically verifiable credential built on the LEI. The 2025 Annual Report records the following developments:
- Six new Qualified vLEI Issuers (QVIs) and a Validation Agent were onboarded during the year. The six QVIs, all in the Asia-Pacific region, are Certizen, China Financial Certification Authority (CFCA), Finema, Shanghai Electronic Certification Authority (SHECA), TOPPAN Edge and TradeGo.
- GLEIF's first vLEI hackathons were held in New York, Hong Kong and Frankfurt and received 110 submissions from established industry players and start-ups.
- vLEI partnerships. GLEIF partnered with Chainlink to embed verifiable organisational identity into on-chain wallets, smart contracts and tokenised assets; worked with the Cardano Foundation and Key State Capital on verifiable smart contracts; is exploring supply-chain and trade-finance applications with the IOTA Foundation; and signed an MoU with Finternet Lab on vLEI use cases across finance, sustainability and supply chains.
- Strategic objective. One of GLEIF's three stated objectives under its five-year strategy is for the vLEI and its supporting infrastructure to become the prominent protocol for managing verifiable organisational credentials.
GLEIF does not publish a count of vLEI credentials in the Annual Report, and we do not attempt one here. What the report does show is an ecosystem that expanded in issuers, use cases and partners during 2025.
For UK LEI holders, the vLEI is relevant to medium-term planning rather than immediate action. UK MiFIR, UK EMIR REFIT, UK SFTR and FCA SUP 17A do not currently require vLEI capabilities. Entities building digital onboarding, digital signing or on-chain workflows should follow the vLEI closely.
Partnerships That Matter for UK Entities
In 2025 GLEIF launched its Global Partners Program and announced seven new strategic partnerships: Chainlink, Companies House, Finternet Lab, the IOTA Foundation, Open Ownership, Qichacha and the Swiss Federal Statistical Office.
Two of these are directly relevant to UK entities:
- Companies House. GLEIF established a linking initiative with the UK's Companies House to boost the identifiability and discoverability of UK businesses worldwide. For a UK company, this means the link between its Companies House record and its LEI is becoming more visible to data users globally, which makes accurate registry data on the LEI record more important, not less.
- Open Ownership. GLEIF and Open Ownership launched the Global Open Data Integration Network (GODIN), aligning open data with the Global LEI System and the Beneficial Ownership Data Standard. This points towards LEI records being joined up with beneficial ownership data over time.
The other partnerships (Qichacha in China, the Swiss Federal Statistical Office, and the technology partners listed above) show the same pattern: the LEI is being wired into national registries and data platforms as a common connector.
The LOU Ecosystem and Where TNV-LEI Fits
LEIs are issued by GLEIF-accredited Local Operating Units (LOUs). TNV-LEI is a GLEIF-accredited LOU, operational since 10 October 2025, accredited to issue and manage LEIs across 26 jurisdictions including the United Kingdom.
Under GLEIF policy, an LEI can be transferred from one LOU to another free of charge, and the 20-character LEI code does not change on transfer; only the managing LOU changes. This keeps the choice of LOU meaningful for the whole life of the LEI: entities can move to an LOU whose service, pricing or jurisdictional coverage suits them better without any change to the identifier their counterparties already hold.
Renewal Discipline: What UK LEI Holders Need to Do
An LEI must be renewed annually. When it is not, its registration status becomes LAPSED, and a lapsed LEI is visible to every counterparty and regulator that looks it up. Under UK and EU EMIR REFIT validation rules, transaction reports that carry a lapsed LEI for the reporting counterparty can be rejected, and many banks and brokers will not onboard or transact with an entity whose LEI is lapsed.
Three practical steps reduce that risk:
- Diarise the renewal date and act before it, rather than waiting for a counterparty to flag the lapse.
- Consider a multi-year term. TNV-LEI offers 3-year and 5-year terms, which remove the annual renewal event and the lapse risk that comes with it.
- Consolidate group LEIs with one LOU and align renewal dates, so that a group with several entities manages one renewal cycle instead of many.
What GLEIF Is Focusing on in 2026
The Annual Report sets out GLEIF's three objectives under its five-year strategy: broader global LEI coverage across all regions, growing LEI utility and volume, and advocacy for the vLEI as the protocol for verifiable organisational credentials. For 2026 specifically, GLEIF says it will continue to deepen relationships with regulators, market participants and digital identity innovators, and will focus on South America and the Middle East and Africa as LEI and vLEI growth markets.
None of this is a near-term shock for a UK LEI holder. Each item is a direction of travel worth knowing about when planning counterparty onboarding, reporting and identity infrastructure.
What UK LEI Holders Should Take From It
Bringing the report together, five practical takeaways for UK LEI holders:
- Treat the LEI as mainstream infrastructure. Nearly 3 million active LEIs and a Bank of England payments mandate put it well beyond a capital-markets reporting field.
- Keep the LEI active with the same discipline as Companies House filings. The operational cost of a lapse exceeds the cost of renewal.
- Keep the registry data on the LEI record accurate. With GLEIF linking LEIs to Companies House data, discrepancies between the two are more visible.
- Consider a multi-year term and consolidate group LEIs with one LOU where several entities are held.
- Follow the vLEI for medium-term planning, particularly if you are building digital onboarding, digital signing or on-chain processes.
Key Takeaways
GLEIF's 2025 Annual Report records nearly 3 million active LEIs, a new record.
- UK-relevant drivers in 2025: the Bank of England's CHAPS LEI mandate from May 2025, the FCA's consultation on digital assets, and GLEIF's linking initiative with Companies House.
- The vLEI ecosystem grew in 2025: six new QVIs and a Validation Agent, the first vLEI hackathons, and new technology partnerships.
- TNV-LEI is a GLEIF-accredited LOU covering the UK; LEIs can be transferred to us free of charge with no change to the code.
- UK LEI holders should treat an active LEI as operationally required, not optional hygiene.
How TNV-LEI Helps
TNV-LEI is a GLEIF-accredited Local Operating Unit, operational since 10 October 2025 and accredited across 26 jurisdictions including the United Kingdom.
For UK LEI holders, we offer:
- LEI issuance and renewal for UK and international entities in line with ISO 17442 and GLEIF requirements
- Free transfer from any other accredited LOU under GLEIF policy, with no change to the 20-character LEI code
- Multi-year terms of 3 and 5 years, reducing renewal overhead and lapse risk
- Coordinated group LEI management for organisations holding multiple LEIs, with aligned renewal dates
- Application submission through an authorised representative, supported by the entity's written authorisation
We follow developments in the vLEI ecosystem closely and will keep our clients informed as the credential becomes relevant to UK use cases.