Most privately held companies are required to provide information about one person with “significant control” of the business and all people who own 25% or more of the company. This is a provision of US law regarding beneficial ownership which all payment processors, including Stripe, are required to enforce. The information that payment processors are required to collect for each beneficial owner is name, date of birth, address, and, for US persons, Social Security number.
Publicly traded companies, and private companies in a small number of finance-related industries, are considered by US regulators to have already fulfilled due diligence requirements because of regulations they operate under in the normal course of their business. For those companies, we are able to offer an exemption process instead of requiring beneficial ownership information.
Additional information on beneficial ownership regulations in the US: