The Wyoming Private Family Trust Company: Your Family as Its Own Steward, Forever

Why a family would want its own trust company

A steward in Biblical terminology refers to a man who is conscious of having been trusted by God to self-govern and manage the affairs, resources, possessions and legacy of a household economy. To be a family steward is a sacred honor, appointed by God and reserved for the most spiritually mature and capable.

Every trust needs a trustee: someone who holds title, signs, keeps the books, and carries the family’s intentions forward. Most firms usually have families choose between a relative (who may move, age, or tire) or an outside trustee such as a bank or corporate trustee (which charges exorbitant fees and answers to its own policies). We believe families are meant to be private and self-governing.

A Private Family Trust Company offers a third way. A way most aligned with the Biblical stewardship model of every family serving as self-governing stewards over their own household. The family forms its own company, and that company serves as trustee. Family members sit on its board or serve as its managers. When a steward steps back, the company continues, so the house never lacks a trustee, and decisions stay within the family. The benefit of having a family company as trustee is the company is perpetual.

This was God’s exact promise to King David regarding his own family covenant: that his house, kingdom, and throne would be established forever, and his descendants shall never cease to sit upon the throne of his dynastic household.

For generations, this has been a tool for only the very wealthy. But Wyoming provides an unregulated avenue that makes everlasting self-governing dominion simple and available to every household.

What Wyoming law actually requires

Unregulated private family trust company (W.S. §§ 13-5-301, 13-5-701 to -703): Formed as a Wyoming corporation or LLC by filing with the Secretary of State. The organizing documents must state that the company is formed to act as a fiduciary for family members, and that it will act exclusively for one or more family members and will not do trust company business with the general public. After the Secretary of State approves the filing, the directors or managers sign and deliver a waiver to the Commissioner of the Division of Banking acknowledging the company is not supervised by the Commissioner. No statutory minimum capital requirement exists for an unregulated PFTC.

Naming the company. If “trust company” appears in the name, the name must also say “private family trust company” (§ 13-5-302(b)). Although in dealing with the public, adding “trust company” to the name often brings added scrutiny. Sometimes it is recommended to leave “trust company” out of the name entirely or choose a different word for “trust” such as “stewarding company.” If privacy is of importance, leaving the family name out of the company altogether is recommended. An unregulated PFTC may not advertise its services to the public (§ 13-5-302(c)). The Commissioner may inspect a PFTC suspected of serving the public (§ 13-5-702).

If you tracked King David’s eternal bloodline today, there would be a pretty good chance his household’s trust would be domiciled in Wyoming. This is the simple, peaceful path to self-governance and familial dominion.

Chartered (regulated) family trust company (W.S. § 13-5-605): Receives a charter from the Division of Banking and is subject to examination. Must be organized with, and maintain, at least $500,000 in capital. This is typically chosen by larger family offices that want regulatory standing.

How do you form a Wyoming private family trust company, step by step?

1. Choose the name. If the name uses “trust company,” it must also say “private family trust company” (§ 13-5-302(b)). Having “trust” in an entity name tends to invite added scrutiny from public platforms, banks, and regulators. Many families choose a word such as “stewardship” instead of “trust,” and leave the family name out for privacy.
2. Clarify the purpose. Create the organizing document and Management & Operating Agreement. The organizing documents must include language that the company is formed to act as a fiduciary for the private family only, exclusively for one or more family members, and not for the general public.
3. File with the Wyoming Secretary of State. Register the business with the Secretary of State. Wyoming requires all businesses to have a Wyoming registered agent as well for legal service. A registered agent can also help with setting up a Wyoming business address.
4. Deliver a waiver to the Wyoming State Banking Commissioner acknowledging unregulated status. After the Secretary of State approves the filing, the managers sign and deliver the waiver to the Commissioner of the Division of Banking. The waiver should identify the ownership structure and include affirmations that the PFTC is intended to be self-governing, unregulated, will not engage in any trust company business for the general public, and that the organizational documents have been approved by the Wyoming Secretary of State.
5. Give it its own identity and rules. Obtain an EIN, and create an operating agreement between the family trust and the PFTC that names the managers and writes down how succession works.
6. Take up the trusteeship. The trust documents name the company to its fiduciary role, and the company opens the accounts it will use to deal with the outside world.
7. Keep it alive each year. Renew the registered agent, the address, and the Secretary of State filing, and keep minutes of the family’s company meetings. Wyoming will dissolve the entity if it is not renewed over a period of time.

In the Dynasty Architecture, The Spacious Place prepares every one of those pieces for you within thirty days.

How the PFTC anchors the Dynasty Architecture

Our Dynasty Architecture is a three cord strand design:

1. The Family Legacy Trust, the private core layer, long-term owner of the family’s treasury and legacy assets, and contains the private family succession plans.
2. A Pass-Through Trust, the conduit layer which gathers assets and revenue and moves them inward to the Legacy Trust.
3. A Wyoming PFTC & Digital Asset LLC, the public-facing company that keeps accounts, pays bills, signs contracts, holds digital assets, and is set up to serve as the qualified Wyoming trustee. It can also spin up sub-entities for special purposes like a family business, auto trust, real estate trust, etc. The family steward.

The Spacious Place organizes your Private Family Trust Company as an unregulated LLC with a nexus in Wyoming. The PFTC headquarters its governance there. Because the trustee is the company, a separate legal entity, rather than any individual family member, it serves as the qualified trustee while family members manage its offices.

The effect is continuity: the PFTC does not age, resign, die, or move away like a normal trustee, and generational succession happens privately at the dinner table as family members step into its offices across generations. Because it is a company rather than a person, the public-facing trustee never changes and never fails for want of a trustee. No need to retitle assets every time a trustee is replaced. It is perpetual by design.

How the three layers pass assets and income to one another is laid out on our Wyoming dynasty trust page.

Which trust is the Private Family Trust Company the trustee of?

In the Dynasty Architecture, we design it so the PFTC is the ministerial trustee (the trustee that holds title, handles trust business, and keeps the records) of the Pass-Through Trust only. This is the only trust the public would ever know of.

• The Pass-Through Trust. Its qualified ministerial trustee is the family’s Private Family Trust Company. Its sole beneficiary is the Family Legacy Trust. A Mirror & Conformity provision automatically adopts the exact provisions and family offices as the Family Legacy Trust without making it publicly accessible information.
• The Family Legacy Trust. The family succession and stewardship design is housed within the invisible layer. Its trustees are the founding Settlors, stewards for life, followed by their family successors. Its beneficiaries are the Settlors, their offspring and descendants forevermore. The Family Legacy Trust acts as the Grantor of the Pass-Through Trust with sole beneficial interests.
• The PFTC company itself. It is 100% owned by the Pass-Through Trust, whose sole beneficiary is the Family Legacy Trust. Its managers mirror the Board of Sacred Stewards and follow the same succession as the trustees.

So the family holds the Family Legacy Trust’s offices directly, and its own company holds the public-facing trusteeship of the Pass-Through Trust. For the 1,000-year term, Wyoming law looks for a trustee connection to Wyoming (W.S. § 34-1-139(b)). By organizing with the Wyoming Secretary of State, contracting with a registered agent, and getting a Wyoming business address, the trust and the Private Family Trust Company do significant business in Wyoming.

The single Family Legacy Trust includes a Wyoming trust address.

Who runs a family’s private trust company?

• The managers. The Settlors of the Family Legacy Trust, and any adult descendants, are the initial managers. As each generation comes of age, its adult members step into the company’s offices.
• Four family offices. The charter divides fiduciary duties and powers among four separate family offices: Ministerial, Investment, Distribution, and the Board of Sacred Stewards. The company’s role is the ministerial one: the accounts, the bills, the contracts, the public business. It carries out the directions of the Investment Committee, Distribution Committee and Board of Sacred Stewards.
• The owner. The company answers to the Pass-Through Trust, which owns it, and through it to the Family Legacy Trust. No family member owns it personally.
• A backstop. If no adult beneficiary is capable of serving, the charter provides for a contingent temporary outside successor trustee until one is.

What does the company do day to day?

The company is the family’s hands, managing the family’s multiple different expressions in the public world. In the Dynasty Architecture it:

• Banks and pays. It holds the operating accounts, pays the bills, and signs the contracts, so family members do not do the family’s business in their personal names.
• Buys and holds. It makes asset purchases and can spin up sub-entities: an auto trust, home real estate trusts, other LLCs and businesses, a ministry, or sub-trusts for individual offspring.
• Keeps the digital assets. As a combined Private Family Trust Company & Digital Asset LLC, it holds digital assets under a Digital Asset Management & Custody Agreement, with a Memorandum of Instructions written for crypto and other digital property.
• Sends everything inward. What it gathers moves upward through the Pass-Through Trust into the Family Legacy Trust, under the charter’s automatic sweep of newly received revenue and assets.

How the trust-owned Digital Asset LLC works for a single Family Legacy Trust is covered on our Family Legacy Trust page.

What can a private family trust company not do?

• It cannot serve the public. It acts exclusively for one or more family members, and it may not do trust company business with the general public.
• It cannot advertise its services to the public (§ 13-5-302(c)), and the Commissioner may inspect a company suspected of serving the public (§ 13-5-702).
• It does not shelter transfers made to dodge existing creditors. The charter’s charging order protection provisions and the trusts’ spendthrift provisions protect only within the limits of the law.
• It does not keep itself. Without minutes, separate accounts, and yearly renewals, the separation between the family and its company weakens.

When is a private family trust company more than a family needs?

• When the household has one trust and simple assets. A home, savings, and personal property are often well served by the Family Legacy Trust ($3,000), or the Family Legacy Trust + Wyoming Digital Asset LLC ($3,589) for crypto holders. Each includes a Wyoming trust address.
• When no one in the family will keep the governance. The company only helps a family that will hold its meetings and keep its books.
• When the family wants regulatory standing or to serve people outside the family. That calls for a chartered company or a public trust company instead.

The single trust is explained on our Family Legacy Trust page, and irrevocable trust basics on our irrevocable family trust page.

Your path to establishing your own PFTC

1. Go all in on your family, forever. Decide to become a Founding Settlor. Settlors of the Family Legacy Trust, and any adult descendants, are the initial managers of the PFTC.
2. Begin building your Dynasty Architecture. You can purchase directly or set up a call with our house for a private family consultation.
3. We form and write it for your house. Articles of organization, operating agreements, EINs, registered agent with Wyoming address, the Division of Banking waiver, and both trusts. Thirty days, done for you. Delivered in three beautiful American leather heirloom folios.
4. Fund it now by moving assets into the architecture. Hold your first family meeting as a company. Make it fun, even a vacation.
5. Keep the folios at the table. Teach the next steward.

Frequently asked questions