The RAIF Law — Law of 23 July 2016 on reserved alternative investment funds
The RAIF Law created Luxembourg's fastest alternative fund wrapper by moving supervision one level up: a reserved alternative investment fund is never approved or supervised by the CSSF as a product — instead it MUST appoint an authorised external AIFM, and the regulator supervises the manager. The trade: SIF-style structuring flexibility and speed (no regulatory approval step at launch), in exchange for mandatory full-scope AIFM coverage — a RAIF cannot exist below the AIFMD threshold.
Scope and the core mechanism
The law applies to Luxembourg funds that (a) qualify as AIFs under the 2013 AIFM Law, (b) reserve their securities to well-informed investors, and (c) elect the RAIF regime in their constitutive documents. The mechanism that defines the regime: no CSSF product approval, authorisation or ongoing product supervision — the compensating control is the mandatory appointment of an authorised (not registered) external AIFM, which brings depositary, valuation, reporting and risk-management duties with it via AIFMD. Practically: time-to-market is set by the notary and the service providers, not a regulatory queue.
Key provisions
| Provision | What it says | The practical point |
|---|---|---|
| Eligible investors | Well-informed investors: institutional, professional, or others who confirm in writing and invest at least €100,000 (threshold reduced from €125,000 by the 2023 toolbox law) or are assessed by a credentialed intermediary | Mirror of the SIF/SICAR standard — one investor-qualification playbook across the three regimes |
| Mandatory AIFM | Authorised external AIFM required (Luxembourg or another member state) | No sub-threshold/registered-AIFM route — small managers must rent a third-party AIFM or choose another wrapper |
| Legal forms | Contractual (FCP), corporate (SICAV/SICAF in SA, SCA, SARL forms) or partnership (SCS, SCSp); umbrella structures with segregated compartments permitted | The SCSp-RAIF is the private-fund default; compartments make it a platform |
| Formation & publicity | Constitution before a Luxembourg notary; registration on the RAIF list at the RCS | The RAIF list is public — this is why new RAIFs are trackable data (our registers lane) |
| Risk spreading | Risk-spreading principle applies (SIF-style); the commonly applied ceiling is 30% of assets per single issuer, by reference to SIF practice | See To verify — the 30% figure's normative source for RAIFs is practice/CSSF-doctrine, not an article of this law |
| Tax | Default: 0.01% annual subscription tax (taxe d'abonnement) with exemptions; alternative: a RAIF investing exclusively in risk capital may elect SICAR-style tax treatment instead | The election is in the constitutive documents — changing your mind later is a restructuring, not a tick-box |
Amendment history
| Date | Instrument | What changed |
|---|---|---|
| 23 Jul 2016 | Original law | Regime created |
| 21 Jul 2023 | "Toolbox" law of 21 July 2023 | Well-informed investor threshold €125,000 → €100,000; alignment updates across the product laws (SIF, SICAR, Part II, RAIF) |
| 16 Apr 2026 | AIFMD II transposition — law of 3 March 2026 | No direct amendment of the RAIF product regime, but every RAIF's mandatory AIFM is now under the amended 2013 AIFM Law: loan-origination rules, LMT selection, new reporting from 2027 — the obligations arrive through the manager |
What it works with
The RAIF sits on the same investor and flexibility standard as the SIF and SICAR (both now framed by CSSF Circular 25/901 — which does NOT apply to RAIFs, precisely because they are not CSSF-supervised products; the contrast is the point). Choosing between a RAIF and its supervised cousins — or against a JPF or Guernsey PIF — is the domicile comparison's job. The manager-level rules that actually bite in 2026 are on the AIFMD II tracker.
The gotcha: "no CSSF approval" is routinely misread as "no regulator". Every obligation AIFMD attaches to an authorised AIFM — depositary, annual report, Annex IV, and from 2026 the LMT and loan-origination rules — applies in full. The RAIF removes the product queue, not the rulebook.
To verify
- Risk-spreading 30%: the figure is applied by analogy to SIF practice (CSSF Circular 07/309 doctrine); confirm the current normative anchor for RAIFs specifically (law article vs. doctrine) before citing it as a hard limit.
- Toolbox-law citation: pin the exact Legilux ELI reference (Mémorial A number) for the law of 21 July 2023 and link it directly in the amendment table.
- RAIF list mechanics: confirm the current registration deadline for the RCS RAIF-list entry (the commonly cited window) against the consolidated law text.
Changelog
- 2026-07-06 — page created (regulation-library exemplar). Built from the Legilux original text, the 2023 toolbox-law threshold change (verified in this platform's glossary pass, 2026-07-06) and the law of 3 March 2026 as verified on the AIFMD II tracker.