Incorporate a business

Company incorporation services

Incorporate company in singapore

Singapore is one of the most economically vibrant city-states in the world, located just off the southern border of Malaysia. With a business environment that has been ranked the most open globally, third least corrupt and low tax levels, it’s no wonder many companies are looking for ways of entering this market.       

As a Singapore-based company providing virtual bookkeeping services, we have the knowledge and expertise to offer startups advice on how to register company in Singapore. Below are some of our tips on the requirements and steps to incorporate a company in Singapore. After registering your company, you will need to hire an accountant to maintain the finances required to submit to ACRA.

What you need to know

Learn about the requirements and steps to register a company in Singapore.

You will also need to know what to do post-incorporation.

Requirements for incorporating a firm

Just like in any other country, Singapore has its own set of rules that businesses need to abide by before getting the license to operate. These policies are imposed by the government in order to create a lawful corporate environment, where everyone can compete in equal terms. Having met them ourselves as a registered company, we want to share them with you so that you can also incorporate business in Singapore with ease. They include the following:        

  • The company should have a registered office address in Singapore, which shall serve as its main headquarters.        
  • Must have between 1-50 shareholders        
  • At least one resident director who’s a citizen of the country         
  • Provide a brief description showing the kind of activities your company intends to participate in.        
  • Must have a paid-up minimum initial capital of 1 Singaporean dollar.        
  • Must recruit a secretary to oversee day-to-day office operations within the first 6 months, as from the day the organization was first incorporated.        
  • For foreigners, they need to provide a copy of their original passports, as well as proof of residence in their country of origin.        
  • Foreigners are also required to submit all memorandum and association agreements, particularly if they’ve gone into partnerships with other companies already operating in Singapore.        

Steps to register:

I) Choose a company name and check with ACRA (Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority) to ensure that it’s not been trademarked already. The company name should also be free from any obscene wording.

II) Once the name has been approved by relevant authorities, it will be reserved for a period of 60 days awaiting the full incorporation of your company.

III) Fill in and submit your paperwork containing the above requirements to the ACRA online, all registration is done through the internet and no manual submissions are accepted. Usually, registration is done within a few hours or day at most and your business will be up and running.        

IV) In a few occasions, the authorities may request for extra information about shareholders or directors coming from certain countries for security purposes, and you must be ready to provide these details.

V) Following the successful company registration, ACRA will send you an official email message affirming the process. This message shall also contain your firm’s registration number.

Why you need accounting services for your business

Even after your company has been incorporated, it’s still required by Singapore authorities that you must have your accounting books properly updated, in order to avoid late filing of taxes which can lead to penalties. Some of the documents you need to update in a timely way are; account payable/receivables, general ledger, fixed asset ledger and payroll among others. All these financial statements should be prepared and annually submitted to the authorities in XBRL layout for review.        

At Tianlong Services, we are the leading provider of online accounting solutions in Singapore, with multiple years of experience working with both established companies and startups that have just entered the market.        

By outsourcing your accounting work to us, you can be assured of zero upfront payments, quick turnarounds and secure processes since we won’t share your company information with any other entity apart from you. We shall also give you more time to do other important things for your business for faster growth, which would have otherwise been wasted preparing financial documents.        

Additionally, we’ll help you cut the costs of hiring onsite accountants on fulltime basis, which can be quite expensive for a company that has just launched its operations in Singapore and is seeking to minimize expenditure. We promise to give you access to qualified and certified accountants, who shall work at a fraction of the rate that office-based accountants usually require.        

For more information about our virtual bookkeeping services, give us a call today to talk to our sales team. You can also request for a free-trial by visiting our website.

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You will get a month’s worth of bookkeeping. Whether or not you continue with us, your reports for the month are yours to keep.