Company Incorporation in Singapore: Considerations and How-to
At a glance, registering a company in Singapore sounds pretty straightforward. In this article, Company Incorporation specialist BizCorp guides you through the steps and considerations of incorporating a company in the island republic.
Thanks to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA) in Singapore, company incorporation in Singapore is a relatively painless process that can be completed in less than a day, assuming there are no problems with the company name and all required documents are prepared in advance. Alternatively, the busy aspiring entrepreneur can also opt to hire an authorized company incorporation agent to help with the entire process, from company name application to online company registration and document submission.
If you have decided to register the company on your own, the first thing you should do is to check and see if your chosen company name will be approved by the governing bodies in Singapore - the status of approval will be known within an hour of application, assuming there are no problems. Names are rejected if the chosen name has already been used by another organization, if it is much too similar to other well-established brands/trademarks in the same industry or is deemed to be obscene. Researching and reserving your company name should only take you a couple of hours at maximum and if your chosen name is rejected, you can appeal or submit another name for approval which will take about three to five days to process.
After you have successfully registered your company name, either collect the registration documents at the Singapore Company Formation department or download electronically from the ACRA website. Do note that even if you do outsource the company registration procedure to an authorized firm, you are still required to sign the relevant documents prior to submission.
However, you do not have to be present in the country to sign the said form and can simply have the signed paperwork delivered by courier. The approval of your company registration documents should be completed in less than one day. However, there are rare cases where it can take up to two months for a company to be approved, depending on the business structure being registered.
It is compulsory for companies registered in Singapore to have a Company Secretary and at least one Company Director who is a Resident - defined as a Singapore citizen or permanent resident, or someone with an Employment Pass, Dependent Pass or EntrePass. In the case of foreigners incorporating a company here, the option is to engage a local incorporation specialist that provides corporate secretarial and nominee director services to fulfill this requirement.
Upon approval by ACRA, you are issued a softcopy of Certificate of Incorporation containing your company registration number, Although considered the official certificate despite being a softcopy, you can still apply for a hardcopy from ACRA at a cost of S$50. In addition to the Certificate of Incorporation, you may also want to request for a Company Particulars Extract - which contains all the business particulars about your company like incorporation date, paid-up capital and registered address - depending on your business needs.
Finally, now that you are a full-fledged registered company in Singapore, it is time to open a company bank account in Singapore under your business name. It is pretty important that all transactions that go through this account is strictly for business purposes only, despite the fact that it may just be a one-man business operation. The reason why you would want to keep your company accounts tidy is for accounting purposes, particularly when you are required to conduct an audit of your company (which is done at least once every financial year).
If your start-up is receiving foreign funding, the said stakeholders do not have to be present in Singapore when the bank account is created. A simple phone interview with the stakeholders is more than sufficient to process the opening of the bank account.
Of course, opening a bank account is but one of the many things that you need to consider after you have successfully registered your company. The next steps are to apply employee work permits (if they are foreigners), register your company for Goods and Services Tax (GST) if applicable, get a company seal and rubber stamp, and apply for related business licenses.
About this article
Singapore was rated the best country to do business by the World Bank in its Doing Business 2011 report, which ranks 183 countries based on the ease in which they allow firms to operate (source: BBC). BizCorp Management is a leading company incorporation specialist in Singapore. The company provides a wide range of corporate services, from local and offshore incorporation to corporate secretarial to income tax and accounting services.
