Singapore makes incorporation look almost too easy. A private limited company can be registered in a day, the paid-up capital can be a single dollar, and a foreigner can own every share. Then you read the fine print and the catch appears: the company needs a director who actually lives here, and as a foreigner you cannot file the paperwork yourself.
That tension runs through the whole process. Cheap and fast on paper, with a short list of local-presence rules that quietly decide how much you really spend and whether you can run the thing from abroad. Here is how setting up a Singapore company works in 2026, what it costs, how the tax actually lands, and whether incorporating here gets you any closer to living here.
Why founders keep moving here
A Singapore company carries weight. Invoice a client from one and nobody asks why your business is registered in a tax haven they have never heard of. The banking is deep, the courts are predictable, the dollar is stable, and the country sits one short flight from most of Southeast Asia's growth. For a founder selling across the region, that legitimacy is worth real money.
The tax helps too. Companies pay a flat 17% on chargeable income, comfortably below most Western headline rates, and new companies pay far less than that in their first years. Singapore also runs a broadly territorial system: tax residency turns on where a company is controlled and managed, not merely where it was incorporated, and foreign income is taxed only in specific situations when it is received in Singapore.
And for some founders the company is a first step toward moving here. That part is real, but it is also the most misunderstood, so it comes last.
The local-presence rules foreigners can't skip
Owning the company is the easy bit. Singapore allows 100% foreign shareholding in almost every sector, and you need only one shareholder to start. The friction is in who has to be local.
| Requirement | What it means |
|---|---|
| Resident director | At least one director must ordinarily reside in Singapore: a citizen, permanent resident, or holder of an EntrePass or eligible work pass. Founders who stay abroad usually pay for a nominee. |
| Registered filing agent | If you are not a Singapore resident, you cannot lodge the incorporation yourself. ACRA requires you to appoint a licensed corporate services firm to file on your behalf. |
| Company secretary | A qualified, Singapore-resident company secretary must be appointed within six months of incorporation. The role cannot sit empty. |
| Registered office address | A local physical address, open to the public during office hours. A PO box will not do, which is where a service-provider address usually steps in. |
| Shareholders | Between one and 50 for a private limited company. Individuals or corporate entities, local or foreign. |
| Paid-up capital | A minimum of S$1. You can raise it later, and some banks or licences expect more, but there is no statutory floor beyond a dollar. |
The nominee director is the line item that surprises people. They sign nothing of substance and make no business decisions; they exist purely to satisfy the residency rule, and a corporate services firm will charge somewhere in the low thousands of dollars a year for it, often against a refundable security deposit. The day you get your own work pass and move here, you become your own resident director and the nominee falls away.
Incorporation, step by step
Once the people are sorted, the mechanics are quick. Almost everything runs through ACRA's BizFile portal, and the government fees are modest: S$15 to reserve a name and S$300 to incorporate.
- Reserve the name. Submit a name application to ACRA for S$15. Approval is usually near-instant unless the name clashes with an existing entity or trips a sensitive-word review.
- Pin down the basics. Settle the company's activities (SSIC codes), the shareholders and share split, the directors, the secretary, the financial year-end and the registered address. Your filing agent runs KYC and due-diligence checks on every officer and beneficial owner.
- Adopt a constitution. Most companies use ACRA's model constitution. A bespoke one matters when there are several founders, outside investors or unusual share rights.
- Incorporate. The filing agent lodges the incorporation for S$300. With clean KYC and an approved name, the company can be live the same day.
- Collect the essentials. You receive a Unique Entity Number (UEN), a business profile and the constitution. Set up Corppass for government transactions, and you are ready to open a bank account and trade.
The honest timeline is a few days, not a few hours, and the bottleneck is almost never ACRA. It is the verification: passports, proof of address and source-of-funds questions that corporate services firms must clear before they will file anything for an overseas founder.
The bank account is the slow part
Incorporating is fast. Banking is where overseas founders lose time. A non-resident director with no local track record is exactly the profile a compliance team slows down.
Two paths exist. Digital players such as Aspire and Wise can open a business account remotely, often within days, and have become the default first account for foreign founders who need to move money quickly. The incumbent banks, DBS, OCBC and UOB, offer the full local relationship, but onboarding can stretch into weeks and may want a director to show up in person. The common pattern is to start digital, then add an incumbent account once the company has some history behind it.
How your company gets taxed
Singapore's headline corporate rate is 17%, charged on chargeable income. New companies rarely pay anything close to that at first, and the reason is the Start-Up Tax Exemption.
For its first three consecutive years of assessment, a qualifying new company pays no tax on 75% of its first S$100,000 of normal chargeable income, and on half of the next S$100,000. That shelters up to S$125,000 a year while the business finds its feet. After that, it drops onto the milder Partial Tax Exemption that every company gets.
| Scheme | Who | What is exempt |
|---|---|---|
| Start-Up Tax Exemption | Qualifying new companies, first 3 years of assessment | 75% of the first S$100,000 plus 50% of the next S$100,000 (up to S$125,000 a year) |
| Partial Tax Exemption | Most companies, from the 4th year of assessment | 75% of the first S$10,000 plus 50% of the next S$190,000 (up to S$102,500 a year) |
Not everyone qualifies for the start-up version. The exemption is denied if more than a set portion of the company's shares are held by other corporate entities, and a foreign company's branch cannot claim it at all because it is not incorporated in Singapore. Property and investment holding companies are carved out too. Recent Budgets have layered one-off corporate tax rebates on top in some years, but those come and go, so do not build a plan around them.
Two more numbers matter. Cross S$1 million in annual taxable turnover and GST registration becomes compulsory. And because residency follows control and management, a company whose directors meet and decide entirely overseas can find its Singapore tax residency questioned, which bites the moment you need a Certificate of Residence to use the country's tax treaties.
What you owe ACRA and IRAS every year
A Singapore company is cheap to keep alive only if you keep it compliant. Two regulators expect to hear from you on a schedule, and the penalties for drifting are real.
Moving here is harder than incorporating
Plenty of guides imply that a Singapore company is a visa. It is not. Owning a company gives you no automatic right to live here. You still have to qualify for a work pass like any other hire, and your own company has to pay you accordingly.
The usual route for a founder-director is an Employment Pass, and it has two hurdles. The first is a qualifying salary: at least S$5,600 a month in most sectors today, or S$6,200 in financial services, rising with age to as much as S$10,700 for candidates aged 45 and above. From January 2027 those floors climb again, to S$6,000 and S$6,600. The second hurdle is COMPASS, a points framework on which the candidate must score 40 points across salary, qualifications, how diverse the workforce is and how many locals the company employs.
This is where the popular advice gets it wrong. You do not need to pay yourself into the 90th salary percentile. That band is simply the top of one COMPASS criterion, worth 20 points; sitting between the 65th and 90th percentile still earns 10. Small foreign-owned companies tend to pick up easy points elsewhere, because the diversity and local-employment criteria each hand a firm with under 25 employees their points by default. The maths is more forgiving than the headline salary suggests.
Two other doors exist. The EntrePass is built for founders starting innovative or venture-backed businesses and is judged on the company rather than a salary line. The Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass is for very high earners and senior talent, not a startup route. For most people incorporating a modest company, the Employment Pass is the realistic path, and it is gated on paying yourself a salary the business can genuinely support.
So the picture is honest enough. Singapore will let you stand up a company in a day for a few hundred dollars in government fees, owned entirely by you from anywhere in the world. What it asks in return is a local director, a registered agent, a secretary and a steady habit of filing on time. The incorporation is the cheap part. The resident presence and the compliance are the real cost, and the right to live here is a separate application you earn on salary and merit, not something the company hands you for free.
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Frequently asked questions
Can a foreigner own 100% of a Singapore company?
Yes. Singapore allows 100% foreign shareholding in almost every sector, and a private limited company needs only one shareholder, who can be an individual or a corporate entity.
Do I need to live in Singapore to set up a company there?
No, but you must appoint at least one locally resident director and, as a foreigner, engage an ACRA-registered filing agent to incorporate on your behalf. Founders who stay abroad typically pay a corporate services firm for a nominee director until they obtain their own work pass.
How much does it cost to register a company in Singapore?
ACRA's government fees are S$315 in total: S$15 for the name application and S$300 for incorporation. On top of that, foreign founders pay a registered filing agent, a company secretary and, if needed, a nominee director, which together usually run into a few thousand dollars in the first year.
What is the corporate tax rate in Singapore?
The headline rate is a flat 17% on chargeable income. Qualifying new companies pay far less in their first three years thanks to the Start-Up Tax Exemption, which shelters up to S$125,000 of chargeable income a year.
Can I get a work visa through my own Singapore company?
Possibly, but it is a separate application. A founder-director usually applies for an Employment Pass, which requires a qualifying salary of at least S$5,600 a month and a passing score of 40 points on COMPASS. Innovative or venture-backed founders may instead pursue the EntrePass, which is assessed on the business rather than a salary.