Singapore

You incorporate a private limited company, or Pte Ltd, through ACRA's BizFile+ portal. Reserve a name for SGD 15, then file incorporation for SGD 300, which comes to SGD 315 in government fees. Straightforward applications are approved in one to three business days. You need at least one shareholder, one resident director, a company secretary appointed within six months (Companies Act 1967, s.171) and a local registered address. Corporate service-provider packages typically run SGD 600–1,500. Fees as of 2026.

Yes. Non-residents can incorporate entirely remotely through an ACRA-licensed corporate service provider, signing and filing everything electronically without ever setting foot in Singapore. The one binding constraint is s.145 of the Companies Act 1967. At least one director must be ordinarily resident in Singapore, meaning a citizen, a permanent resident or an EntrePass holder. Founders who do not relocate simply appoint a nominee resident director, typically for SGD 1,500–3,000 a year plus a refundable deposit. You yourself need not be resident. The company does need a resident director.

Singapore levies a flat 17% corporate income tax on chargeable income (IRAS), among the lower headline rates in Asia, and the effective rate usually comes in lower still. New companies get the Start-Up Tax Exemption for their first three years of assessment: 75% off the first SGD 100,000 of chargeable income and 50% off the next SGD 100,000. After that, the Partial Tax Exemption applies, worth up to SGD 102,500 exempt. Dividends are tax-free under the one-tier system. Rates as of 2026.

It depends on where the company is managed, not where it is registered. A Singapore-incorporated company is tax resident only if its control and management, in practice its board-level strategic decisions, are exercised in Singapore. Residency governs access to tax treaties and the foreign-income exemption, so a company directed entirely from abroad can lose both. The statute sets no fixed minimum on staff or office space, but IRAS, banks and treaty partners increasingly expect to see genuine local substance. Confirm your position with an adviser before relying on it.

Singapore's GST, its VAT equivalent, is 9%, unchanged since 1 January 2024. Registration becomes compulsory once taxable turnover exceeds SGD 1 million over any 12-month period, whether you are looking back over the past year or forward on a reasonable forecast. Below that threshold, registration is voluntary, but it commits you for two years. Many holding companies or purely foreign-facing companies never cross the threshold. Late registration can be backdated and carries a 10% penalty. Threshold current as of 2026.

Foreign ownership does not disqualify you. The Start-Up Tax Exemption is open to foreign-owned Singapore companies, provided they have no more than 20 shareholders and at least one individual holds 10% or more of the ordinary shares. It is denied, however, to investment-holding companies and property developers. That is a common trap for those incorporating purely to hold assets. The relief runs for the first three years of assessment only. Confirm eligibility with IRAS or an adviser before relying on it.

Yes, GIP is open as at July 2026, per the EDB GIP Factsheet updated 5 May 2025. There are three routes. Option A puts SGD 10m into a new or expanded Singapore business. Option B puts SGD 25m into a GIP-select fund, priced at 2.5x precisely because it is passive. Option C is a Single Family Office with at least SGD 200m AUM, of which SGD 50m must be onshored within 12 months. The May 2025 update raised the application fee to SGD 20,000. The SGD 10m/25m/200m structure introduced in the March 2023 reform remains in force.

Getting PR requires no minimum stay, but keeping it does. GIP grants permanent residency immediately, and the real constraint is renewing the 5-year Re-Entry Permit. For the passive SGD 25m fund route, Option B, the only renewal path is living in Singapore more than half the time. There is no employment alternative here. Options A and C do offer employment-target alternatives, but these are demanding operational commitments. Option A requires 30 employees by year five. Option C requires five incremental family-office professionals. Families who choose Option B expecting low-presence PR are buying the wrong product.

No. Singapore does not permit dual citizenship, so naturalising means giving up your existing passports. For most UHNW families, this makes permanent residency, not citizenship, the real endpoint. PR itself can be held indefinitely, subject to Re-Entry Permit renewal. Citizenship, typically available after 2+ years of PR, is discretionary and never guaranteed.

Singapore taxes individuals territorially. There is no capital gains tax and no estate duty, which was abolished for deaths on or after 15 February 2008. Foreign-source income received by individuals is generally exempt, unless it comes through a Singapore partnership or arises from a trade carried on in Singapore. Pay attention to the badges-of-trade analysis. Gains can be recharacterised as taxable trading income if you are found to be dealing rather than investing. The top personal rate is 24% on chargeable income above SGD 1m from YA2024, and Singapore is a full CRS participant.

Yes, and once PR is formalised, there is effectively no going back. Male dependants who obtain PR become liable for National Service, and this catches out families with teenage sons more often than people expect. It is also worth noting that GIP dependants are limited to a spouse and unmarried children under 21 at the date of application. Parents and unmarried children over 21 cannot be included as dependants. They get only a Long Term Visit Pass, and that is tied to the validity of your Re-Entry Permit.

For many people, yes. The Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass, launched 1 January 2023, is the only Singapore work pass that is not tied to an employer. You can work for multiple companies, start businesses, and sit on boards, all for five years, and it needs no SGD 10m of locked capital. It does require a fixed monthly salary of at least SGD 30,000, roughly SGD 360k a year, and bonuses, equity and carried interest generally do not count toward that. The catch comes at renewal, at year five. You must show that SGD 30,000 monthly salary in Singapore over the past five years, or a Singapore company employing at least five locals. A holder who spent those five years investing rather than drawing a Singapore salary can fail this test.

In principle, yes, and it is often the practical route. An EP issued by your own Singapore entity is cheaper and faster than GIP, and it starts the PR clock. But the COMPASS framework made the self-sponsored EP much harder. You need at least 40 points across salary, qualifications, firm-level nationality diversity and local employment support. A one-person, foreign-owned company routinely fails the two firm-level criteria, regardless of how high the salary is. Meeting the qualifying salary is necessary but not sufficient. The salary bands are already legislated to rise on 1 January 2027, so model those numbers, not today's.

Sections 13O and 13U are MAS fund tax exemption schemes. They exempt a single family office's specified income from designated investments, its investment returns, from Singapore tax. Combined with no capital gains tax and no estate duty, a properly run SFO can hold a global portfolio at close to zero Singapore tax leakage. But it is a tax exemption, not a residence permit. It gives no right to live in Singapore, which requires a separate pass. The 2023 tightening raised minimum AUM (SGD 20m for 13O, SGD 50m for 13U) and local professional headcount, and added a Capital Deployment Requirement. Advisers quoting pre-2023 conditions are out of date.

No, and it gets mis-sold as one all the time. EntrePass is an innovation-and-VC pass, not a general founder visa. MOM expects venture-backed, job-creating companies, and it explicitly rules out many business types, among them coffee shops, bars, karaoke lounges, massage parlours, TCM, employment agencies and geomancy. You must hold at least 30% of an ACRA-registered private limited company, and renewal depends on hitting escalating spend and local-hire targets. For most UHNW families, the ONE Pass or an Employment Pass through their own company is the cleaner instrument.