Incorporating a Singapore company as a foreigner

Founders on r/askSingapore keep asking which visa lets them start a company, and the question itself contains the confusion. ACRA and MOM are doing two different jobs. Anyone can own shares in a Singapore Pte Ltd, including someone who has never set foot in the country. Moving here to run that business needs a work pass. And separately from both of those, every local company needs a director who is ordinarily resident in Singapore.

Short answer: owning the shares, sitting on the board and being allowed to work here are three separate things. ACRA handles the first two, and as a foreigner you'll do it through a Corporate Service Provider. Only MOM gives you the third, and a Bizfile listing doesn't count as one.

ACRA first: foreigners file through a CSP

ACRA's eligibility page is blunt about this. As a foreigner you have to engage a Corporate Service Provider (CSP) to reserve the name and register the company. The do-it-yourself route, where a proposed director or secretary logs in to Bizfile with Singpass, isn't the expat path, so budget for the CSP from the start.

Since 9 June 2025, CSPs have had to register with ACRA under the Corporate Service Providers Act 2024. Before you pay anyone, look the firm up on Bizfile's entity search to check it's registered.

The CSP still works through ACRA's own sequence: pick the company type and financial year end, appoint the officers, set the share capital, adopt a constitution (ACRA has a model one), then file on Bizfile. What the government side costs and how long it takes:

The CSP's own fees come on top, and so does a nominee director if you need one.

Every local company also has roles it must fill:

Nominee directors are real directors

Overseas founders usually solve the resident-director problem by taking a nominee from their CSP. Be clear about what you're buying, though. ACRA's wording is that you can't be an "inactive", "nominee" or "sleeping" director, because every director is responsible under the Companies Act whether active or not. Depending on how serious the breach is, a director who falls short of their duties can face a fine of up to $5,000, up to two years in jail, or a five-year ban from being a director.

The rules tightened in 2025. Since 9 June 2025, nobody can act as a nominee director by way of business unless a registered CSP arranges the appointment and has assessed them as fit and proper, including checking they aren't disqualified from being a director. A CSP that skips that check faces a fine of up to $100,000. For companies incorporated from 16 June 2025, the nominee has to tell the company they're a nominee and give the nominator's details on the day of incorporation, and that goes to ACRA with the registration. The public can't buy that register, but ACRA holds it.

So a nominee will run due diligence on you as thoroughly as you should be running it on them. Treat a "guaranteed pass plus nominee director" package with suspicion rather than relief. The named nominee carries real personal exposure, which is why the serious providers charge what they charge, and the pass half of the deal is MOM's decision, not the CSP's.

If you'll be a director yourself, ACRA's free two-hour Directors Training Programme covers your duties under the Companies Act, tax filing and CPF basics.

Incorporating is not permission to work

Where you sit today decides what you can actually do with the company once it exists:

If you live overseas

Holding the shares and a board seat from abroad is fine. MOM's FAQ confirms that foreigners who don't live in Singapore, such as Social Visit Pass holders, don't need an EP to be a registered director. You still need the resident director alongside you.

Flying in for a board meeting is fine too. MOM's list of things you can do on a Short-Term Visit Pass without notifying anyone includes attending company meetings, corporate retreats and meetings with business partners, as long as there's no contract of service or contract for service with a Singapore employer. Running the business day to day from a Singapore desk is work, though, and MOM's rule is that every foreigner who intends to work here must hold a valid pass before they start. Holding shares via a CSP isn't a work-from-Starbucks visa.

If you already hold an EP

Owning shares is fine: MOM's FAQ says an EP holder is allowed to own shares in a Singapore-registered company. Sitting on another company's board is where it changes. Your EP covers work for the employer named on it, and MOM treats a directorship anywhere else, executive or non-executive, as work that needs its own Letter of Consent.

MOM generally grants that LOC only when the company is related to your employer by shareholding, visible in ACRA records, and the seat relates to your job. The common shareholder has to be a company, so if the only link is you as an individual shareholder, you're not eligible. The appointing company applies once your employer has no objection, MOM's stated processing time is within 5 weeks, and the ACRA filing comes after approval. The LOC lasts until your EP expires or is cancelled.

Unrelated companies go to the government agency that regulates or promotes that industry, and MOM may grant the LOC if that agency supports it. That's why being the resident director for a friend's startup, or for your own side Pte Ltd, generally isn't an option on an EP, even though ACRA lists EP holders as local residents. Unpaid charity board work is different: you don't need an LOC to volunteer where no payment is involved and the activity is for a charitable purpose. The application, the related-company tests and what happens at renewal are in EP secondary directorship LOC.

Read it alongside our side income and moonlighting guide, because registering a Pte Ltd doesn't make weekend consulting for Singapore clients legal.

If you hold a PEP

This is the trap people don't expect. MOM's PEP eligibility page excludes a sole proprietor, a partner, or a director who is also a shareholder in an ACRA-registered company. It also says PEP holders aren't allowed to start a business or carry out any form of entrepreneurial activity, and points would-be founders at the EntrePass or ONE Pass instead. The personalised passes are compared in PEP, ONE Pass and Tech.Pass.

If you are on a DP

ACRA points Dependant's Pass holders at the business LOC, applied for after the entity is registered rather than before. You qualify as a sole proprietor, a partner, or a company director holding at least 30% of the shares. The LOC is free, most are decided within 4 weeks, your DP needs at least 3 months of validity when you apply, and you can't start operating the business until the LOC arrives. The first one runs for a year or until your DP expires, whichever is shorter.

Renewal is where one-person businesses come unstuck. You need at least 3 months left on your DP and at least one Singaporean or PR employee earning at least the Local Qualifying Salary, $1,800 a month for full-time work, who has had CPF contributions for at least 3 consecutive months before you submit. So model the payroll before anyone treats this as a replacement for a trailing-spouse plan. More in trailing partner career and the Dependant's Pass guide.

EntrePass, and the shelf-company trap

EntrePass is MOM's founder pass, open to every nationality. You need a private limited company registered with ACRA in which you hold at least 30%, the company has to be venture-backed or own innovative technologies, and you have to clear at least one innovator test: S$100,000 raised in a single funding round, backing from a recognised incubator or accelerator, a tech business you founded and sold, registered IP, or a research collaboration in Singapore. Coffee shops, bars, massage parlours, TCM, employment agencies and geomancy are excluded outright.

Timing matters more than founders expect. ACRA's advice is to apply for the EntrePass before you incorporate or within six months of setting up. The rule behind that is MOM's: if the registered company is more than 12 months old on the date you apply, you're assessed against the renewal criteria, which look at your financial statements and ongoing business activity and, from the second renewal, at business spending and local hires. So a shelf company a CSP offers you as a head start does the opposite. It moves you straight to the harder test.

You don't need the company first, either. MOM lets a new EntrePass holder do the setup work on the pass, including registering the company, market research, fundraising and hiring. And if a properly capitalised employer could clear you through an ordinary EP role, that's usually a cleaner path than building an EntrePass story around what is really a job.

If you're a top earner rather than a startup founder, the ONE Pass is the other pass that lets you run your own companies. It needs a fixed monthly salary of at least S$30,000 or outstanding achievements in certain sectors. MOM also opens an AI and Tech track for ONE Pass applications from 28 January 2027.

The self-sponsored EP myth

"Incorporate, then hire myself on an EP" isn't a special founder pathway, whatever the packages advertise. Your company can apply for an EP for you, because MOM takes EP applications from employers, but it's an ordinary application and every test still applies to a company of one:

• Salary. Your fixed monthly salary has to reach the EP qualifying salary. Outside financial services that's $5,600 at the youngest age band now, rising with age to $10,700 at 45 and above. For new applications from 1 Jan 2027, and renewals of passes expiring from 1 Jan 2028, it becomes $6,000, rising to $11,500. Financial services sits higher.
• COMPASS. The application needs 40 points. A firm with fewer than 25 PMETs scores 10 points by default on both the diversity and the local-employment criteria, so a small company starts on 20. The other 20 have to come from your salary against local PMET salaries in your sector, your qualifications, or MOM's bonus criteria such as the Shortage Occupation List. More in COMPASS explained.
• Advertising. A company with fewer than 10 employees doesn't have to advertise the job on MyCareersFuture first. The other exemptions are in FCF and MyCareersFuture.

Paying yourself a paper salary you never actually receive is exactly the kind of thing that surfaces when IRAS and a pass renewal land in the same year. The Employment of Foreign Manpower Act has teeth here too. A false statement in a work pass application carries a fine of up to $20,000, up to 2 years in jail, or both, and getting a work pass for a business that isn't actually in operation carries 6 months to 2 years in jail.

Where the profile fits, go the ordinary routes instead: EntrePass, an EP from a real employer, or the ONE Pass. The PEP isn't one of them, for the reasons above.

Banking and compliance after ACRA

Corporate account KYC is heavier going than the account you opened as an employee, and our bank account opening guide covers the easy version. ACRA's own checklist says banks will usually want most directors physically present in Singapore, along with identity checks on the directors and the people who own the business, a board decision and certified company documents. If you're incorporating from overseas, plan a trip around it. Expect questions about controllers, source of funds, and what the company actually does day to day.

Then the calendar starts, and it carries on regardless of whether you're living in Jakarta:

The company is taxed in its own name at a flat 17% of chargeable income. Your nominee director's accountability carries on through all of this too, which is one more reason they'll want the filings done on time.

For complex structures or pass collisions, talk to immigration counsel before anything is filed, because the order matters: the DP business LOC comes after registration, an EP holder's LOC comes before the ACRA filing, and EntrePass timing depends on the company's age. If the founder pass is your plan, read EntrePass end to end next.