How to Register a Business in Singapore

Last updated on December 12, 2025

Under section 5 of the Business Names Registration Act (BNRA), all types of businesses except those exempted (see below) must be registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA).

A ‘business’ refers to any activity that is carried out on a continual basis for the purpose of profit. This includes online or web-based businesses, such as running online stores, as well as home-based businesses, such as those selling home-baked goods.

Before carrying on a business in Singapore, that business must first be registered.

Benefits of Registering a Business in Singapore

Apart from complying with the legal regulations, registering your business is also beneficial.

To customers and suppliers, a registered business provides legitimacy because information about your business can be searched and verified via ACRA. As a result, your business may find it easier to obtain financing and contracting on credit.

Furthermore, registration will allow you to be protected from legal liability (i.e. should your business be sued or incur debts, you will not be held personally liable) if you choose to incorporate a company or register as a Limited Liability Partnership (LLP).

Exemptions from Registration of Business

If you intend to carry on your business as an individual under only your full name, you are exempted from registration.

Similarly, if you carry on business with one or more other individuals, you would be exempted from registration if the name of the firm is the full name of all the individuals.

However, if your business name includes descriptive words before or after your name, such as “Home-Baked Cakes by Lim Ah Kao”, you must register your business.

Some other exemptions include:

Any institution, authority, person or fund whose income is tax-exempt, as specified in the First Schedule to the Income Tax Act;
Any society registered under the Societies Act or the Co-operative Societies Act;
Any mutual benefit organisation registered under the Mutual Benefit Organisations Act; and
Any trade union registered under the Trade Unions Act
Any platform work association registered under the Platform Workers Act

Must Foreigners Register Businesses in Singapore?

If you are a foreign entrepreneur residing in Singapore and wish to start and operate a business here, you can apply for an Entrepreneur Pass (EntrePass) from the Ministry of Manpower (MOM). Eligible foreign entrepreneurs can apply for the EntrePass before incorporating a company with ACRA, or within 6 months after incorporating a company with ACRA.

For more information on what businesses are eligible and the application requirements, you can visit MOM’s website or our article on obtaining an entrepass.

If you are a Dependant’s Pass (DP) holder who wishes to start a business in Singapore, you can apply for a Letter of Consent (LOC) from MOM to run your business, after registering the business with ACRA.

More information on the eligibility and application requirements can be found on MOM’s website and our article on applying for an LOC.

Considerations Before Registering a Business in Singapore

Before registering your business, here are some considerations you will need to decide on:

Business structure;
Business name; and
Registered business address.

Choosing a business structure

The first important choice to make would be to choose a business structure based on your considerations regarding capital, number of owners and risks.

If you are the only person running your business, you may wish to register as a sole proprietorship, which has fewer administrative requirements.

If you intend to form a business firm with one or more other partners, you may wish to register as a partnership. A partnership does not have to file its accounts or have them audited.

If you and your partners wish to limit your liabilities by not being personally liable for the partnership’s debts, then an LLP may be ideal.

If you intend to expand your business and would like to raise capital more easily in the future, you may wish to incorporate a Singapore company. This would be a separate legal entity which would similarly allow you to limit your liabilities.

Choosing a business name

Next, you will have to decide on a business name. You should run an online Google search to find out if your proposed name is already being used by a currently registered business, or if it is extremely similar to the name of such a business.

Additionally, you should also run your proposed business name through the entity search function on the BizFile+ website, which is ACRA’s online filing and information retrieval system.

If the name you have chosen has been used before or is extremely similar to a used business name, ACRA will refuse to register it.

Choosing a business address

Lastly, you will also need a business address.

If you do not intend to rent any office space, you can consider registering your home address as your business address under the Home Office Scheme.

The Home Office Scheme allows homeowners, registered occupants, or tenants of Housing and Development Board (HDB) flats to operate small-scale offices in their homes, subject to the prevailing conditions of use.

You can use your flat to run the administrative functions of a business and hire up to two non-resident employees. Your flat must remain as a place of residence at all times. Business activities must be confined within the flat and should not cause inconvenience to your neighbours.

For owners/residents of private residential authority, the Home Office Scheme is administered by the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA). More information on the Scheme and application procedures can be found here.

How to Register a Business in Singapore

To register your business, you may make an online application via the BizFile+ website. The application itself may only take about 15 minutes to complete.

However, certain types of business require approval from certain regulatory authorities before they can be registered. Such businesses include architecture and real estate . Getting such approval may require an additional 14 working days to 2 months.

Depending on the type of business you intend to register, you may need to seek approval from the relevant regulatory authority before starting your application to register on ACRA.

In other cases, the regulatory authority may only get involved in approving your registration after it has been submitted to ACRA. You may wish to refer to this ACRA webpage for more information.

Required information for the online application to register your business

For the online application, you will require:

A SingPass ID;
Entity information (number of years of registration, commencement date, entity name);
Shareholding information (if you are incorporating a local company with shares);
Business activity;
Business address;
Details of owners of business; and
In-principle approval from referral authorities (if required).

Fees for registration of businesses

For sole proprietors and partnerships, the application fee is $100 for one year or $160 for three years (inclusive of registration and renewal fees).

The registration fee for an LLP is $100 (a one-time registration fee).

For a company, it is a one-time registration fee of $300.

Failure to Register Your Business

Failure to register your business may result in a fine of up to $10,000, or imprisonment of up to 2 years, or both.

Another consequence of failing to register is that any contractual rights may be unenforceable by an unregistered business owner.

For instance, an unregistered blogshop owner being owed money by a client may find himself without legal remedies to reclaim the payment as their contract with the client cannot be enforced.

(Though, in certain meritorious cases, an unregistered business owner may apply to the court to be allowed to enforce their legal rights.)

What to Do After Registering Your Business

Upon registering your business, you will be issued a business profile containing details of your business as well as a Unique Entity Number (UEN) (i.e. your business’ identification number).

The UEN must be used when transacting with government agencies.

Should your business require any licences, you may apply via GoBusiness prior to running your business. Otherwise, you may run your business immediately upon its successful registration.

Renewal of registration

After the period of registration has expired, your registration will have to be renewed if your business is a sole proprietorship, partnership or limited partnership. Companies are exempt from having to renew their registration.

There is a renewal fee of $30 for 1 year, or $90 for 3 years.

Late renewal or failure to renew business

Under the new 2-tier penalty framework (introduced in December 2024), the penalty for late filing of lodgements (including those related to business renewal applications) will be $50 within the first 3 months after the due date, or $200 if the lodgement is filed more than 3 months after the due date.

Additionally, not renewing the business registration for a sole proprietorship or partnership by the due date will cause the registration to lapse and expire. Carrying on a business after its registration has lapsed is an offence, for which the defaulter will be liable upon conviction to a fine of up to $10,000 and/or imprisonment for up to 2 years.

What Happens If the Business Closes Down?

If the business unfortunately has to close down and cease operations, there are some requirements for closing a business that you should take note of.

A sole-proprietor or partner may notify ACRA that it has ceased business by filing the “File cessation or dissolution of business entity” eService online via Bizfile.

If you had chosen to register your business as a company, you must apply to ACRA to voluntarily wind up your company or to strike off its name from the Register. If your company is GST registered and is no longer carrying on a business, you would also need to apply for cancellation of GST registration with IRAS.