Yes, a company can be owned by a single person as sole shareholder and director. However, he will need to appoint a separate person to act as a secretary. A Singapore registered company can be 100% foreign-owned.

The incorporation process is relatively easy. For local individual, we will require a copy of the identification card, email address and mobile number for the purpose of know your client (“KYC”) and in the case with a corporate shareholder, we will require to have the business profile or its equivalent in the place of incorporation together with its certificate of incorporation. We will also require an organisation chart if the corporate shareholder belongs to a group of companies.

For the foreigner, we will also require his passport, proof of address in English, email address and mobile number for KYC purposes.

A Constitution is a documents detailing the roles and responsibilities of the directors, and shareholders. It will also detail the manner of conduct of shareholders and directors and the various authority given to the officers of the company.

Normally, you can find out the availability of the company name within seconds. Unless, there is system maintenance at ACRA’s end and this would delay the name check process.

Do also note that certain activities are subjected to further check and if your new company intends to be in the medical, legal, financial, futures, commodities, architecture or engineering industry, you may wish to speak with Margin Wheeler first before you go on to reserve the name.

If your address is a private address, then yes you can. But having a residential address as a registered address may be prohibitive as you may find your supplier or creditors coming to your home. Statutory letters are also sent to your registered address.

So it would be better if you can consider having an office address as your registered address. Margin Wheeler also provides a registered address service. Enquire with us.

You may consider appointing your accountant or payroll personnel to take care of your business. At Margin Wheeler, we have a team of professional who can assist you with these functions.

If you incorporate the company on your own, ACRA will send an email to the registered director’s email address. The UEN would be assigned at the same time.

UEN is in short for Unique Entity Number. This UEN is used for all statutory transactions with the Singapore Governmental bodies. You can also choose your own Special UEN (“SUN”) at a fee to be payable to ACRA. SUN is chargeable at SGD3,000 for Tier 1 and SGD1,000 for Tier 2.

Reference: https://www.acra.gov.sg/about-bizfile/special-uen-sun-choose-your-preferred-uen

Yes, you can appoint a nominee director subject to the terms and conditions to be agreed between you and the nominees.

Such arrangement will require the nominee director to disclosure to the Company by naming his appointer for the purpose to update the Register of Nominee Director. The Register need not be made public (including the auditors) but it must be made available to ACRA and public agencies upon request.

Public agencies: the Singapore Police Force, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) etc.

Margin Wheeler provides nominee director service. Enquiry now.

Yes, you can appoint a nominee shareholder subject to the terms and conditions to be agreed between you and the nominees.

However, we generally don’t encourage such arrangement as you may have difficulties to open banking account later on.

Such arrangement will require the nominee shareholder to disclosure to the Company by naming his appointer for the purpose to update the Register of Nominee Shareholder. The Register need not be made public (including the auditors) but it must be made available to ACRA and public agencies upon request.

Public agencies: the Singapore Police Force, the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) etc.

He/she will also have to make a disclosure to the Company on the registrable controller. This information will be filed with ACRA confidentially.

The minimum age to act as a director and to become a shareholder is 18 years old.

The documents required are identification documents (i.e.: NRIC / Passport) and proof of address in English for foreigner, email address and mobile numberfor our KYC review.

As Margin Wheeler is a regulated filing agent, hence it is bound under law to conduct a KYC on all clients.

You can go to www.acra.gov.sg to check the availability of your desired name. Or alternatively, Margin Wheeler can help you to check on the availability. Once the name is available, you can pay a S$15 to reserve the proposed name for 120 days. During this period, you can incorporate your company anytime.

Of course you can. At Margin Wheeler, we offer nominee director to act as your local resident director and the company can also use our office address as your company registered office address.

We can also assist to scan your mails and then email to you at an affordable fee.

If you incorporate on your own, the cost is S$315 payable to ACRA. Margin Wheeler can assist you with the incorporation at a nominal fee.

Normally a company can be incorporated electronically within 24 hours on your own. If you require Margin Wheeler to incorporate your company, we will require to perform KYC on your director and shareholders as well as your ultimate beneficial owner (“UBO”). Once the KYC is complete, we will assist to incorporate the company.

If you incorporate on your own, do note that you will not be able to register any foreign based directors. Only Margin Wheeler can register for you as we are a regulated filing agent.

You can buy a business profile and in the same documents, you can see basic:

• Name and UEN
• Paid up and issued capital
• Names of Auditors, Directors and Shareholders
• Last filed annual return and financial year end
• Charges, if any in the company’s name
• Shareholdings and types of shareholdings, if any
If a company had filed any electronic documents, you can also extract them via ACRA at a extraction fee depending on the number of documents extracted electronically.

Financial Action Task Force (FATF) defines beneficial owner as “the natural person(s) who ultimately owns or controls a customer and/or the natural person on whose behalf a transaction is being conducted. It also includes those persons who exercise ultimate effective control over a legal person or arrangement.” In short, any person who can exercise any form of ultimate control (direct or indirect) can be deemed to be a UBO.

Singapore is very generous to locally incorporated companies. As long you have 30% local shareholdings, you have many available grants and subsidies accorded by the Singapore Government to assist these companies to be efficient and digitally ready. You can find out more here, or you can speak with our professionals to see which are the best grants suitable for the company.