FAQs

First-year incorporation pricing starts at S$755 for a local owner and S$2,495 for a foreign owner, all-in with government fees included. The exact figure depends on whether you add accounting or group services, with local options at S$755, S$1,575 or S$2,175 and foreign options at S$2,495, S$3,315 or S$3,915. Payroll, Employment Pass applications and GST registration are separate priced add-ons.

Foundations covers incorporation or transfer-in with a standard constitution, a named company secretary, a registered office with digital mailroom, and the AGM and annual return with the ACRA fee included. It also keeps your registers of members, directors' interests and registrable controllers current, provides standard resolutions through the year, answers routine corporate secretarial queries through your named secretary, and manages government grants as part of the work.

Yes. Foreign owner plans add a nominee director and bank account opening to the Foundations package. First-year pricing for a foreign owner is S$2,495, S$3,315 or S$3,915, depending on whether you add accounting or group services, with government fees included. Everything is agreed in the engagement letter before work begins.

First-year transfer-in pricing is S$380, S$1,200 or S$1,800 for a local owner, and S$1,880, S$2,700 or S$3,300 for a foreign owner. The price depends on whether you add accounting or group services, and it is all-in with government fees included. A foreign owner transfer also adds nominee director and bank account opening.

Work runs in four stages: Discover, Structure, Operate and Scale. We first read what you have, including registers, ledgers, filings and gaps; then entities, systems and registers are set up or put right; then we run the work month to month and file ahead of the date. Scale adds management reporting, forecasting and fundraising support when you are ready.

Yes. Sequence Business Services Pte. Ltd. is an ACRA Registered Filing Agent, FA20230485, and was founded in Singapore in 2023. Where work requires a licensed legal practice, it is carried out by our partner firm, KJ Loway LLC. Every statutory date sits on our calendar, with the work scheduled before it falls due.

Foundations covers the corporate secretarial side: incorporation or transfer-in, a named company secretary, registered office, AGM and annual return, registers and standard resolutions. Foundations + Accounting adds bookkeeping with monthly management accounts, 120 transactions a year, unaudited financial statements and XBRL filing, quarterly GST filing, ECI and Form C-S or C, and a tax position reviewed through the year. A group tier adds consolidation for one parent and one subsidiary.

Legal separation, and what that means when something goes wrong. A sole proprietorship is not a separate legal entity, so the owner carries the liabilities of the business personally and without limit. A company is a separate legal entity: ACRA’s own wording is that it can sue, be sued, and own property in the company’s name, and the shareholders’ exposure is limited to what they put in. That separation is also why a company can raise capital, bring in shareholders and be sold as a whole, and why nearly every business that intends to grow or be sold is incorporated rather than registered as a sole proprietorship.

One of each is enough to incorporate. Every company must have at least one shareholder and at least one director, and a private company limited by shares can have up to 50 shareholders, individuals or corporate entities. At least one director must be ordinarily resident in Singapore. The same person can be both sole shareholder and sole director, but that person cannot also be the company secretary.

S$1. ACRA requires only that a company with share capital has at least S$1 in it to start, so capital is not the barrier people expect. That said, the figure is public and banks, landlords and counterparties do look at it, so a nominal S$1 is not always the right answer commercially even though it is sufficient legally. We would size it against what you actually intend to do with the company.

There are four routes, and they are not interchangeable. A subsidiary is a Singapore company you own, and is the usual choice because it is a separate legal entity with its own limited liability. A branch registers the foreign company itself here, so the parent carries the liability directly. A representative office is a limited, temporary presence for market research that cannot trade. Re-domiciliation moves an existing foreign company’s registration to Singapore outright. Which one is right turns on whether you intend to contract and invoice here, and on how you want the liability to sit.

Three years at most. A representative office is granted an initial validity of one year, extendable case by case, to a maximum of three years in total, with no renewal beyond that. It is registered by Enterprise Singapore for manufacturing, trading and wholesale activities, by MAS for banking, finance and insurance, and by the Ministry of Law for a foreign law practice. Because it cannot trade and cannot be extended indefinitely, it is best treated as a look-before-you-commit step rather than a structure to settle into.

The plan covers a named company secretary, your registered office with a digital mailroom, the AGM and annual return, and standard resolutions through the year. Your registers of members, directors' interests and registrable controllers are kept current, and the ACRA annual return fee is included. Routine queries go to your named secretary.

Both the AGM and the annual return are handled inside the corporate secretarial service, so Sequence runs the paperwork and files the return for you. For a 31 December year end the published compliance year tracks the AGM at six months and the annual return at seven. Both sit on our calendar, not yours.

ACRA measures both from your financial year end, not from each other. A private company must hold its AGM within six months of financial year end, and file its annual return within seven. Companies with share capital and an overseas branch register get eight months for the return. So for a 31 December year end the AGM falls due by 30 June and the annual return by 31 July. A 60-day extension can be applied for at S$200, but it is a fallback rather than a plan. Every one of these dates sits on our calendar rather than yours, and the work is scheduled before it falls due.

It costs money quickly and the exposure sits with the directors personally. ACRA charges a late lodgement penalty of S$300 on an annual return filed up to three months past its due date, and S$600 beyond that, applied automatically on submission. Persistent default goes further: a court fine of up to S$10,000 per charge, and a director convicted of three or more filing offences within five years faces a five-year disqualification. On the tax side, IRAS can issue an estimated assessment you must pay within a month, offer a composition of up to S$5,000 per offence in place of prosecution, and where a company has not filed for two or more years, seek a penalty of twice the tax assessed on conviction. None of it is discretionary once triggered, which is the argument for filing ahead of the date rather than on it.

Yes. The AGM and annual return are listed in the plan with the ACRA fee included, and first-year prices are quoted all-in with government fees included. There is no separate filing charge to watch for. Everything included is written into the engagement letter before you sign it.

Yes. Registers of members, directors' interests and registrable controllers are kept current as part of the Foundations plan, and standard resolutions through the year are included alongside them. The same records that keep a company compliant are what a buyer asks for first.

Changes to directors, shareholders or capital are a priced add-on, listed from S$16. Standard resolutions through the year are included in the plan, while non-standard resolutions are priced from S$60. Your named secretary answers routine corporate secretarial queries through the year.

First-year prices are all-in with government fees included: a local owner incorporating pays S$755 on the base Foundations plan, and a transfer-in from another provider starts at S$380. Each step up adds accounting, then group consolidation. A foreign owner adds a nominee director and bank account opening.

Within six months of incorporation, and the role cannot be left vacant beyond that. The secretary must be a natural person rather than a company, must be locally resident, and cannot be the same person as a sole director, which is the point most first-time owners are caught by. Sequence provides a named company secretary as part of the service, so the appointment is made properly and the person behind it actually knows your company.

A registrable controller is a person or entity with significant interest in, or significant control over, your company, which usually means substantial ownership or the ability to direct it. Every company must keep a Register of Registrable Controllers and, unless exempt, file that information centrally with ACRA. For companies incorporated from 16 June 2025 the register must be set up on the day of incorporation, not at leisure afterwards. ACRA’s guidance describes the concept rather than reproducing the statutory test, so an unusual ownership chain is worth checking properly. Keeping this register current is part of our corporate secretarial work.

Two sets, held differently. The electronic registers of members, directors, secretaries, chief executives and auditors are maintained through Bizfile and update when a filing is made. The Register of Registrable Controllers and the Register of Nominee Directors and Nominee Shareholders are kept by the company itself, at your registered office or your corporate service provider’s office, and filed to ACRA centrally as well. The second set is the one companies forget, because nothing prompts you. We keep all of them current as part of the plan.

Disclosure, and the full duties of any other director. A nominee director must tell the company they are a nominee, on the date of incorporation or within 30 days of becoming one, and the company records that in its Register of Nominee Directors. That register is set up on the day of registration, updated within seven days of any change, and filed centrally with ACRA within two business days of the private register being updated. The point worth understanding is that nominee status changes none of the legal duties: a nominee director carries the same statutory responsibilities as any other director, which is why the role is a service to be taken seriously rather than a name to be lent.

The transfer is documented between the parties, approved as the constitution requires, stamp duty is dealt with, and the change is filed with ACRA within 14 days, after which the electronic register of members reflects the new holding. The paperwork is straightforward; what catches people is the constitution’s own restrictions on transfer, such as pre-emption rights that have to be offered or waived first. We prepare the resolutions and make the filing, and where the transfer is part of a sale of the business, our brokerage line handles the transaction side separately.

It is a two-step process rather than a simple notification. The proposed name has to be applied for and approved first, then the change is filed against the approved transaction together with the special resolution passed by the shareholders. Because approval is not guaranteed, do not order signage or change your domain before the name clears. We run both steps and update the registers and your statutory documents afterwards.

Five years, on both counts, but measured from different points. ACRA’s guidance for directors is to keep records for at least five years after the end of the financial year in which the transaction was completed. IRAS requires source documents, accounting records, bank statements and supporting schedules to be kept for at least five years from the relevant Year of Assessment, and that obligation survives the company: records must still be kept for five years after a strike-off, dissolution or winding up. Digital copies are acceptable, which makes the practical answer to keep everything rather than decide year by year what to discard.

You must register for GST once your taxable turnover passes S$1 million, and IRAS applies two tests. The retrospective test looks back: if turnover was more than S$1 million at the end of the calendar year, you register. The prospective test looks forward: if you reasonably expect turnover to exceed S$1 million in the next 12 months, you register then, without waiting for it to happen. Below the threshold you may still register voluntarily, which is often worth doing if your customers are themselves GST-registered. We watch the threshold against your own ledgers rather than leaving you to notice it.

The current GST rate is 9%, set by IRAS. It rose from 8% at the start of 2024, the last of a two-step increase from 7%. If you are registered, you charge GST at that rate on your standard-rated supplies and recover the GST you pay on business expenses, which is why registration is sometimes worth taking on voluntarily.

Most owner-run Singapore companies do not, because of the small company exemption under section 205C of the Companies Act. Your company is exempt if it is a private company and it met at least two of these three tests in each of the two immediately preceding financial years: annual revenue of S$10 million or less, total assets of S$10 million or less, and 50 or fewer full-time employees at the financial year end. A company less than two years old is tested against its current financial year instead. If your company sits in a group, the group must also meet two of the same three tests on a consolidated basis, including foreign entities. ACRA has consulted on raising these thresholds, so the position is worth rechecking rather than assumed to be settled.

Singapore taxes company profits at a flat 17% of chargeable income, and IRAS applies the same rate to local and foreign companies. That headline rate is rarely what a smaller company actually pays, because the exemption schemes reduce chargeable income before the rate is applied. We compute the position through the year rather than only when the return falls due.

A qualifying new company can claim the Start-Up Tax Exemption for its first three consecutive Years of Assessment: 75% of the first S$100,000 of chargeable income is exempt, and 50% of the next S$100,000, giving up to S$125,000 of exemption a year. To qualify it must be incorporated in Singapore, be tax resident here, and have no more than 20 shareholders throughout the basis period, all individuals or with at least one individual holding at least 10% of the ordinary shares. Investment holding companies and property developers are excluded. Every other company, including those excluded ones and those past their first three years, gets Partial Tax Exemption instead: 75% of the first S$10,000 and 50% of the next S$190,000, up to S$102,500 a year.

The Accounting tier adds bookkeeping with monthly management accounts, 120 transactions a year, unaudited financial statements and XBRL filing, quarterly GST filing, and ECI and Form C-S or C computed and filed. Your tax position is reviewed through the year, and a cloud accounting subscription is included at cost.

Further accounting transactions are charged at S$120 per block of 120. The plan includes 120 transactions a year, so anything beyond that is a priced add-on rather than absorbed. The scope and the fee are agreed with you before the work starts.

ECI falls three months after your financial year end, so for a 31 December year end it lands in March. Every statutory date sits on our calendar, and the ECI is computed and filed for you as part of the Accounting tier.

Yes, if you meet both of IRAS’s waiver conditions for that year: annual revenue of S$5 million or less, and an ECI of nil. Meet both and you simply do not file, with no need to tell IRAS or ask for confirmation. Miss either one and ECI is due within three months of your financial year end. We check the two conditions against your own figures each year rather than filing or skipping out of habit.

For a 31 December year end, Form C-S is due by 30 November. We compute and file it as part of the Accounting tier, and your tax position is reviewed through the year rather than only when the return falls due.

The Foundations + Accounting tier is S$1,575 for the first year for a local owner incorporating a company, all-in with government fees included. Transferring an existing local company in at that tier is S$1,200 for the first year. Foreign owner plans include a nominee director and bank account opening, and cost more.

A cloud accounting subscription is included at cost, so you pay the subscription itself and we do not add a markup. It sits inside the Accounting tier alongside the bookkeeping, monthly management accounts, unaudited financial statements and the XBRL filing.

Payroll is a priced add-on at S$30 per employee per month, charged on top of your chosen plan. It appears in the priced add-ons rather than the plan inclusions, so it is quoted and agreed separately. The scope and the fee are set out in the engagement letter before you sign it.

Yes. Employment passes and renewals sit inside our HR and Government offering, so a new foreign hire can be covered. An Employment Pass application is listed as a priced add-on at S$500, charged on top of your plan fee rather than inside it. Monthly payroll with contributions handled is available separately at S$30 per employee.

MOM sets a minimum qualifying salary that rises with the candidate’s age, because it is benchmarked to the top third of local professional salaries. For applications made now, it runs from S$5,600 a month for a candidate aged 23 or below to S$10,700 at 45 and above, and financial services roles are held to a higher scale, from S$6,200 to S$11,800. Those figures rise on 1 January 2027 for new applications, and on 1 January 2028 for renewals: S$6,000 to S$11,500 for most sectors, and S$6,600 to S$12,700 in financial services. If you are budgeting a hire that straddles those dates, plan against the higher number. Meeting the salary floor is necessary but not sufficient, because the application must also pass COMPASS.

COMPASS is the points framework MOM scores every Employment Pass application against, and an application needs 40 points to pass it. Four criteria carry the score: the candidate’s salary against local benchmarks, their qualifications, how much your existing workforce shares the candidate’s nationality, and your share of local professional staff against your sector. Two further criteria can add bonus points, for skills on the shortage occupation list and for firms in strategic economic priority areas. Two of the four are about your company rather than the candidate, which is why the same person can score differently at two employers. Candidates earning a fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500 are exempt from COMPASS altogether.

MOM states that applications submitted online are processed, or receive an update, within 10 business days. Where the application is sponsored by an overseas company with no registered Singapore entity, MOM allows up to six weeks for most cases. Those are MOM’s own service standards rather than a guarantee, and an application that draws queries or an appeal will take longer. We handle the submission as a priced add-on at S$500 and tell you where it stands rather than leaving you to check.

We do. CPF and IRAS registrations sit within the HR and Government offering, alongside employment passes and monthly payroll, so one team handles all of it. Every client also has a named lead who knows the business and answers directly.

Payroll and CPF run every month of the year. They sit on our compliance calendar with the other recurring filings, and the work is scheduled before each date rather than waiting for a reminder. You hear from us when a filing is done, not when it falls due.

Send us an enquiry through the contact form and a named member of the team will reply within one business day. We start by reading what you already have, put the registers and systems right, then run payroll and filings month to month on our calendar.

Employment documents are drafted and reviewed within our Legal Operations offering and kept in step with your registers and filings. Work that requires a licensed practice is carried out by our partner firm, KJ Loway LLC. Sequence itself does not provide legal advice.

Contract drafting and review sits under Sequence's Legal Operations, alongside corporate governance and shareholder and employment documents. Work that requires a licensed practice is carried out by Sequence's partner firm, KJ Loway LLC, whose site is kjloway.com. That is part of the Business Services offering.

Not necessarily for the document work covered by Sequence's Legal Operations. That offering includes shareholder and employment documents, kept in step with your registers and filings. Where the work requires a licensed practice, it is carried out by Sequence's partner firm, KJ Loway LLC.

No. Sequence does not provide legal advice of any kind in any jurisdiction. Work that requires a licensed practice is carried out by Sequence's partner firm, KJ Loway LLC. You should obtain your own independent professional and legal advice before entering into any transaction.

KJ Loway LLC is the partner firm Sequence works with for work that requires a licensed practice. Sequence's Legal Operations covers contracts, corporate governance, and shareholder and employment documents, with licensed legal work carried out by KJ Loway LLC. Their site is kjloway.com.

Yes. Legal Operations covers contracts drafted and reviewed, corporate governance, and shareholder and employment documents, kept in step with your registers and your filings. Work that requires a licensed practice goes to Sequence's partner firm, KJ Loway LLC. Both sit within Business Services.

Sequence is a corporate services firm and an ACRA Registered Filing Agent. Work that requires a licensed practice is carried out by Sequence's partner firm, KJ Loway LLC. Sequence itself does not provide legal advice of any kind in any jurisdiction.

Corporate governance is part of Sequence's Legal Operations, alongside contracts and shareholder and employment documents. These are kept in step with your registers and filings. Sequence's Business Services also includes corporate secretarial work that keeps registers of members, directors' interests and registrable controllers current.

Striking off removes a dormant, debt-free company from the register on application. Winding up is a liquidation that realises assets and settles liabilities under a defined process, and is what you use when there are debts to deal with. ACRA sets out what a company must satisfy to be struck off: it has stopped trading or never started, it has no outstanding debts or issues with any agency, it carries no charges, it faces no legal cases and no regulatory or disciplinary action, it owns nothing and owes nothing, and all or a majority of the directors agree. Fail any of those and striking off is not available.

Plan on months rather than weeks. The application itself is processed immediately, or within 14 days where an endorsement is needed, but the strike-off only takes effect at least three months after ACRA approves it, because the register has to carry a public objection period. The company stays alive, and its filing obligations stay alive with it, until the strike-off is final. That is the part owners are most often surprised by, and it is why we do not treat an application as the end of the work.

Almost everything, starting with the records. A buyer pays for what can be shown: clean registers, filed accounts, a tax position that reconciles and contracts that survive a change of ownership. A closing company can afford loose ends, a selling company cannot, and the work to tidy them takes longer than most owners allow. If a sale is a possibility even a year out, it is worth getting the compliance straight now, and our brokerage line can take the transaction itself from there.

Foundations covers incorporation or a transfer-in with a standard constitution, a named company secretary, registered office with digital mailroom, and the AGM and annual return with the ACRA fee included. Your registers of members, directors' interests and registrable controllers are kept current, standard resolutions are prepared through the year, routine queries go to your named secretary, and government grants are managed as part of the work.

Two questions decide your plan: whether you are starting a company or moving one to us, and whether you want us to keep the books. Foundations covers corporate secretarial work. Foundations + Accounting adds bookkeeping, monthly management accounts, unaudited financial statements and XBRL, quarterly GST filing, ECI and Form C-S or C. Foundations + Accounting + Group adds consolidation for one parent and one subsidiary.

In incorporation, a foreign owner's first year is S$2,495, or S$3,315 with accounting, or S$3,915 with accounting and group consolidation. The foreign rate includes a nominee director and bank account opening. On a transfer-in the equivalent figures are S$1,880, S$2,700 and S$3,300, again first year and all-in with government fees included.

A local owner moving an existing company over pays S$380 for the first year, S$1,200 with accounting kept, or S$1,800 with accounting and group consolidation. The foreign owner equivalents are S$1,880, S$2,700 and S$3,300, and a foreign owner rate includes a nominee director and bank account opening. All figures are first year and all-in.

Yes. The plan prices are first year, all-in, with government fees included, and the Foundations plan specifically includes the ACRA fee for the AGM and annual return. Anything outside the plan sits in the priced add-ons list, so the engagement letter you sign shows the whole cost before work begins.

Payroll is S$30 per employee per month, and further accounting transactions are S$120 per block of 120. The Accounting tier already includes 120 transactions a year, so the block price only applies once you go past that. Both are priced add-ons on top of your plan.

An Employment Pass application is S$500 and GST registration is S$120, both listed as priced add-ons rather than part of any plan. Advisory work is billed at S$240 per hour and is always quoted first. These sit alongside your plan and are set out before you engage us.

Changes to directors, shareholders or capital start from S$16, non-standard resolutions start from S$60, and an extra subsidiary in a consolidation is S$300. These are priced add-ons outside the plan fee, and everything on the page sits in the engagement letter before you sign it.

Everything on the fees page is written into the engagement letter before you sign, so scope and price are agreed first. Sequence works to fixed scope and fixed fee, and if the work changes the team tells you before it changes rather than on the invoice. Advisory work is the exception, quoted at S$240 per hour first.

Only verified members can see it. Listings are gated, and every member is identity-verified through Singpass, with every entity verified against ACRA. By default the listing is anonymised, so the business stays anonymous until the owner chooses to be known.

Yes. An NDA binds every account before a listing can be opened, so anyone who reaches your listing has already signed one. The same gate requires identity verification through Singpass for members, and ACRA verification for the entities behind them.

Sequence charges one platform fee of 8.5% of the purchase price, payable by the seller on completion. There is nothing to pay to create a listing and nothing to browse, so the cost only arises if your business actually sells. If the deal does not complete, nothing is payable at all.

The buyer requests contact through the platform and the owner decides whether to release their identity. Until then, verified members only ever see an anonymised listing. Once contact is agreed, the parties and their own advisers complete the transaction off-platform.

Yes, the owner chooses. A share sale or an asset sale is a setting on the listing, and listings of the same company can be grouped together. A seller may also appoint others to act for it on the platform.

The platform generates them from the seller's own inputs, inside one deal room. It also tracks what is in and what is still missing, with every document and every change logged and traceable end to end. Term sheet and sale and purchase agreement templates are configured by the parties, whose own advisers review them before signing.

Average time to completion on the platform is under two months. That is the time the process itself takes once a listing is live and a buyer engages; how long your own sale takes still depends on the business, the price and how ready your records are. The templated deal management process exists to remove the delays that are within our control.

Sequence holds more than 20 active buying mandates, with a combined value of more than S$600 million, alongside more than 80 active listings for sale. Every one of those buyers is a verified member who has signed an NDA before reaching any listing. Your listing stays anonymised until you choose to be known.

No. Sequence does not act for the buyer or the seller; every transaction is between the parties, and Sequence is not licensed under the Securities and Futures Act 2001 or regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. It does not give financial, corporate finance, investment, securities, tax, accounting, legal, valuation, due diligence or transaction advice, so engage your own advisers and obtain independent professional and legal advice before signing.

Every member is identity-verified through Singpass, and every entity is verified against ACRA. An NDA also binds every account before a listing can be opened, and listings are visible to verified members only. So browsing is not open to the public, and a buyer's identity is established before anything is shown.

No. Listings are anonymised by default, and a business stays anonymous until the owner chooses to be known. As a verified member you browse those anonymised listings, and the owner decides who is given contact, so nothing about the company is released without that decision.

You request contact through the platform, and the owner decides whether that contact is allowed. Sequence facilitates the conversation between the two sides, and the transaction itself is completed off-platform by the parties and their own advisers. The completion stage sits outside what the platform handles.

No. Sequence does not act for the buyer or the seller, and every transaction is between the parties. It does not provide financial, corporate finance, investment, securities, tax, accounting, legal, business valuation, due diligence or transaction advice of any kind, and is not licensed under the Securities and Futures Act 2001 or regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore. Engage your own independent advisers before you enter into any transaction.

The information memorandum, disclosure letter and due diligence pack are generated from the seller's own inputs, with what is included and what is still missing tracked, and every document and change logged end to end in one deal room. Term sheet and sale and purchase agreement templates are provided for the parties to configure between themselves, and your own advisers should review them before anything is signed.

There are more than 80 active listings for sale on the platform, and average time to completion is under two months. Sequence also holds more than 20 active buying mandates with a combined value of more than S$600 million, so a mandate you register sits alongside real demand rather than in an empty book. Your own timeline still depends on the business and on your own due diligence.

The 8.5% platform fee is payable by the seller on completion, not by the buyer. Nothing is charged to list a business or to browse listings, and the fee only arises when a deal completes. A buyer should still budget for their own independent advisers, since Sequence does not act for either side.