Foreigners have no restriction to form companies in Singapore and they can be 100% shareholders of their company. A foreigner is not required to relocate to Singapore for this purpose. They can operate their company from overseas.
In compliance with the International Anti-Money Laundering Regulations, foreigners must engage the services of a corporate service provider to register a Singapore company. Even local entrepreneurs are advised to do the same as they may not be fully familiar with the Singapore company law and compliance requirements.
Before registering the Company, Corporate Service Provider (CSP) must conduct a Know Your Customer (KYC) due-diligence for foreign shareholders and foreign directors. CSP will require the following supporting information. All documents must be in English or officially translated into English.
- Verification of identification and address proof documents such as passport, a driver’s license, a recent utility bill, rental agreement, etc.
- Professional background of shareholders and directors of the proposed company. This can be in the form of a curriculum vitae (CV), resume or link to the person’s LinkedIn profile.
Once the identity of the foreigner has been verified, these are things we need to consider and decide on.
- We need to choose a company name & suffix.
- We need to decide the type of Company.
- We need to determine the primary and secondary business activities.
- We need the details of the shareholders and qualified company directors such as full name, passport for foreigner, NRIC for Citizen/PR, date of birth, nationality, contact no., address, and email address.
- A company must have at least one Singapore resident director. Singapore-resident is defined as someone who is a Singapore citizen, a Singapore permanent resident or an Employment Pass holder.
- We need a Company Secretary; a person certified under various regulations responsible for lodging and filing in time all necessary documents required by law. The company secretary must also be a natural person and resident of Singapore.
- We need to decide the financial year end (FYE).
- We need to decide the share capital and structure such as class of share, number of shares, issued share capital, and paid up share capital.
- We need a local address to receive official letters and keep all of its statutory documents.
- We can adopt the model constitution or create our own Company’s constitution.
Once the above information is ready, Corporate Service Provider (CSP) will fill up the online forms in the bizfile on behalf of us.
If you prefer a conversational method to understand better, please feel free to Whatsapp us or call us, +6597952800.