A: The registration of a Singapore Company usually takes 1 - 5 working days.

A: Yes, a Singapore company is required to have at least one local resident director. In order to qualify as locally resident, the person must be:

• Singapore citizen; or
• Singapore permanent resident; or
• Employment Pass holder (the Employment Pass should be from the same company for which he/she is acting as a director); or
• Dependant Pass holder

If you do not have a person who can act as the local director for your company, you can use our Nominee Director service to satisfy the local director requirement.

A: This situation applies to foreign individuals or companies who intend to incorporate a Singapore company and relocate to Singapore. As per Singapore Companies Law, each company must have at least one director who is ordinarily resident in Singapore. Therefore you will need to use a resident local director service on a temporary basis until your Employment pass is approved. Once your Employment Pass is approved and you have relocated to Singapore, you can replace the resident director with yourself as the local director in the company.

A: Each Singapore company must appoint a qualified company secretary who is knowledgeable and experienced with Singapore company laws. A company secretary typically assist the members and officers of the company with the following matters:

• Assisting members with understanding and compliance with Singapore Companies Act
• Reminding members of various statutory deadlines and assisting them with statutory compliance
• Maintaining the statutory registers
• Ensuring that the company files statutory information accurately and ontime
• Providing members and directors with notice of meetings
• Preparing and filing necessary corporate resolutions as and when necessary
• Ensuring that people entitled to do so can inspect company records
• Custody and use of the company seal

We act as the company secretary for all companies that we incorporate. Our annual company secretary retainer fee is for routine corporate secretarial services that include:

• Appointing a senior MICROUNIVER member as the professional company secretary for your company
• Reminding you of the various statutory compliance dates
• Safekeeping, updating, and maintaining registers, minutes book, and other statutory records of the company
• Free consultation during the year on routine corporate secretarial matters
• Charging of discounted fees for non-routine services

A: Minimum paid up capital requirement for a Singapore company is $1. The paid up capital can be listed in Singapore dollar or any other major currency. The concept of authorized capital has been abolished in Singapore. Whatever capital you list is treated as paid up capital and you will be required to inject this amount into the company. Paid up capital of the company can be freely utilized towards company's business expenses. There is no requirement that this money must be locked in the bank account for any specific period of time. How much paid up capital should I list for our Singapore Company?

How much paid up capital you should have for your company depends more on your business plans than anything else. Having a higher paid up capital will add credibility to your company when you are dealing with your suppliers, banks, etc. If you plan to apply for work passes for foreign staff, a higher paid up capital will be looked more favourably by Ministry of Manpower. There may also be specific paid up capital requirements for certain business licenses such as travel agency license, recruitment agency license, financial services license, etc.

If you want to list a paid up capital higher than the minimum S$1, you have two options:

Option 1:List a higher paid up capital at the time of incorporation

Keep in mind that whatever paid up capital amount you list, will need to be deposited into the company's bank account. Since we will be acting as company secretary for your company, we carry certain fiduciary responsibilities in this matter and have to ensure that the necessary paid up capital is in fact inject into the company. Therefore if you wish to list a paid up capital higher than S$100 at the time of incorporation, we will require you to deposit that money with us first. Once your company bank account is open, we will transfer the paid up capital amount into your company's bank account.

Option 2: Increase paid up capital after registration of the company

Under this option, you can increase the paid up capital anytime after registration of the company. In this case, the process is as below:

• Incorporate the company with nominal paid up capital;
• Open company bank account;
• Inject funds into the bank account and notify us;
• We will then prepare and file the necessary paperwork with Company Registrar to reflect the revised paid up capital of the company. Note that a fee will apply for his service.

A: No. If you are not a shareholder or have less than 30% shares in the company, you cannot apply for Entrepreneur Pass (EntrePass). You can, however, apply for Employment Pass, assuming that you are going to be employed by the company.

A: Key factors include:

• The quality of your business idea. Is it entrepreneurial in nature? Will it generate local employment? Does it have the potential to grow big?
• The "innovativeness" of your business idea. Do you have substantial funding from a venture capitalist or accredited angel investor? Are you undergoing any research collaboration with a recognized institution? Are you part of any incubation scheme in Singapore?
• Your personal credentials. Do you have qualifications to pursue the proposed business idea? Is your previous experience relevant to the proposed business idea?
• Proposed investment. How much money are you planning to invest into the business? Is it your personal money or borrowed money? Note that the minimum required amount is S$50,000.

A: No, you are not required to visit Singapore to apply for EntrePass. We can work with you via emails and document couriering in order to get the necessary work done. However, once your EntrePass is approved, you will need to visit Singapore to collect your EntrePass. You are also expected to relocate to Singapore after the Entrepass has been issued to you.

A: A rough timeline is as follows:

• It takes about 2 weeks to draft the business plan and prepare the Entrepass application for filing.
• Once filed, it takes authorities approximately 6-8 weeks to review the application and notify of the outcome.
• The authority will issue you an Approval In-Principle (AIP) letter, after which you have one month to incorporate the company and inject the capital. Depending upon whether you are located in Singapore or overseas during this time, this process may take anywhere from a couple of days to a couple of weeks. The AIP deadline may be extended, subject to the authorities.
• Once the authorities have been notified of the company incorporation and capital, they will take approximately 2 weeks to send the final approval letter (In-Principal Approval), after which you have 6 months to visit Singapore and collect your EntrePass.

If your company is less than 6 months old:

• If you hold more than 30% shares, the authorities may ask that you apply for Entrepreneur Pass (EntrePass) instead of Employment Pass (EP). However if you prefer to apply for Employment Pass, it is still possible. In this case, authorities will review your EP application and may approve your EP or advise you to apply for EntrePass instead if they determine that the EntrePass is more appropriate in your situation.
• If you hold less than 30% shares, you can apply for the Employment Pass.

If your company is older than 6 months:

• You can only apply for Employment Pass

A: When the Employment Pass application is filed online, it takes anywhere between 1 to 10 working days to receive the outcome notification from authorities. It may take longer during peak periods or when additional information is required from the various economic agencies.

When the Employment Pass application is filed manually, it takes anywhere between 3 to 6 weeks to receive the outcome notification from authorities. It may take longer during peak periods or when additional information is required from the various economic agencies

So why would anybody file an application manually?

When filing an application online, only very minimal information can be entered into the system and no supporting documents can be uploaded. This may not be a good idea for cases where the supporting documents can significantly enhance the chances of a positive outcome. We make the decision to file online or manually after carefully reviewing the client's application and situation, and in consultation with the client.

When thinking about the timeline, keep in mind the following:

• The company must be incorporated first before Employment Pass can be applied for. This can take anywhere from couple of days to couple of weeks depending on whether you are present in Singapore or overseas.
• If you intend to submit the application online, and if the company is newly incorporated, the MOM will need to be prompted of the company's particulars in order to activate the EP-Online system. This process can take up to 14 days from the day of notification to the MOM.
• It may take certain amount of time for you to provide us with the completed application and supporting documents before we can file the application.
• After the pass is approved, there are still certain formalities that will need to be taken care of such as the medical examination, the appointment for fingerprinting registration, collection of the pass, etc, which may take few more days.

A: Yes, We offer a comprehensive range of services with the objective of being a one-stop service provider for all your company needs. For almost all of our clients, we handle annual statutory compliance requirements for their companies that consist of

• preparation and filing of Annual Return with Company Registrar; and
• preparation and filing of Annual Tax Return with Inland Revenue Authority.