What I need to do after incorporating a company in Singapore

Congratulations! So you took the step and incorporated company in Singapore and you are now ready to kick-start business operations. While you’ve taken a great leap, there are post-company registration requirements you need to meet in order to ensure your company is compliant with Singapore laws and policies.
Here are the 6 important things you need to do for your post-registration of Singapore company:

1. Appoint a Company Secretary in Singapore

In accordance with Singapore companies act, all Singapore-registered private limited companies need to appoint a company secretary within 6 months of incorporation. If a company secretary resigns, the organization has another 6 months to replace the company secretary.
Company secretaries are not required for a sole proprietorship or limited liability partnership (LLP) structures. 
Company secretary in Singapore has a fiduciary responsibility to ensure that directors and shareholders are informed when their annual filing and AGM needs to happen. 
The Singapore company secretary is also responsible for the storing of important company documents in the company's minute book and maintaining an up-to-date registers. 

2. Goods and Service Tax (GST) registration

A company is required to register for GST on a compulsory basis if

• It’s taxable turnover for the past 4 quarters is more than $1M and the company is not certain that it’s turnover will not exceed $1M in the next 12 months
• The company can reasonably expect it’s taxable turnover to exceed $1M in the next 12 months.

If you are a sole proprietor, the turnover will be computed based on the combine turnover of all your sole proprietorship businesses plus any income derive from your trade, profession or vocation.
If you are in a partnership, the turnover will be computed based on the combined turnover of all partnerships with the same composition of partners.
A company can still register for GST on a voluntary basis even if the business turnover is below $1M. For such companies, making assessments and determining various factors in terms of cost-benefit analysis is advisable.

3. Acquire business license in Singapore

A business license in Singapore is a permit issued by a Singapore government agency that allows you to conduct a specific type of business. While the business license in Singapore is not required for every type of business, there are certain business types for which the license is required. This includes running retail shop, construction business, trading activities, hotel/restaurants, spa, medical clinic, employment agency or travel agency.

Each of these business types may include multiple activities that the respective Singapore company is planning to undertake. There can be one or more licenses required for each business type depending on the activities that are to be conducted.

4. Open corporate bank account

In order to make transactions to and fro for a Singapore company, a valid Singapore or other countries' bank account is must, considering that the bank statements are important element of annual financial report.

5. Registration for the Central Provident Fund (CPF)

As you begin to hire employees in Singapore, next thing you’ll need is the CPF registration.

According to ministry of manpower, a Singapore company is required to pay the employee’s share of CPF contributions every month if the respective employee is being paid more than $50/month. The company is entitled to recover the employee’s share from his wages.

CPF contributions are payable for Singapore Citizens (SC) and Singapore Permanent Residents(SPR) who are:

• working in Singapore under a Contract of Service  and
• employed under a permanent, part-time or casual basis.

6. Registration for the Skills Development Levy (SDL)

As required by law under the Skills Development Levy (SDL) Act, employers are required to pay a monthly SDL for all employees rendering services in Singapore, including foreign employees and employees employed on casual, part-time, or temporary basis. Domestic servants, gardeners or chauffeurs are exempted from the SDL Act.
The SDL payable is at 0.25% of the monthly remuneration for each employee, with the minimum payable of $2 (for an employee earning less than $800 a month) and a maximum of $11.25 (for an employee earning more than $4,500 a month).
All SDL collected are channeled to the Skills Development Fund (SDF) which is used to support workforce upgrading Programmes and to provide training grants to employers when they send their employees to attend training under national Continuing Education and Training system. The SDL and SDF are administrated By the Skills Future Singapore Agency (SSG).

At Precursor, we have years of proven experience working with companies of all sizes and shapes, supporting them end-to-end right from consultancy about Singapore company incorporation to various compliance related aspects including GST registration in Singapore, CPF registration, SDL registration, bank account opening as well as providing highest quality company secretarial services in Singapore. With an award winning team and exceptional customer service, we have been ranked one of the top 30 firms in Singapore for our wide range of services.