Corporate tax, FATF status, sanctions exposure, data-protection law and arbitration enforceability for Singapore — the facts a founder or counsel checks before incorporating or signing cross-border. Jurisdiction table checked 2026-08-14.
Singapore taxes on a broadly territorial basis, exempts qualifying foreign-sourced dividends and branch profits, and levies no tax on capital gains — which is what makes it hold subsidiaries well. Add one of Asia's widest treaty networks, English-language common law and SIAC as an arbitration seat, and it becomes the default place to sit above operating companies across the region. Substance expectations are real: a letterbox holding company is no longer a workable plan.
This describes how the jurisdiction is commonly used in practice — not a recommendation for your situation. What fits depends on where your people, customers and assets actually are.
No changes recorded for this jurisdiction since tracking began. Every review pass so far has confirmed the figures above.
The headline corporate income tax rate in Singapore is 17%. Free zones, small-business reliefs and participation exemptions can change the effective rate — treat this as the starting point.
What is this? Corporate tax rate →Singapore is FATF-compliant and not on the grey list, which generally means smoother bank onboarding.
What is this? FATF status →Singapore is not subject to broad sectoral sanctions programs in our dataset.
What is this? Sanctions exposure →Singapore appears in neither annex of the EU list as at the current revision.
The applicable data-protection statute is PDPA (in force since 2012). If you process EU/UK personal data you also need a valid transfer mechanism into Singapore.
What is this? Data-protection law →Singapore is a party to the 1958 New York Convention, so a foreign arbitral award can generally be enforced by local courts — the single most important box to tick before agreeing to arbitration with a counterparty here.
What is this? New York Convention →Singapore is a party to the 1961 Hague Apostille Convention. Public documents — corporate certificates, powers of attorney, notarised papers — need only a single apostille to be recognised in other member states, with no consular legalisation. This materially speeds up cross-border paperwork.
What is this? Apostille Convention (1961) →Foreigners may generally own 100% of a local company in Singapore.
What is this? Foreign ownership →Singapore requires a resident/local director. This adds real cost and a governance dependency — include it in the structure.
What is this? Local director requirement →The entity types actually used in cross-border practice, with the name each one carries in its own register.
Names are given as the register uses them and are deliberately not translated — a form is called what it is called. The list covers what is commonly used, not everything the statute allows, and availability to a foreign founder can depend on activity, licensing and residency.
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Lawyers, accountants, corporate and trust providers, real-estate agents, dealers in precious metals and casinos carry anti-money-laundering duties of their own. FATF rates how well a country's law meets three of its recommendations on them.
This rates the quality of the legislation, not whether you personally must run these checks, and not how the law is enforced in practice — FATF measures enforcement on a separate scale that is not in this dataset.
Reports from 2025 onwards use the 2022 methodology; everything earlier uses the 2013 one. Ratings from the two are not directly comparable, which is why the methodology is always shown.
forma. generates NDAs, service, supply and corporate documents wired to this jurisdiction — from lawyer-built templates, processed privately on your device.
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