A certificate of Incorporation is a legal documents that is issued by the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority of Singapore (ACRA), Singapore’s registrar of companies. Below is an example of the Certificate of Incorporation.
What is contained inside the Certificate of Incorporation?
- Name of the company
- Registration number/ Unique Entity Number (UEN)
- Date of incorporation
- Nature of the entity – private limited or public limited etc.
- The former names of the company
Do you need a certificate of Incorporation?
Typically the Certificate of Incorporation is required when a company is entering into any trading agreements, business contracts, or involved in a transaction with overseas government or agencies of the government, the transacting parties may require the certificate as proof of existence and nature of the entity.
In our experience, most banks in Singapore do not request for the certificate of incorporation but rather the Updated Business Profile of the Company. In Singapore, the public registers are now electronic and made available online, therefore institutions will be able to check on the legality of the Company by simply conducting a search online through the Bizfile portal.
Singapore’s Certificate of Incorporation
In Singapore, ACRA is the Registrar of Companies, and it issues an e-notification of incorporation upon successfully completing the incorporation procedure. It is optional at the time of filing to purchase the Certificate of Incorporation but is not a requirement.
At times, companies may require signed copies of Certificate of Incorporation to be submitted to other parties in the course of their business. In such cases, an electronic Certificate of Incorporation can be purchased for a fee of S$50 via BizFile at any time and any number of times, after the incorporation, from ACRA, and such certificates are duly electronically signed by ACRA.
How to purchase the Certificate of Incorporation
It must be noted that only position holders (business owners, company officers/authorised representatives and authorised Corporate Service Providers (CSP) )of the entity can log into the BizFile to make such purchase.
Steps:
- Visit ACRA BizFile+ portal at www.bizfile.gov.sg
- Login with SingPass or CorpPass
- Select “Buy information” tab followed by “Other Information” and “Certificates”
- Type business registration number in “Entity Search” box
- Fill in Captcha
- Click on the buy information link
- Choose “Certificate Confirming Incorporation of Company”.
- Upon successful payment of the fee, the electronic version of the certificate can be downloaded from the link provided in the email available under “Messages” in the ACRA BizFile+ portal. Alternatively, an email with the link for downloading of the certificate will be sent to you within 30 minutes upon successful payment.
If a hard copy of the certificate is needed, the same can be obtained via BizFile under a similar process, and the hardcopy certificate will be available for collection at the ACRA reception on the next working day and 24 hours after successful payment. Alternatively, you may also request ACRA to post the certificate to a specified address. Contact us at, for more information!
