Blog · 2026-08-27

Singapore company audit and reporting in 2026

Who is exempt from audit, what goes to ACRA and IRAS, the deadlines, the penalties and what it actually costs

A Singapore company rarely catches its owner out on tax. It catches them out on filings: the deadlines are hard, the penalties are automatic, and a non-resident director often learns about a missed date from an ACRA letter. Here is what actually has to be filed in 2026, who needs an audit and who does not, and what the whole thing costs.

Who needs an audit and who does not

By default a Singapore company must undergo a statutory audit. Relief comes from the small company regime in section 205C of the Companies Act 1967 and its Thirteenth Schedule, in force for financial years beginning on or after 1 July 2015.

There are three tests, and you need to meet any two:

• revenue of no more than 10 million SGD;
• total assets of no more than 10 million SGD;
• no more than 50 employees.

Two of the three must hold in each of the two immediately preceding financial years. A newly incorporated company is assessed on its current year. Headcount is a year-end snapshot, not an average. Nothing has to be applied for: the exemption is automatic, which also means the directors carry the responsibility for getting the assessment right.

The group test

This is where people get caught. If the company belongs to a group, being small on its own is not enough. The entire group, foreign entities included, must meet the same two of three tests on a consolidated basis over the same two years. A large foreign holding company strips a Singapore subsidiary of its exemption even if that subsidiary turns over 200 thousand SGD with one employee. It is the single most common reason a client with a European or Middle Eastern holding structure suddenly needs an audit.

In February 2026 ACRA announced a review of the framework: the intention is to raise the revenue and asset thresholds and to look separately at whether subsidiaries could qualify even when the group as a whole does not. Targeted industry consultation ran from March, with feedback collected until 17 April 2026. Until final rules are published the existing figures apply, so budget for 2026 against today's thresholds rather than against expectations.

What the exemption does not remove

The exemption removes only the obligation to appoint an auditor. Keeping books under SFRS, preparing financial statements, holding the annual general meeting and filing with ACRA and IRAS all remain compulsory. Audited accounts may also be demanded by a bank at facility renewal, by an investor in due diligence, by a counterparty in a tender, or by the company's own constitution.

What goes to ACRA

The annual cycle starts with the financial statements, then moves to the meeting and the annual return.

Annual general meeting. The AGM must be held within 6 months after financial year end. A private company can skip it if the financial statements were sent to shareholders within 5 months of year end and no shareholder demanded a meeting. Such a demand must arrive no later than 14 days before the end of the sixth month.

Annual return. A non-listed company files within 7 months after financial year end, or 8 months if it keeps a branch register overseas. Listed companies file within 5 months, or 6 with an overseas register. Everyone files, dormant companies included. The ACRA filing fee is 60 SGD, paid to the state.

XBRL. Financial statements are attached in XBRL format through BizFinx. The full data set applies to everyone except companies that are not publicly accountable and whose revenue and total assets for the current financial year both stay within 500 thousand SGD, which may use the reduced Simplified XBRL set. Fully exempt from filing statements are dormant relevant companies under section 201A and solvent exempt private companies, meaning companies with fewer than 20 shareholders and no corporate shareholders.

XBRL is not a formality. The data lands in the register in machine-readable form and is reconciled automatically, so mismatches between the XBRL, the signed accounts and the tax return show up without anyone reading a page.

What goes to IRAS

The tax side runs on its own calendar, which is not aligned with ACRA's.

ECI, the estimate of chargeable income, is due within 3 months after financial year end. A waiver exists, but both conditions must hold at once: revenue for the financial year of no more than 5 million SGD and a nil ECI. Meet only one and you still file. Nil is assessed before start-up or partial exemption is applied.

Annual return of income. One deadline for everybody: 30 November. For YA 2026 that is 30 November 2026, regardless of financial year end and regardless of whether the year produced a profit or a loss. There are three forms: Form C-S (Lite) for revenue up to 200 thousand SGD, Form C-S for revenue up to 5 million SGD with income taxed only at 17% and no complex reliefs, and Form C for everyone else, with financial statements and tax computations attached. We cover the tax regime itself in more detail on our Singapore taxes page.

Persistent non-compliance stops being about money: prosecution of officers with a maximum fine of 5,000 SGD per charge, director disqualification and ACRA-initiated striking off are all on the table.

The 17% rate and what is left of it

Corporate tax is 17%, but the effective burden on a small company is considerably lower thanks to three layers of relief.

The rebate has a history worth knowing. At Budget on 12 February 2026 it was announced as 40% of tax payable with a 30 thousand SGD cap and a 1.5 thousand SGD cash grant. On 7 April 2026 it was enhanced to 50%, a 40 thousand SGD cap and a 2 thousand SGD grant. If your adviser is quoting the February numbers, they simply have not updated the file.

One detail matters: the rebate applies to the tax remaining after exemptions, not to gross profit. For a new company with 150 thousand SGD of profit, the start-up exemption compresses the base so much that the final bill is measured in thousands of dollars rather than tens of thousands.

The company secretary is not a mailbox

A secretary must be appointed within 6 months of incorporation, and the position cannot stay vacant for longer than six months. A sole director cannot also serve as the company secretary.

In practice the secretary keeps the calendar for every deadline above, drafts resolutions and minutes, maintains the registers of members, directors and controllers, and files changes in BizFile+ within the statutory windows. Liability for a missed deadline formally sits with the directors, not the secretary, which is why a cheap secretary who says nothing until the due date costs more than the price list suggests.

What it costs

Let us be blunt, because the market is visible without us. Audit pricing in Singapore spans a wide range: a dormant company at a boutique firm costs roughly 1-2 thousand SGD, a small company with simple operations 2.5-5 thousand SGD, a growing SME at a mid-tier firm 5-15 thousand SGD, and the Big 4 start around 15 thousand SGD. There is no regulated tariff. The fee is negotiated and driven by transaction volume, number of currencies, subsidiaries and, above all, the state of the books.

If you run a Singapore company with a local director, a local bookkeeper and straightforward operations, you will find an audit cheaper than our price. We work on a different scenario: the owner sits outside Singapore, documents come in several languages, and the accounts usually need to be brought into an auditable state before anyone can audit them. Our fee covers preparing the working files against the auditor's requests, running the correspondence and explaining the outcome in plain language. Bookkeeping, statutory accounts and audit support are set out on our audit and reporting page. If the company does not exist yet, start with company registration in Singapore, and settle the banking side through corporate account opening.

Where it usually breaks

• The financial year end was picked without thought. A 31 December year end puts you in the peak season for every auditor and accountant, and lands the ECI deadline at the end of March when the queue is longest.
• The books are done once a year, just before the deadline. An auditor in that situation quotes at the top of the range, because they are reconstructing your records alongside you.
• The group test is forgotten, and the mandatory audit is discovered a month before filing.
• People assume nil turnover means nil obligations. A dormant company still files an annual return, and full relief from preparing accounts requires meeting the separate conditions of section 201A.
• Threshold drift goes untracked. Two consecutive years above the limits on two of the three tests, and the following year is auditable, with no money for it in the budget.

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