Singapore Corporate Income Tax

Updated time: Jul 17, 2020, 09:41 (UTC+07:00)

Companies (resident and non-resident) that carry on a business in Singapore are taxed on their Singapore-sourced income when it arises and on foreign-sourced income when it is remitted or deemed remitted to Singapore. Non-residents are subject to WHT (Withholding taxes) on certain types of income (e.g. interest, royalties, technical service fees, rental of movable property) where these are deemed to arise in Singapore.

Corporate income tax Singapore is imposed at a flat rate of 17%.

A partial tax exemption and a three-year start-up tax exemption for qualifying start-up companies are available.

Partial tax exemption (income taxable at normal rate): For One IBC^® Client!

Years of assessment 2018 to 2019
Chargeable income (SGD)	Exempt from tax	Exempt income (SGD)
First 10,000	75%	7,500
Next 290,000	50%	145,000
Total		152,000

Year of assessment 2020 onwards
Chargeable income (SGD)	Exempt from tax	Exempt income (SGD)
First 10,000	75%	7,500
Next 190,000	50%	95,000
Total		102,500

Tax Exemption Scheme for New Start-up Companies

Any newly incorporated company that meets the conditions (as stated below) will have the privilege to enjoy the tax exemption for new start-up companies for each of the first three years of tax assessment. The qualifying conditions are as follow:

Be incorporated in Singapore
Be tax resident in Singapore
Possesses not more than 20 shareholders with at least one of the shareholders being an individual shareholder holding at least 10% of ordinary shares.

The tax exemption is open to all new companies except these two types of companies:

A company whose principal activity is that of investment holding; and
A company which undertakes property development for sale, for investment, or for both investment and sale.

Years of assessment 2018 to 2019
Chargeable income (SGD)	Exempt from tax	Exempt income (SGD)
First 100,000	100%	100,000
Next 200,000	50%	100,000
Total		200,000

Year of assessment 2020 onwards
Chargeable income (SGD)	Exempt from tax	Exempt income (SGD)
First 100,000	75%	75,000
Next 100,000	50%	50,000
Total		125,000

The start-up exemption is not available to property development and investment holding companies.

In addition, for the year of assessment 2018, there is a 40% corporate tax rebate. This rebate is capped at SGD 15,000. There is also a rebate of 20% of tax payable for year of assessment 2019, which is capped at SGD 10,000.

Singapore adopts a one-tier taxation system, under which all Singapore dividends are tax-exempt in the shareholder’s hands.