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Registration for Singapore GST, whether the S$1 million threshold has forced it or you are weighing it up by choice. The work starts with the date you crossed, or will cross.
The hard part is not the form. It is deciding the date your company became liable, because getting that wrong means paying tax you never collected from anyone.
Registration becomes compulsory once taxable turnover passes S$1 million over a 12 month period, or as soon as you reasonably expect it will. Both limbs get checked against your figures, not against a guess about next year.
Working backwards through the ledger fixes the month turnover went over, and that date sets when registration fell due. Signing one large contract starts the clock early, which is the half founders miss.
The application goes in with the supporting figures IRAS asks for, and questions that come back are answered from the accounts rather than from memory. Voluntary registrations carry conditions, and those are explained before you commit to them.
Registering early suits a company selling to other GST-registered businesses, or one spending heavily before it earns. It hurts a company selling to consumers, where 9% either raises your price or comes out of your margin.
Tax rates, codes and invoice templates are set up in Xero before your first taxable supply. An invoice issued with the wrong GST treatment has to be credited and reissued, and customers remember being billed twice.
Where the date has passed, liability runs from the day registration was due, not from the day you noticed. That means 9% on sales where you charged nothing. Disclosure to IRAS is made with the figures worked out first.
Most of the work happens before the form. Once the date and the choice are settled, the application itself is a short piece of work.
We look at rolling 12 month turnover and at what is already contracted or committed. The forward-looking half of the test turns on evidence, so signed contracts, accepted quotes and orders that have firmed up all matter here.
About an hour of reviewWhere the threshold has been passed, registration is happening and the only question is from when. Where it has not, you get the case both ways, covering what 9% does to your customer base, your input tax position and your admin.
Same weekThe application goes in with your figures and supporting records attached, and any follow-up from IRAS is answered from the accounts. Voluntary applicants take on conditions about staying registered and about filing, and those arrive in writing first.
Timing set by IRASBefore the effective date, Xero is switched over and invoice templates carry your GST registration number. Pricing gets decided rather than drifted into, and the first F5 period and its due date go in the calendar.
Before the effective dateThere is no fixed number here because the work varies. A company with one clean year of Xero records, registering by choice, takes a fraction of the time of one reconstructing two years of turnover to find the date it crossed.
You get a fixed fee in writing before anything is submitted, and it holds. If the review shows the date passed some time ago and a disclosure to IRAS is needed, you hear what that adds before the work is done.
Quoted for your company
Agreed in writing before we start
Get a quoteThe fee is quoted per company and excludes GST. Charges raised by IRAS are separate. Ongoing quarterly F5 filing sits inside the Complete package.
Once taxable turnover passes S$1 million over a 12 month period, or as soon as you reasonably expect it will. The second half catches people out. Signing a contract that takes you past the threshold starts the clock from that point, before any of the money has arrived in your account.
It depends on who buys from you. Selling to GST-registered businesses, the 9% you add is reclaimed by your customer and you recover input tax on your own costs, so registration helps. Selling to consumers, that 9% raises your price or eats your margin. Heavy spending before revenue starts pushes the answer the other way.
Liability runs from the date registration was due, not from the day you applied. GST is owed on sales made from that date, and few customers will settle an invoice for tax issued months after the event, so it comes out of your own pocket. Disclose it with the figures prepared rather than waiting to be asked.
No. You charge GST from the effective date on your registration, not from the day you applied. Tax invoices issued before that date are wrong and have to be corrected. Set your pricing and your invoice template in advance so the switch happens on the right day, once.
Deregistration exists, and it is not automatic. Voluntary registrants also take on conditions about how long they stay registered, which is one reason to weigh the choice properly at the start rather than treating registration as a free option you drop later.
Send us turnover for the last 12 months and anything sizeable you have signed recently. You will get a straight answer on whether registration is due, coming, or better left for now.
Tell us what you need and we will point you to the right answer, or bring in one of our chartered professionals. Out of hours you get a reply first thing the next working day.