Where we work · Singapore
In Singapore the clocks start when you incorporate, not when you decide.
The grant window, the start-up tax exemption and the share register that protects it are all governed by dates and choices set in the company’s first months — and most of them cannot be fixed afterwards. We work with Singapore founders remotely from Hyderabad, in English. We have no office and no entity in Singapore, and we say so plainly.
Half of these are deadlines wearing a number.
Under 6 months
How long a company may have been registered when it approaches an Accredited Mentor Partner for the main first-time-founder grant. The agency’s own advice is to talk to a partner before incorporating. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
SGD 20,000–50,000
The grant, on a 1:1 support ratio. The founders put in matching capital of the same size. Startup SG Founder, 20 Aug 2026
51% and 30%
Two different ownership tests, routinely merged into one wrong rule: 51% of issued shares held by citizens or permanent residents, and 30% of equity held collectively by the first-time founders. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
3 consecutive
Years of assessment the start-up tax exemption lasts. They run whether or not the company has income to use them on. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
SGD 125,000
The most the start-up exemption can be worth in one year of assessment: 75% of the first SGD 100,000 of chargeable income and 50% of the next SGD 100,000. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
20 shareholders
The ceiling for that exemption, counted on beneficial holders, with at least one individual holding 10% of the ordinary shares unless every holder is an individual. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
Five of these six are conditions the company either satisfies or does not, rather than a case it argues — and four of them are settled by choices made in the first months: when to register, who the shareholders are, and when the company first books taxable income. The exception is the grant, where an accredited mentor partner still decides whether to recommend you at all.
The window is measured to the conversation, not the application.
Startup SG Founder is the instrument most Singapore seed founders reach for first, and the part that catches them is a date rather than a judgement.
- Six months, counted to the mentor partner. The company must have been a registered private limited entity for less than six months at the point of application to an Accredited Mentor Partner — not at the point it reaches the agency. The partner then has to issue a Letter of Recommendation before the agency will look at anything. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
- The matching money has a form as well as a size. Founders inject co-matching paid-up capital at 1:1 to the grant they are asking for. A partner’s or third party’s investment, including convertible or SAFE notes, can stand in for part of it — but at least half the co-matching has to be paid-up capital visible on the public register when the application is submitted. Startup SG Founder, 20 Aug 2026
- The first applicant has to be genuinely unencumbered. No prior private limited entity, not employed elsewhere, and full-time on the company. Employment is defined mechanically as an employer making retirement-fund contributions for them, full-time national service counts as employment, and ongoing study or part-time work means the full-time test is not met. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
- A second applicant is allowed to be the opposite. The revised scheme deliberately pairs a first-timer with someone who is not one: the second applicant may be employed elsewhere, need not be full time, and may qualify on prior entrepreneurial experience instead of training. Both must hold equity and both must be genuine decision makers. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
- Some ideas are excluded by name. The scheme publishes a list, and it includes employment agencies, manpower and relocation services, and food and beverage venues. A business model that touches one of them is out regardless of how technical the rest of it is. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026
So the honest first question is not whether the idea would win. It is whether the company is young enough, and whether anyone has spoken to a mentor partner yet. That is the whole of our advice to a pre-incorporation founder here, and it is free.
Three years that are spent by the calendar.
This is the part with the largest number attached and the least attention paid to it, because it reads like a tax matter and behaves like an operating one.
- A year with no income still counts as one of the three. Where a company makes losses or has no income in one of its first three years of assessment, the exemption simply does not apply that year — and that year is still one of the three. A company that trades in earnest from its third year gets one bite, then drops to the ordinary partial exemption. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
- Nothing carries forward. Unused headroom in a quiet year does not move to the next one, and brought-forward losses have to be set against the current year’s profit first, which can leave nothing for the exemption to apply to. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
- The round can close the exemption. Beneficial holders are capped at twenty, and unless every one of them is an individual, at least one individual must hold a tenth of the ordinary shares. A long tail of small holders, or a round that dilutes every founder below that line, ends the relief. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
- Two business types are excluded outright. A company whose principal activity is investment holding, or property development for sale or investment, cannot use the start-up exemption at all, though it can still use the partial one. A foreign company or its local branch cannot use it either, because it is not incorporated here. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
- From the fourth year the arithmetic changes shape. Partial exemption takes 75% of the first SGD 10,000 of chargeable income and 50% of the next SGD 190,000, to a maximum of SGD 102,500 — a similar ceiling reached in a completely different way, which is why the two are so often confused. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
We are not tax advisers and we file nothing. What we work on is the decision underneath: when the company should start recognising revenue, and what a round is allowed to do to the share register. Your accountant then prices it.
A grant, an equity route, and a rebate.
| Instrument | What it is | What it asks of you |
|---|---|---|
| Startup SG Founder SGD 20,000 to 50,000 with mentorship, pitch training and administrative support attached. | A company under six months old at the mentor-partner stage, majority-owned by citizens or permanent residents, with its headquarters activities mainly here. Startup SG Founder eligibility, 20 Aug 2026 | Matching capital at 1:1, half of it paid up and on the register, and a Letter of Recommendation from a partner you have to find first. Startup SG Founder, 20 Aug 2026 |
| Startup SG Equity The state taking a position alongside independent, qualified private investors in deep tech companies, through appointed fund managers, with direct and fund-of-funds routes for later stages. | Deep tech as the scheme defines it: advanced or specialised science or engineering, and research-based intellectual property that is proprietary and leads to new products or processes. Startup SG Equity, 5 Oct 2026 | Private investors in place first. The state does not open the round, and it reaches companies through managers rather than directly. Startup SG Equity, 5 Oct 2026 |
| Corporate tax rebate For the 2026 year of assessment, 50% of corporate tax payable, with a cash grant of SGD 2,000 for active companies that made retirement-fund contributions for at least one local employee in 2025. | Nothing: it is applied automatically on assessment. Shareholders who are also directors do not count towards the local-employee condition. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026 | Total benefit is capped at SGD 40,000. This is cost relief, not a seed instrument, and it should not appear in a funding plan. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026 |
Sources: Startup SG Founder, 20 Aug 2026 · Startup SG Equity, 5 Oct 2026 · IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
Where Singapore seed companies get stuck.
| Problem | What it looks like | What we work on |
|---|---|---|
| Incorporating before asking | The company is registered as soon as the idea feels real, and the grant is discovered in month seven. Nothing can be done about it afterwards, and the founders spend a quarter looking for a workaround that does not exist. | Sequencing the first six months so the instruments that have age limits are checked before the registration, not after it. For a pre-incorporation founder this is a short conversation and it is worth having early. |
| A round that quietly ends the exemption | A seed round brings in a long list of small holders, or dilutes every individual below a tenth, and the start-up exemption is gone in the year the company first had profit to use it on. | Reading the exemption’s conditions as round-structuring constraints, deciding whether they are worth protecting for this company, and saying so plainly when they are not. |
| Waiting for the state to lead | The equity scheme is read as a source of first money. It is intermediated and it follows qualified private investors, so a plan that puts it first loses a quarter discovering the sequence. | Building the round so private money is in front, and preparing the evidence that money needs rather than the evidence a public scheme would. |
| Reading an adviser’s summary instead of the scheme | Published guides to the grant disagree on the matching ratio and on the ownership threshold, because two different ownership rules exist and most writers pick one. A plan built on the wrong one fails at submission. | Working from the scheme’s own pages and the tax authority’s own pages, and telling you which figures we could not verify rather than filling the gap. |
Hours, invoices and what we are not.
- Hours
- Singapore is two and a half hours ahead of India all year. A 09:00 Singapore start is early morning in Hyderabad and a late Singapore afternoon is still a working afternoon here, so the overlap is most of the day rather than a window.
- Language
- English, which is the working language of Singapore business and ours.
- Tax
- Corporate income tax is a flat 17% of chargeable income for local and foreign companies alike. Everything else on this page about tax describes conditions, not advice: your accountant confirms the treatment and files it. IRAS, 7 Aug 2026
- Goods and services tax
- Services bought from a supplier outside Singapore may fall within the reverse-charge regime, and whether they do depends on the company’s own registration position. We did not verify the thresholds at source, so we state no figure and your accountant tells you where you stand.
- Data
- The Personal Data Protection Act applies. We act as a data processor under a written agreement, and we will tell you where founders’ work in Founder OS is stored before you put anything in it.
- Invoices
- In SGD or USD, from our Indian company.
Grants, exemptions and the things we do not do.
We incorporated four months ago. Is the grant still open to us?
On the published criteria, yes, if the other conditions hold — but the six months are counted to your application to an Accredited Mentor Partner, and the partner needs time to decide whether to recommend you. The practical answer is that you have less runway than the date suggests and the first thing to do is find a partner.
Can you tell us whether we qualify for the start-up tax exemption?
No. The conditions are in the tax authority’s own guidance and the determination is your accountant’s. What we work on is the decision underneath: when the company starts recognising income, and what a round is allowed to do to the share register.
Will you help us get state equity money?
No. We do not approach public investors on a company’s behalf and we make no promises about funding outcomes. We work on what a round has to prove, whether the evidence is there yet, and in what order the money should arrive.
Do you have an office in Singapore?
No. We work with Singapore founders remotely from Hyderabad, in English, and we would rather say that than imply a presence we do not have. There is no local entity either.
Is anything on this page uncertain?
Yes, and we would rather name it. Two government sources describe the state equity scheme differently: the scheme’s own page, updated in October 2026, presents it as deep tech only and names managers that do not include the agency whose own page, three months older, still publishes a general-technology track. We have not been able to establish which is current, so this page carries no general-technology figure at all.
Figures on this page were last checked on .
Start before the registration, if you still can.
A 45-minute call with Dineshwara, scheduled in Singapore time.