Guide to Filing Your Annual Returns

An annual return (AR) is an electronic document to be submitted to the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA). It is intended to keep the company’s particulars with ACRA up to date and to provide critical information that will help the company’s stakeholders to make informed decisions.

This section will go through the essentials to filing your annual returns.

1. Who should file your Annual Return?

Annual returns may be filed by your appointed officer (director or company secretary) on ACRA’s online filing portal BizFile+. Alternatively, you can engage the services of a registered filing agent to do this on behalf of your company.

ACRA has been working on easing the process of filing annual returns, with most of the information now pre-filled in the Annual Return form. The filer needs only to review the pre-filled information to ensure that it is up to date and relevant for the current Annual Return.

Listed companies must file the annual return within five months after their company’s financial year end. If they are not a listed company, they must file the annual return within seven months after their company’s financial year end.

Given below is a list of key information that you are required to provide when filing the AR:

  • Company details: This includes company type, registered office address, the particulars of the company officers, details of registered charges, and changes (if any) to your primary or secondary business activities.
  • Shares: This includes details such as number of shares held, issued share capital, amount of paid up share capital and so on.
  • Financial statements: Companies who are required to file financial statements must do so in XBRL format. These must be prepared and validated beforehand to file your annual return.
  • Date of Annual General Meeting: Mention the date of when your company’s Annual General Meeting was held. It is important to note that the annual return can be filed only after an AGM has been held. This is not applicable if your company is exempted from holding AGMs.

Companies may file their annual return electronically using BizFile+ portal. Before submission it must be signed by the director of the company of the company secretary, who was responsible for filing the document. If you are using a registered filing agent please note that while he/she may assist you in the submission of the Annual Return, only the director or officers of the company may log in to Bizfile+ using the company’s CorpPass.

Companies who are unable to meet the deadline for filing their Annual Return can apply for an extension for up to 60 days. This will be granted for companies who have not yet crossed their original deadline. For this purpose, companies are advised to apply for an extension at least 14 days before the deadline. Companies who miss the deadline for holding the AGM and filing the annal return may face penalties of up to $600.

For companies that are newly incorporated, running the task of filing financial statements, conducting Annual General Meetings, and filing Annual Returns might be a quite daunting. Hiring a qualified corporate services company will help you ease through the process of meeting your statutory compliance requirements.

For more details on filing your annual returns, click Here.

Let us help you file your Annual Returns. To know more about the services we provide click Here or feel free to Contact US.

All materials have been prepared for general information purposes only. The information presented in this document is not legal advice, is not to be acted on as such, may not be current and is subject to change without notice. Professional advisory should be sought before taking or refraining from any action as a result of the contents of this document.