There is currently no concept of “Doing Business As” in Singapore where a trade name or fictitious business name, under which the business or operation is conducted and presented to the world. It is not the legal name of the business or legal person(s) who actually owns the business and is responsible for it.

If you would like to conduct or operate your business using a trade name, you can either incorporate/register another company/business using the trade name or you can register a trademark for the trade name.

If the trade name is not registered, it cannot be used for any official documents including opening of bank account, issuing of invoices, application of licences, etc. All official documents including invoices of a company/business must contains the Company/Business Name and the Registration Number.

UEN stands for Unique Entity Number (UEN). It is a standard identification number for entities to interact with government agencies. Special UEN (SUN) provides entity owners an option to choose a preferred UEN from a list of reserved UENs, at a fee during entity incorporation/registration and entity conversion process. For more information, please click here.

Registering for a trademark can provide you with these benefits:

•         Gives you exclusive rights to use a specific logo or slogan in your business operations
•         Prevent others from using your logo or slogan without your permission
•         Allows you to recover damage and claim compensation from infringers
•         Provides a source of revenue when you license it to a third party
•         Increase perceived market value of your company and product identity

You can register designs, slogans, logos, word marks, character marks and series marks as a trademark.

The entire process will take few weeks to a year to complete. The duration depends on whether there are objections to your registration.  You can bypass common objections and shorten the duration if you have someone experienced to help you with the registration.

A registered trademark is valid for 10 years from the date of application. It can be renewed indefinitely. Each renewal extends the validity by 10 more years.

Before filing for an overseas trademark, you must first register your mark in Singapore (or country of origin). The classes of goods or services in your overseas trademark application must be covered by your Singapore trademark.

You need to pay fees to both IPOS and WIPO for the filing. WIPO charges in Swiss Francs and the fees are dependent on your trademark design, the Contracting Parties designated, and the number of classes of goods and services in your application.

With an increasing focus on helping small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Singapore to achieve greater productivity and cost savings, various government agencies and organizations have been pushing to upgrade programs as well as adding assistance schemes and grants.

Many of these grants and schemes have been designed to allow SMEs to easily obtain assistance and to help them improve their business processes. In addition, Mentorship programs and initiatives have also been launched by agencies such as SPRING Singapore to help SMEs face the challenges of a competitive market. For more information, please refer to Singapore Business Grants.

All visa applications should avoid being listed on the company during the application process, unless company incorporated more than 6 months. For new companies, once the company has been incorporated and the corporate bank account opened, once an applicant’s EP is approved, they can then be added to the company as a director and shareholder.

Yes, an EP holder residing in Singapore can be appointed as a local resident director.

According to the guidelines issued by the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”), an EP holder should not act as a director of a company which is not the company as stated in his EP. This is because EP holders are not allowed to hold multiple jobs. A registered/nominee Director in a company is required to discharge certain duties and that constitutes a form of work. However, if there are strong grounds on why the EP holder’s role as a registered/nominee Director in another company is critical to his current job as an EP holder, the EP holder must first seek MOM’s approval. Once MOM has approved, the EP holder will be granted a Letter of Consent (“LOC”) to take up the second directorship.

Yes, EP holders can own 100% of shares in any company including their own (after they have had their EP approved). This includes EP holders who hold secondary directorships via a Letter of Consent.

A business license is a permit issued by a Singapore government agency that allows you to conduct a specific type of business. In order to apply for a business license in Singapore, the company must be first registered with the ACRA.