The June–July 2025 webinar
These 91 pages support ACRA webinars held on 11 June and 9 July 2025. They cover annual-return duties, the new Bizfile profiles, pre-filing updates, a complete filing walkthrough and troubleshooting. Opening remarks were by Registry Services Divisional Director Poh Lai Khim; presenters were Wong Kee Peng and Elicia Ong. The instructions and transitional system limitations describe that 2025 version of Bizfile, rather than guaranteeing that every later screen remains identical.
Who files and when
All Singapore-incorporated companies, including inactive and dormant companies, file annual returns while live. IRAS income-tax filing exemption does not remove this ACRA duty. The guide gives five months after financial year end for listed companies and seven months for others. A share-capital company maintaining a branch register outside Singapore has six months if listed or eight months otherwise. Report AGM date if held and lodge financial statements where applicable. Timely returns keep the public registry current; officers can face enforcement for failure.
Choose the correct entity before transacting
Log in as a Business User through Corppass, with Singpass authentication. Where multiple Corppass accounts appear, select the company or CSP firm being represented. A CSP selects the Corporate Service Provider profile, then the correct firm and existing client by name/UEN. For another client, switch profile and confirm the header entity. Position holders use My Entities to choose companies where they hold a role. Correct upfront selection avoids repeatedly entering UEN and reduces wrong-entity filings and notice-of-error costs.
Ad hoc clients, foreign users and notifications
The 2025 guide permits Proceed to dashboard for ad hoc CSP clients but says only selected transactions were then available, such as name applications and charge registration; adding a client to the client list was the workaround. FIN holders with active Singpass could file; passport-only holders could view inbox/tasks and buy iShop products but not file transactions. Passport holders’ appointment as position holders required a CSP. Not-authorised errors commonly arose from using a personal login rather than Business User/Corppass. Check the Bizfile inbox: email alerts then covered only selected transactions.
Prepare records and update entity details
Before starting, verify company identity, registered office, officers/shareholders, share capital, financial year end and prepared/validated financial statements including XBRL when applicable. View entity details on the dashboard or use Manage → Update entity information. Save a draft for later or review/confirm and submit; saved edits alone are not completed lodgements. A name change application must first be approved, and the subsequent local-company name update requires the special resolution. My transactions shows submission status and details.
Update officers and shareholders through the right form
View officers from entity details, use Update for individual or unregistered foreign-entity particulars and Appoint/Withdraw for role changes. Expand all, edit each person and save each change. A shareholder who is also a director/other officer uses Update position holder information. Individual shareholders and unregistered foreign entities appear in the shareholder update; local corporate shareholders update their own entity information instead. In the phased 2025 system, personal changes in one entity were not automatically reflected in all other entities, so update each where necessary.
Residential data and separate contact addresses
When particulars come from ICA or another source agency, Bizfile permits updates to contact address, email and mobile only. Contact-address country must match residential-address country. A Singapore citizen/PR recorded with a foreign residential address can trigger the locally resident director error; the guide requires a local residential address with ICA for that status. Unexpected foreign-only fields reflect source data; submit local residential proof for verification if wrong. Contact address remains a separate mandatory field and does not automatically change with residential address, even when originally identical.
Foreign business registration numbers
For unregistered foreign entities, supply the foreign business registration number and incorporation country if missing. Save changes and check the To be updated marker before submitting. EROM/products add a two-letter country prefix. The guide says an FBRN already updated cannot be modified through that field. Remove spaces and special symbols and use no more than 30 alphanumeric characters. Placeholders such as TBC, NA or NIL are invalid identifiers.
Start the annual return and confirm financial year end
Select Annual filing → File annual returns, read instructions and Start. Review entity information, make prerequisite updates under Manage and Proceed to file. Check financial year end; use Update change of financial year end date and obtain approval before proceeding if it is wrong. The FAQ limits changes to the current or immediately preceding financial year, within seven months of year end and before the annual-return deadline. A change is unavailable once statutory AGM, annual-return or financial-statement sending deadlines have passed.
Company status, audit exemption and AGM details
Choose the company type for the financial period, active/dormant status and solvency. For dormant companies, separately answer audit-exemption and dormant-relevant-company preparation-exemption questions; dormancy does not automatically answer both. The small-company audit declaration shown confirms qualification under section 205C/Thirteenth Schedule, no section 205C(2) notice for that year and proper section 199 accounting records. Select the correct AGM option and meeting date, or the financial-statements sending date where AGM is dispensed with/exempt.
Financial statements and the 2025 dual upload
Upload and validate XBRL using the BizFinx preparation tool before selecting the available document in the return. Not filing financial information appears only for solvent exempt private companies or dormant relevant companies. At the webinar date, even Full XBRL required a signed complete financial-statements PDF while system enhancements were pending. PDF filenames should contain no spaces, special symbols or foreign-language characters. Drag/drop or browse to upload. Audit exemption, preparation exemption and filing exemption are separate questions.
Signing director, standards and statement level
Select the director who signed, accounting standards used and nature of the statements. Find standards in the auditor’s report or basis-of-preparation note. The slide instructs selection of consolidated level where the statements include subsidiaries, associates or joint-venture financials. For a dormant relevant company not required to prepare statements, the signing-director field is optional and both standards and statement nature are Not applicable. Read the actual statements rather than guessing standards from company size.
Directors’ interests and supporting consent
The displayed question asks whether directors’ interests in shares/debentures are included; Yes expressly includes cases with no such interests. Private and public non-listed companies may omit details if directors state that all members consented and the annual return confirms that consent; attach directors’ confirmation. ACRA-approved non-disclosure can be answered No with the approval email. Dormant relevant companies may use Not applicable. The FAQ says a company limited by guarantee may answer Yes because directors hold no such interests. The pictured upload accepts one PDF up to 5MB and warns that embedded files/images are not scanned for personal information, so remove unnecessary sensitive material.
Auditors and register custody
A company not audit-exempt completes audit information. Search the public-accounting entity name without its suffix because results add it automatically. Indicate where the register of controllers and nominee-director register are kept when required. The nominee-shareholder custody field is identified as taking effect on 16 June 2025. This field records custody; it is not a substitute for the separate duties to identify, maintain, update and centrally file register particulars.
Review, pay and retain acknowledgement
Review and confirm all information, tick the declaration and proceed to payment. The guide gives an annual-return filing fee of S$60, with S$300 late lodgement within three months of the deadline and S$600 beyond three months. Payment summary also displays applicable composition sums. Successful submission produces dashboard acknowledgement and receipt, then a Bizfile inbox notification. Persistent failure can lead to composition, prosecution under section 197 and striking off; payment of a late fee is not an assurance against other enforcement.
Download the free Business Profile within 30 days
The download notification goes to the Bizfile inbox, not email; this arrangement began on 9 December 2024, with improved notification instructions from mid-June 2025. Use Business User/Corppass, not a personal Singpass profile. CSPs select their firm and filed client, then View entity details → Free business products. Directors with several positions may log in through an authorised entity, switch to My Entities and select the relevant company. Download within 30 days; the FAQ says the period cannot be extended. The guide links go.gov.sg/bizfile-free-products-download-guide and go.gov.sg/bizfile-resources for further walkthroughs.
Official source
This article independently explains the substantive contents of the official PDF, including the relevant conditions, procedures and annexes. The linked document remains the authoritative source for its original wording, and later changes should be checked separately.
Read the official PDF ↗