Singapore Company Name Guidelines

The first step in Singapore company registration process involves reserving the desired name for the company.

A company cannot be registered until the name has been approved first. If the name does not conflict with an existing name and it does not contain any sensitive or offensive words, the approval process is very quick and happens in less than an hour.

Once you have engaged our incorporation service, we will immediately file the name approval application for your company prior to preparing the incorporation documents.

After the name approval application has been filed, ACRA will usually inform of the application outcome within one hour.

There are three possible outcomes as listed below:

Outcome 1: Name is Approved

If name is approved, this is good news and we will proceed to next steps of incorporating the company.

Outcome 2: Name is Referred

What does "name is referred" mean? It means that the name application has been referred to a relevant government authority for review and approval.

This typically happens when the company name contains one or more words that could imply a specific type of business activity which is a regulated business activity in Singapore. Examples include "financial", "bank", "school", "media", "publishing", etc.

When the name is referred, the review and approval process may take 1-2 weeks.

At this stage, you may decide to wait for the outcome or apply for a different name instead.

Outcome 3: Name is Rejected

If the name is found to be similar/identical to an existing name or containing non-desirable keyword(s), the name will be rejected by the ACRA.

If the name is rejected, there are two available options:

1. If there is a solid reason why the name should be approved, an appeal can be submitted to authorities by providing proper justification. The name appeal make take 3-5 days for processing.
2. Submit another name for approval