China Desk

Singapore and China

Singapore and China have a comprehensive double taxation agreement in force, modified by the Multilateral Instrument. IRAS publishes the text dated 1 September 2022. The China-Singapore Free Trade Agreement took effect in January 2009 and was upgraded in October 2019 and again on 31 December 2024. The ASEAN-China agreement applies alongside it, for goods since July 2005 and for services since July 2007, and RCEP has applied to both countries since 1 January 2022.

Chinese trade is older than the British settlement. Junk traders from Amoy and Canton came with the north-east monsoon, while credit moved on reputation, or xinyong, and remittance houses sent money home. Today a Mainland group is more likely to come for a regional holding company, for a variable capital company or for a family office, a wave that has drawn wealth from China among other places. New awards of the fund tax incentives from 1 August 2026 start at S$20 million of assets under section 13O or 13OA and at S$50 million under section 13U, with further conditions on staff and spending.

What Singapore counterparties will ask

Banks in Singapore review new clients closely, and practice tightened after the money-laundering case of August 2023. Expect to explain who owns the structure down to the natural persons, where the wealth came from and how the money reached Singapore. Opening an account goes more smoothly when these answers are ready at the first meeting. Rules in China on outbound investment and foreign exchange decide how funds may leave, so your advisers in China should confirm that position in writing.

A company also has to meet Singapore’s own conditions: a registered office from incorporation, a register of controllers and at least one director ordinarily resident in Singapore. Under the Corporate Service Providers Act 2024, a nominee director by way of business may be supplied only through a registered provider.

Your own lawyers advise you on the law of China. All enquiries, including those on Singapore law, go directly to Dr Alexander Ressos and his team of native Chinese speakers fluent in Mandarin and Cantonese at [email protected].