Registration feels like an ending. You get the UEN, the business profile, and a certain amount of relief. What has actually happened is that a calendar started running, and nobody handed you a copy of it.
The company secretary has to be appointed within six months. This is a statutory requirement rather than a service upsell, and a sole director cannot fill the role themselves.
The register of registrable controllers has to exist within thirty days. Most founders have never heard of it. It records who ultimately controls the company, and it is expected to be maintained whether or not anyone has asked to see it.
The financial year end needs a deliberate decision, ideally before the first year runs away from you. It sets when the annual return is due, when the first tax filing lands, and how long that first financial year actually is.
The bank account and CorpPass are what make the company operational rather than theoretical. Both take longer than founders expect, and both depend on the incorporation documents being in order and consistent with one another.
The moment a first employee is hired, a second set of obligations begins. CPF contributions are due by the last day of each calendar month. IR8A comes at the start of the year. Work injury compensation insurance and employment terms have to meet their own requirements. Hiring is where a company stops being paperwork and starts being an employer.
Compulsory GST registration has two tests. Under the retrospective test, check at the end of each calendar year whether taxable turnover exceeded S$1 million and, if it did, apply between 1 and 30 January of the following year. Under the prospective test, apply within 30 days once you can reasonably expect taxable turnover to exceed S$1 million in the next 12 months. The obligation to monitor both tests sits with you.
None of this is difficult in isolation. It is a list of small, dated obligations spread across several agencies, which is exactly the kind of thing a busy founder drops. The fix is not discipline. It is having the calendar written down somewhere that is not your memory.