Singapore Company Register: How to Search ACRA Bizfile and Verify Singaporean Companies (2026)

1. What is the Singaporean company register?

The register is kept in English, so its name needs no translation: it is ACRA's register, searched on Bizfile. ACRA, the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority, was formed on 1 April 2004 as a statutory board, from the merger of the Registry of Companies and Businesses and the Public Accountants' Board. It is the national regulator of business registration, financial reporting, public accountants, and corporate service providers.

So one register covers every business form. Companies, limited liability partnerships, limited partnerships, partnerships, and sole proprietorships all register with ACRA, under the Acts it administers: the Companies Act 1967, the Business Names Registration Act 2014, the Limited Liability Partnerships Act 2005, the Limited Partnerships Act 2008, and the Variable Capital Companies Act 2018. Annual returns and financial statements are filed with ACRA too, so the register, the filings, and the paid products all come from the same place.

2. How to search ACRA Bizfile step by step

Searching is free and needs no account. Go to bizfile.gov.sg: the search box is on the home page, and the whole portal, from field labels to industry descriptions, is in English.

1. Open Bizfile and stay on the Entity tab

   One field takes either an entity name or a UEN. The other tabs search live businesses by industry (up to five SSIC business activities at once), search by person, and search reserved names, which shows whether a name you want already turns up.

   

2. Choose how the name should match

   A name search can be set to "Name starting with", "Name exact match", or "Name containing". If you have a number, choose "UEN (including previous UEN)", which also finds an entity under a number it used to have. Results stop at 250 matches, so a common word needs a filter.

3. Read the free result card

   Each match shows the UEN, entity status, industry (SSIC) with its five-digit code, and address, plus a former name where there is one. For ceased entities the address is withheld. The card is free. The Business Profile, which sits under it with a price, is not.

   

4. Click More information for the free entity profile

   The More information link opens the entity profile, still free and without a login. For Singapore Airlines Limited it repeats the card and adds the date of the last annual return filed, the last AGM held, and the year-ends of the last three financial statements filed. If the entity is a registered corporate service provider, its CSP registration details appear on the profile. On the People tab, the same link opens a person's profile, which shows their registration details if they are a public accountant or registered qualified individual. A person's current and past appointments are in the paid People Profile.

5. Buy the product you actually need

   Use "Add to cart" for the Business Profile, or "More products" for the other ACRA products on that entity. After payment Bizfile emails a download guide within 15 minutes, and if you bought through Singpass the same message lands in your Bizfile inbox. The download expires after 30 days.

3. What data is public and what it costs

Singapore gives away the basic record and a monthly open data file, then charges a fixed fee per document for officers, shareholdings, and filed accounts. The prices are low, and the same on every entity.

Two things stand out. First, ACRA publishes a free bulk file. The ACRA Information on Corporate Entities collection on data.gov.sg publishes ACRA's registered entities as 27 CSV files, one per letter plus "others", is updated monthly, and may be used for personal or commercial purposes under the Open Data Licence. Second, filed accounts are cheap but not universal. Companies file their financial statements with ACRA, in XBRL, or as a PDF if they are limited by guarantee, use other accounting standards, or are foreign companies with a Singapore branch, and anyone can buy them as an extract. But a solvent exempt private company does not have to file financial statements at all, and neither does a dormant relevant company that meets ACRA's conditions.

What the free record will not show you: who runs the company, who owns it, or how it performs. Individuals' residential addresses are not shown either. Since the ACRA (Registry and Regulatory Enhancements) Act 2024 took effect on 9 December 2024, ACRA's public records show a person's contact address in place of the residential address filed with the Registrar.

4. Singaporean legal forms, briefly

Every form below sits in the one ACRA register. The difference that matters is whether the entity is a separate legal person, which decides who is liable, and for companies, whether it is an exempt private company, which can decide whether it must file accounts. A private company carries Pte Ltd in its name, a public company Ltd.

Two practical notes. Registrations of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and limited partnerships are renewed, so check the status on the card rather than assuming a business registered years ago is still live. And variable capital companies, under the Variable Capital Companies Act 2018, have their own information shop, the VCC iShop, separate from the Bizfile products above.

5. How to verify a Singaporean company: a practical checklist

1. Confirm the UEN, the live status, and the address

   Search the UEN on Bizfile and check that the name, status, and registered address match what you were given. ACRA's own risk guidance starts here: a live status in the register and a valid registered address. For a quick first pass, our free company lookup finds the registration and revenue data in one search.

2. Check the UEN format against the entity type

   A company that calls itself Pte Ltd should have a 10-character UEN starting with a year. A 9-character number belongs to a sole proprietorship or partnership, and a number starting with T or S and carrying an entity code belongs to another type, such as an LLP or a foreign company branch. A mismatch is a question worth asking before anything else.

3. Buy the Business Profile

   At S$5.50 it gives you the registration date, the position holders, and the paid-up share capital. ACRA suggests reading all three: how long the entity has existed, who runs it, and whether its capital is in proportion to what you are about to commit.

4. Check the person you are dealing with

   A People Profile, S$33, lists a person's current and past appointments and their shareholdings in the businesses they are involved in. Use it on the director who signs, especially if the company is young.

5. Check compliance and the accounts

   The free entity profile already shows when a company last filed its annual return, held its AGM, and filed financial statements. The CCFP, S$50, goes further: whether the company holds its annual general meetings and files its annual returns on time, whether its financial statements are up to date, and its liquidity, profitability, and solvency ratios. A non-listed company generally has to file its annual return within seven months of its financial year end. If no CCFP is available, buy the audited accounts as an extract, and remember that a solvent exempt private company may have no accounts on file at all.

6. Look beyond the register

   ACRA itself points to checks outside Bizfile, among them the CASE consumer alert list of businesses that may be involved in dubious practices, the MAS investor alert list of companies conducting unregulated financial activities, and the Insolvency Search for bankruptcy orders against the individuals you plan to deal with.

6. Limitations of the official register

To be clear: Bizfile is fast, clean, and in English, and its prices are fixed and low. The limits appear when you need people, ownership, financials, or scale:

• The free record stops at the basics. UEN, status, industry code, and address, plus a company's latest filing dates. Directors, owners, partners, and share capital all start at S$5.50.
• Beneficial owners are not public. Companies lodge their registers of registrable controllers with ACRA's central register, but members of the public cannot view or buy that information.
• The register of members can be incomplete. ACRA has kept it for private companies since 3 January 2016, and warns that until a company supplies complete information, it may hold partial data or none.
• Not every company files accounts. Solvent exempt private companies and qualifying dormant companies are exempt, and companies limited by guarantee and foreign company branches file PDF only, so there are no XBRL figures to read.
• Results stop at 250. Bizfile is a lookup tool, not a screening tool, and every product beyond the card is bought one entity at a time.
• The API is a subscription. Corppass users of the same entity share one API Marketplace account, subscriptions top up automatically, and ACRA's information pages do not publish the plan prices.
• Open data is monthly and basic. The data.gov.sg files are refreshed once a month and carry registration fields, former names, and a count of officers, but no officer names and no financial figures.
• Ceased entities lose their address. Bizfile does not display the address of a ceased entity, which makes old supplier records harder to match.

If you check one Singaporean supplier a quarter, none of this matters. If you onboard hundreds, it is the whole problem.

7. Access ACRA register data programmatically

CompanyData maintains a normalized database of all 631,493 Singaporean entities, sourced directly from the ACRA register and refreshed as new entries and filings appear. UENs are already parsed and validated, and records are enriched with revenue, employees, and contact data that the free Bizfile record does not show.

Our Company Data API lets you look up any Singaporean entity by UEN, name, or address and get structured JSON back in real time, with 150 free lookups to start and no Corppass account or per-document checkout. It is used by developers, banks, and insurers across 190+ countries, so Singaporean checks work exactly like checks anywhere else.

GET /v1/companies?country=SG&registration_id=197200078R

{
  "name": "Singapore Airlines Limited",
  "registration_id": "197200078R",
  "status": "live",
  "ssic_code": "51001",
  "industry": "Airlines (passenger)",
  "address": "25 Airline Road, Airline House",
  "postal_code": "819829",
  "city": "Singapore"
}

Every field above is what the free Bizfile result card shows for Singapore Airlines Limited. Revenue, employees, and contact details come back on the same record where we hold them, and are absent here for the reason this guide keeps running into: the free register record does not show them.

8. Singapore vs other company registers

Singapore gives away the basic record and a monthly bulk file, and charges small fixed fees for people and accounts. For context: