Closing a Singapore company is a process that demands precision. While the strike-off route is the cheapest and quickest way to wind down a dormant or non-trading entity, ACRA’s eligibility bar is strict — and many directors are caught out by lingering tax liabilities, undischarged charges, or simple paperwork errors that delay the process by months.

This guide walks through the complete ACRA strike-off procedure as it stands in 2026: who qualifies, what to do before applying, the BizFile+ submission steps, the gazette notification timeline, and how to handle objections. By the end you will know exactly what your company needs in order to be struck off cleanly — and which scenarios make liquidation a better choice than strike-off.

What Is Striking Off and When Does It Apply?

Striking off is the administrative process by which a company’s name is removed from ACRA’s register. Once struck off, the company ceases to exist as a legal entity. The legal basis sits in Section 344 of the Companies Act 1967, which empowers the Registrar to strike a company off where there is reasonable cause to believe the company is not carrying on business or is not in operation.

Strike-off is appropriate for companies that have either never traded or have ceased operations and have no remaining assets, liabilities, or unfinished obligations. For companies that are still solvent but trading — or for companies with creditors, complex assets, or contested matters — members’ voluntary winding up or another formal liquidation route is usually the right answer instead.

Strike-Off Eligibility: The ACRA Checklist

Before submitting a strike-off application, the company must meet every item on ACRA’s eligibility checklist. Missing even one will cause the application to be rejected outright. The full set of conditions is:

  • The company has ceased trading, or has never commenced business since incorporation.
  • The company has no outstanding tax liabilities with the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS).
  • The company has no outstanding contributions to the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board, no GST owed, and no debts to any other government agency.
  • The company is not indebted to any other party (including its own directors and shareholders, unless those debts have been formally waived).
  • The company has no assets and no liabilities at the date of the application.
  • There are no outstanding charges registered against the company (debentures, mortgages, fixed and floating charges must all be discharged).
  • The company is not a party to any current or pending legal proceedings, whether in Singapore or overseas.
  • The company is not subject to any ongoing or pending regulatory action or investigation by ACRA, IRAS, MAS, MOM, or any other authority.
  • All directors agree to the strike-off and consent forms have been duly signed.
  • The majority of shareholders also consent to the strike-off.

If any of these are uncertain, do not submit the application yet. Sort out the underlying issue first. A common landmine is undeclared dormant-company income or unclosed IRAS GST registrations, which surface when ACRA cross-checks the application with IRAS records and returns a “not approved” response.

Pre-Application Housekeeping: Don’t Skip This

Before logging in to BizFile+, the company should put its house in order. The work below is what separates a smooth, four-month strike-off from a frustrating cycle of rejections and resubmissions.

1. Close the books and finalise tax matters with IRAS

Submit the company’s final corporate income tax return (Form C-S, C-S Lite, or C as applicable) up to the date the company ceased operations. If the company is dormant, file the dormant company income tax return. Settle any outstanding tax payable. If the company is GST-registered, formally cancel the GST registration with IRAS — strike-off cannot proceed if a live GST account remains open. The IRAS website provides the cancellation forms and confirmation procedure.

2. Clear CPF and other statutory obligations

If the company has ever employed staff, ensure all CPF contributions, levies, and skills development levies have been fully paid up to the cessation date, and notify the CPF Board of cessation. Any open MOM work pass tied to the company should be cancelled before strike-off, otherwise the application will be blocked.

3. Discharge all charges

Pull a recent business profile from BizFile+ and review the “Charges” section. If any registered charges still appear active, they must be formally discharged with the chargee (typically a bank). Once the charge is released, file a Notification of Discharge or Release of Charge through BizFile+. Strike-off cannot proceed while any active charge sits on the register.

4. Distribute or extinguish remaining assets

The company must have a “nil” balance sheet at the point of strike-off. Distribute any remaining cash to shareholders as a final dividend or capital return, transfer or sell physical assets, and close any company bank accounts. Important: any asset still held in the company’s name at the date of strike-off vests in the State as bona vacantia under Section 346 of the Companies Act 1967, and recovering it post-strike-off requires a formal restoration application.

5. Resolve all litigation and contingent liabilities

Strike-off cannot proceed if the company is named as a party in any current or pending litigation. Review your company compliance records and obtain confirmation from your legal counsel that nothing is pending.

Submitting the Strike-Off Application on BizFile+

Once the housekeeping is complete, the strike-off application is filed electronically through ACRA’s BizFile+ portal. There is no filing fee for strike-off (a deliberate policy choice to encourage clean exits, not a clerical oversight). The application is typically lodged by the company’s company secretary or a qualified ACRA-registered Corporate Service Provider on behalf of the directors.

The applicant must complete the prescribed strike-off application form, which contains declarations confirming each of the eligibility conditions above. The form must be signed (digitally) by the directors, with shareholder consent where applicable. ACRA also expects supporting confirmations — for example, an IRAS tax clearance letter or a confirmation that the final tax return has been submitted — to be attached to the application.

It is good practice for the directors to pass a board resolution authorising the application before lodgement, and to retain that resolution in the company’s statutory records. See our guide to directors’ resolutions for the standard format.

The 4–6 Month Strike-Off Timeline

Once the application is accepted, the strike-off procedure moves through a fixed statutory timeline. Directors who understand each milestone find it much easier to plan around the closure.

Stage 1: Application review (around 14 days)

ACRA reviews the application and cross-checks against its database, IRAS records, and other government registries. If everything is in order, ACRA will issue a “Notice of Intended Strike-Off”. If something is amiss — most commonly a tax issue — the application will be rejected and the directors will need to resolve the issue before re-applying.

Stage 2: Notice and 30-day objection window

The Notice of Intended Strike-Off is sent to the company’s registered office, to all directors and the company secretary at their residential addresses, and to IRAS. From the date of the notice, any interested party (creditor, shareholder, regulator, court) has 30 days to lodge an objection.

Stage 3: First Gazette Notification

If no objection is lodged, ACRA publishes the company’s name in the Government Gazette as a “First Gazette Notification”. This is a public notice giving any further parties a chance to object before the strike-off is finalised. The Gazette publication itself runs for 60 days.

Stage 4: Final Gazette Notification and dissolution

If no objections are received during the 60-day Gazette period, ACRA publishes a Final Gazette Notification. The company is then formally struck off the register on the date specified in that notice. From application to dissolution, the entire process typically takes between four and six months when everything goes smoothly.

What If Someone Objects? Handling a Strike-Off Objection

An objection during the 30-day notice window or the 60-day Gazette period will halt the strike-off immediately. Common grounds for objection include unpaid creditors, undisclosed assets, ongoing legal proceedings, or a director who did not consent to the application. Where the company knows or suspects there may be an objector — for example a former employee with an unpaid claim — it is far better to settle that issue before applying than to face an objection mid-process. See our detailed note on how strike-off objections are handled.

If a valid objection is filed, ACRA will require the company to resolve the issue and then withdraw the objection before the strike-off can resume. This often means re-starting the timeline from scratch.

After Strike-Off: Restoration, Records and Loose Ends

Once a company has been struck off, its directors and shareholders are released from their continuing statutory obligations to the company. However, a few practical points remain:

  • Records retention. Despite dissolution, accounting and statutory records must be retained for at least five years from the date of strike-off.
  • Bona vacantia. Any asset that remained in the company at the moment of strike-off vests in the State, and recovering it requires a formal court or administrative restoration.
  • Restoration. A struck-off company can, in some circumstances, be restored to the register within six years of strike-off. Administrative restoration under Section 344D is the cheaper of the two routes; otherwise a court order under Section 344E is required.
  • Director records. A clean strike-off does not blacklist the directors, but a strike-off triggered by ACRA enforcement (for non-filing) can affect the directors’ future eligibility, including a temporary disqualification from acting as a director of another Singapore company.

When Liquidation Is the Better Choice

Strike-off is fast and cheap, but it is not always the right tool. If the company has remaining assets that need to be distributed in an orderly way, has creditor claims that need to be assessed, or has shareholders who disagree about how the wind-down should run, a formal liquidation is better. The Simplified Insolvency Programme (SIP 2.0) is a streamlined option for small, distressed companies, and members’ voluntary winding up is the default for solvent companies that simply have too much going on for a strike-off to be appropriate.

Conclusion

Strike-off is a clean exit if you do the preparation properly. The biggest single mistake we see is rushing into BizFile+ before clearing IRAS, CPF, and the charges register — and then spending months working through rejections that could have been avoided with a fortnight of housekeeping. If your company is genuinely dormant, has nothing on the balance sheet, no live disputes, and clean tax records, strike-off is the right call. If any of those conditions are wobbly, get professional help before you file.

If you would like help working through the eligibility checklist, finalising tax matters, and preparing the strike-off application, the team at Raffles Corporate Services handles strike-offs from start to finish for hundreds of Singapore companies every year. We will tell you upfront whether your company is strike-off ready, what needs to be cleaned up first, and how long the closure is realistically going to take.

— The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services