Global Investor Programme (GIP) Singapore: The Company Formation and Secretarial Steps Behind Option A

The Global Investor Programme (GIP) gets most of the attention it deserves for the numbers involved: a S$10 million commitment under Option A, a S$25 million fund subscription under Option B, and audited turnover figures running into the hundreds of millions for the applicant’s underlying business. What gets far less attention is what has to happen on the ground in Singapore once the Economic Development Board (EDB) issues an Approval-in-Principle (AIP): a real operating company has to be incorporated or restructured, capitalised, staffed with the right officers, and kept in continuous statutory good standing for as long as the applicant wants to hold Permanent Residence.

That workstream sits with the company secretary and corporate service provider (CSP), not the immigration adviser. EDB’s factsheet is explicit that within six months of the AIP, an Option A applicant must demonstrate the S$10 million investment and produce documentary evidence, including certified share certificates from the company’s own corporate secretary, a bank reference letter for its Singapore corporate account, and the latest ACRA Bizfile extract. None of that can be produced without a properly incorporated, capitalised, and administered Singapore Pte Ltd.

This article sets out, from a company formation and secretarial perspective, what actually needs to be built and maintained behind an Option A GIP application: the incorporation or restructuring decision, the resident director appointment, the share capital structure, the registered office and statutory registers, and the annual compliance calendar that keeps the entity, and by extension the applicant’s Re-Entry Permit, in good standing.

The GIP Options, Briefly

EDB’s Global Investor Programme, administered through its Contact Singapore division, grants Singapore Permanent Residence to qualifying investors under one of several routes:

• Option A: commit a minimum of S$10 million to establish a new business entity in Singapore, or to expand an existing Singapore business operation, in one of the industries listed in EDB’s Annex B. Applicants applying as Established Business Owners must generally show at least three years of entrepreneurial and business track record, hold at least 30% shareholding if the qualifying company is privately held, and be part of its management team.
• Option B: invest S$25 million into a GIP-Select Fund that in turn deploys capital into Singapore-based companies.
• Option C: establish a Singapore-based Single Family Office with at least S$200 million in assets under management, of which a minimum of S$50 million must be deployed into EDB-specified local investments.

Option A is the route most directly tied to running an actual Singapore company, which is why it carries the heaviest and most continuous corporate secretarial workload of the three. This is also a genuine content gap on this site: our sister site, Raffles Corporate Services, has already covered GIP eligibility, process, and common mistakes in general terms, and this site has touched on GIP only in passing within broader high-net-worth relocation pieces. This article is deliberately narrower: it is about what a CSP has to execute, not about whether an applicant qualifies. For the eligibility and application side, our guide on how to move to Singapore as a high-net-worth individual and our Singapore PR application 2026 guide are the better starting points.

The Company Formation and Secretarial Workstream Behind Option A

Once EDB has issued the AIP, the applicant has six months to fulfil the investment condition. That window is when the corporate secretarial work has to be done properly and quickly, because every piece of post-AIP evidence EDB asks for, from the share certificates to the bank reference letter, depends on the underlying company being correctly set up first.

1. Incorporating or Restructuring the Singapore Operating Company

The “Option A company” is either a new Singapore private limited company incorporated specifically to house the S$10 million commitment, or an existing Singapore business operation that is being expanded to absorb it. Either way, the company’s constitution, principal activity, and shareholding must line up with the five-year business plan the applicant submitted to EDB in Form B, and the company’s activities must fall within one of the industries EDB lists in Annex B of the GIP factsheet, ranging from precision engineering and healthcare to professional services and family office and financial services. For applicants using an existing entity, this often means amending the constitution and updating ACRA’s Bizfile record before the investment can be properly evidenced. For a straightforward look at what incorporation itself involves, see our guide to Singapore Pte Ltd company registration for foreigners.

2. Appointing a Resident Director

Every Singapore private company needs at least one director who is ordinarily resident in Singapore, under the Companies Act 1967. Most GIP applicants are not yet physically resident when the Option A company is first incorporated, since PR has not been formalised at that stage, so a locally resident director has to be appointed to satisfy the statutory requirement while the application is in progress. Many firms use a nominee director service for this interim period. Once the applicant’s PR is formalised and they take up an active management role, which Option A requires in any case since the applicant must sit on the company’s management team or board, the applicant typically steps in as director alongside or in place of the nominee.

3. Setting the Share Capital Structure to Reflect the S$10 Million Commitment

The company’s share capital has to be structured so that the applicant holds at least 30% of the shares in the Option A company, and so that the paid-up capital and any subsequent capital injections reasonably track the S$10 million investment being made. This usually involves an initial share allotment on incorporation, followed by one or more further allotments or capital injections as funds are progressively deployed within the six-month post-AIP window. Because EDB later requires a certified true copy of the ordinary share certificates, certified by the company’s own corporate secretary, the share register and share certificate book need to be kept accurate and current from day one rather than reconstructed under time pressure closer to the submission deadline.

4. Registered Office and Statutory Registers

The company needs a proper Singapore registered office address, maintained statutory registers (register of members, register of directors, register of registrable controllers under the CSP Act 2024), and a corporate bank account with a Singapore-registered bank. The bank account matters particularly for GIP purposes: EDB requires an original bank reference letter confirming the account has been satisfactorily conducted, showing the account holder’s name, UEN, account type, and account number. All of this is standard company secretarial groundwork, but for a GIP-linked entity it needs to be assembled with the EDB submission deadline in mind, not just ACRA’s own filing timelines.

Step-by-Step: What the Secretarial Workstream Looks Like in Practice

1. Confirm the AIP and investment deadline. ICA issues the Approval-in-Principle once EDB is satisfied with the application; the applicant then has six months to complete the Option A investment.
2. Incorporate the Option A company, or restructure the existing one, with its constitution and principal activity aligned to the approved business plan and an Annex B-eligible industry.
3. Appoint a resident director and a company secretary within the statutory timeframes under the Companies Act, using a nominee director arrangement if the applicant is not yet locally resident.
4. Allot shares and inject capital in tranches that build toward the full S$10 million, keeping the share register and share certificates current at each step.
5. Open the corporate bank account and register the company’s office address, then set up the statutory registers, including the register of registrable controllers.
6. Assemble the post-AIP evidence pack: the signed Investment Undertaking, Statutory Declaration, latest ACRA Bizfile extract, certified share certificates, and the bank reference letter.
7. Submit the evidence to EDB for verification; once cleared, ICA issues the Final Approval letter.
8. Formalise Permanent Residence within twelve months of Final Approval, after which the Re-Entry Permit is issued for five years.
9. Maintain the company in good standing for the life of the Re-Entry Permit, since renewal is conditioned on the Option A company’s continued operation and, for a straightforward five-year renewal, on the company employing at least 30 staff (at least half of whom are Singapore Citizens), including at least 10 incremental hires.

That last point is where corporate secretarial administration and immigration compliance genuinely converge: building a real local headcount is as much a GIP renewal requirement as it is a business decision, and engaging a licensed employment agency to recruit Singapore Citizens and PRs into the Option A company is a practical way to work toward that threshold rather than leaving it to the final year of the Re-Entry Permit.

Ongoing Annual Compliance Obligations

Once the Option A company is up and running, it is subject to the same statutory compliance calendar as any other Singapore private limited company, with the added stakes that lapses can complicate a future GIP renewal review. The main recurring obligations are set out below.

A company secretary managing a GIP-linked entity should treat the AGM, annual return, and financial statements not just as ACRA compliance items but as the paper trail EDB and ICA may eventually review when assessing a renewal. Our guides on annual return filing and ACRA deadlines and on ACRA’s own filing annual returns guide set out the mechanics in more detail.

Getting the Structure Right From the Start

Because the six-month post-AIP window is unforgiving, and EDB’s evidence requirements are tied to corporate documents rather than bank statements alone, the company formation decisions made in the first weeks after AIP tend to determine how smoothly the process runs. Applicants weighing broader investment decisions around the S$10 million commitment, rather than treating it purely as an immigration cost, generally find the underlying business plan, and EDB’s assessment of it, stronger for having done so. Getting the ACRA incorporation, the resident director appointment, the share capital structure, and the registered office and registers right the first time, rather than restructuring under deadline pressure, is the difference between a clean Final Approval and a scramble in month five of six.

Conclusion

The Global Investor Programme’s Option A is, at its core, a company formation exercise wrapped inside an immigration approval. EDB assesses the business case and the applicant’s track record, but it is the Singapore Pte Ltd behind the application, its incorporation, its resident director, its share capital, its registered office and registers, and its annual compliance record, that has to stand up to scrutiny at AIP, at Final Approval, and again at every Re-Entry Permit renewal. Getting a qualified company secretary involved from the AIP stage onward, rather than after the investment has already been made, is the most reliable way to keep the corporate side of an Option A application from becoming the bottleneck.

To speak with the team at Raffles Corporate Services, you can email [email protected] or call, SMS, or WhatsApp +65 8501 7133. We are happy to assist with any queries.

The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services