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ANLIAN GROUP

Services · For cross-border founders

Setting up — and structured to last.

Most founders we work with have already met two or three corp services firms before they reach us. Some came after their first attempt closed badly — wrong vehicle, wrong sequencing, surprise tax exposure twelve months in. Some came before they hired anyone — looking for the structure that becomes the substrate for everything else. Anlian Group runs the cross-border founder track end-to-end, anchored in four of our six pillars: incorporation, corporate secretary, accounting and tax, and work visa advisory. The Pte Ltd registration is the easy part. The holding architecture, the tax exposure across that structure, and the timing of work passes are what determine whether the company holds up under five years of cross-border operation.

What we typically work on with founders

Four of the six ALG pillars carry most founder engagements. We sequence them on a single calendar so day-one operations are not blocked by a missing piece — banking ready when the company is incorporated, the secretary appointed within the six-month window, and the founder's work pass timed against the operating start.

  • Incorporation — Singapore Pte Ltd, branch, or representative office, with corporate banking introduction prepared in parallel. Where holding architecture matters, the share class layout and constitution are drafted at this stage rather than fixed later.
  • Corporate Secretary — statutory cadence under Companies Act s.171: Annual Return, ECI, statutory registers, BizFile updates, the Register of Registrable Controllers. Most founder engagements migrate here from the incorporation workstream and stay on retainer.
  • Accounting & Tax — bookkeeping, ECI, Form C-S or Form C, GST registration where the threshold is met, and Start-Up Tax Exemption (SUTE) qualification for the first three Years of Assessment. Cross-border founders also want a clear view on Foreign-Sourced Income Exemption interaction with the operating entity.
  • Work Visa — founder relocation pass, anchored on Employment Pass (EP) or Tech.Pass or ONE Pass depending on profile, last-drawn salary, and the Singapore activity narrative.

The other two pillars — Global Investor Programme (GIP) and Family Office (13O / 13U) — sit on a different track. They come into play when the founder is also a substantial investor or principal of a multi-generational family group. Most founder engagements do not need them.

How an engagement starts

  1. Diagnostic call — founder background, capital sources, intended Singapore activity, hiring plan, accompanying family. Thirty minutes, no pitch. We confirm scope before quoting.
  2. Structure decision — Pte Ltd vs branch vs representative office; share class layout; founder ownership; whether a holding company in another jurisdiction needs to sit above the Singapore entity.
  3. Tax envelope — SUTE qualification check, GST registration timing against forecast turnover, FSIE applicability for income flowing through Singapore. The tax architecture is locked at incorporation, not bolted on later.
  4. Work pass sequencing — founder pass selection (EP / Tech.Pass / ONE Pass), salary structure to satisfy MOM or EDB criteria, accompanying Dependant's Pass packaging where family relocates with the founder.
  5. Banking and operations setup — corporate banking introduction (DBS, OCBC, UOB, Standard Chartered, or digital payment institutions for faster opening), statutory registrations triggered by operating profile, year-one filing calendar handed off to the secretarial workstream.

Common founder scenarios

Three patterns describe most engagements. They differ in what is already locked in and how much of the architecture is still on the table.

  • The founder who already incorporated wrongly. The Pte Ltd is registered, but the share class is plain ordinary, the holding entity above sits in the wrong jurisdiction, or the constitution does not contemplate the funding round that is now imminent. Engagement starts with a structure audit, then a restructuring plan that minimises disruption to the operating entity. The work is doable; it is not free.
  • The founder who has not yet incorporated. Capital is being raised or moved, the team is being assembled, but the Singapore entity is still on paper. This is the cleanest engagement — the structure is decided in the first conversation rather than reverse-engineered from a wrong starting point. Diagnostic before any filing.
  • The founder relocating from another jurisdiction. The business may already exist in Hong Kong, mainland China, Indonesia, or further afield. Singapore becomes the new headquarters, the new holding company, or both. Engagement spans incorporation, work pass, banking, and a careful unwinding or restructuring of the prior jurisdiction's presence. Cross-border tax interaction matters here more than in any other founder scenario.

Read more

For a detailed walkthrough of the Pte Ltd setup process, see Setting Up a Singapore Pte Ltd: A Complete 2026 Walkthrough for International Founders. For the work pass decision specifically, see Singapore Employment Pass 2026 and Tech.Pass vs ONE Pass.

Next step

Founder engagements always begin with a strategy call. Thirty minutes, no pitch — we map the situation against Singapore's regulatory framework and confirm scope before quoting. Where the situation is already defined and the engagement is execution-ready, the proposal route can move faster.

Schedule a Strategy Call → or Request a proposal →