Compliance, explained by people who have had to do it
Alyst exists to guide Singapore businesses through their corporate obligations — clearly, and without trying to sell them something at the end of it.
Why this exists
Singapore makes it genuinely easy to start a company and genuinely easy to fall behind on what comes after. A first-time owner discovers the annual return, ECI, Form C-S, CPF, the AGM and the register of registrable controllers one at a time — usually a few weeks after each was due.
The information is all public. The problem is where it sits. On one side there is the legislation itself, which is precise and almost unreadable if you have not been trained on it. On the other there is a great deal of content published by firms whose actual purpose is to sell you a service, where the hard parts are vague because vagueness is what makes the phone ring.
Alyst is the missing middle: plain-English answers that stay precise enough to act on, and that tell you where the rule actually comes from.
Who writes it
Alyst was started by a business founder who has been through the journey — incorporating, hiring, filing late, learning what an ACRA reminder means at the point it arrives — working with a background in corporate services, on the other side of the same paperwork.
That combination is the whole point. One perspective knows what it is like to receive these obligations while trying to run a business and not knowing which ones actually matter. The other knows how the filings are really administered, where companies routinely get caught, and which widely repeated beliefs are simply wrong. Most compliance content is written from only one of those chairs.
How we write
Every statutory claim on this site links to the provision itself — not to a government homepage, but to the section, so you can read it and decide for yourself. When we say a private company may be exempt from holding an AGM, the citation takes you straight to s175A on Singapore Statutes Online, not to the front page of the Companies Act. Rates, thresholds and deadlines cite IRAS, ACRA, MOM or the CPF Board, with the date the guidance was current.
We do not publish a figure we cannot source. Where a rule is genuinely uncertain, or depends on facts we cannot see from here, we say so rather than smoothing it over. Where we get something wrong, we correct it and the page carries the date it was updated.
The directory is editorially independent. Listing is not an endorsement, and nothing in a guide is written to steer you toward a provider.
What Alyst is not
Alyst is not a law firm, an accounting firm or a tax agent, and nothing here is legal, tax or accounting advice. Reading this site does not create an advisory or professional relationship, and the experience of the people behind it does not change that.
The guides are general information. Your obligations depend on your own circumstances, and the rules change. Before you act, confirm the position with the relevant authority or with a professional you have actually engaged. The full position is in our Terms of Use.
Getting in touch
Corrections are welcome and taken seriously — if something here is wrong or out of date, tell us at hello@alyst.asia and we will fix it.
We do not take on client work, so we cannot answer questions about your specific company. What we can do is make the guide covering it better for everyone.