How to Claim Professional Fees in Singapore (2026 Guide)

Quick answer

Professional fees are deductible in Singapore when they relate to trade or revenue transactions: audit, tax filing, accounting, secretarial, debt recovery, and routine legal work. Fees for capital transactions, such as buying a business, incorporating, or issuing shares, are not deductible. Revenue expenses incurred up to 12 months before the business is deemed to have commenced can be claimed under section 14U. GST on Singapore advisers is claimable as input tax.

Are professional fees tax deductible in Singapore?

Yes, when they pass the test in section 14 of the Income Tax Act: incurred wholly and exclusively in the production of income, and not capital, private, or specifically prohibited under section 15. IRAS sets out the professional fee position directly: legal and professional fees related to trade and revenue transactions are deductible, while legal and professional fees for non-trade or capital transactions are not. On the deductible side sit statutory audit fees, tax agent and filing fees, bookkeeping, corporate secretarial retainers, recovering trade debts, drafting customer and supplier contracts, and handling employment disputes. On the capital side sit fees for acquiring a company or property, incorporation and share issue costs, restructuring advice, and litigation over the ownership of an asset.

New businesses get a helpful timing rule. Section 14U deems a business to have commenced on the first day of the accounting year in which it earns its first dollar of revenue, and revenue expenses incurred from up to 12 months before that deemed commencement date are deductible. That captures the accountant’s fees, legal advice on contracts, and secretarial costs of a long set-up period, as long as each item is revenue in nature. Incorporation fees themselves remain capital.

Employees deduct very little in Singapore. Employment expenses are deductible only if they are wholly and exclusively incurred in performing the duties, not reimbursed, and not capital or private. Subscriptions to professional bodies relevant to the job qualify and are covered on the claim subscriptions in Singapore page.

How much can you claim?

The full fee where it is revenue. Worked example: a Singapore interior design company pays S$4,800 for its annual audit and tax filing, S$1,500 in corporate secretarial fees, S$2,200 to a law firm for recovering an unpaid client invoice, and S$9,000 to the same firm for acquiring a competitor’s business. The first three, S$8,500, are deductible under section 14, worth S$1,445 at the 17% corporate rate before partial exemption. The S$9,000 acquisition fee is capital and not deductible. Had the company incurred S$3,000 of accounting fees in the eight months before its first invoice, section 14U would allow those too.

GST on professional fees

Singapore professional services are standard-rated at 9%, and a GST-registered business claims the input tax on fees used for making taxable supplies, with a full tax invoice for amounts of S$1,000 or more and a simplified one below that. Overseas advisers are imported services. A GST-registered overseas supplier will charge 9% unless you give it your GST registration number, and the reverse charge applies only to businesses that are not entitled to full input tax recovery. The Singapore GST guide covers both regimes and the GST calculator splits inclusive amounts.

Record-keeping requirements

Keep engagement letters and itemised invoices, and ask law firms to separate revenue matters from capital transactions on their bills. Records must be kept for five years from the relevant Year of Assessment. For section 14U claims, keep evidence of the first revenue date so the 12-month window can be shown. The Singapore record-keeping guide covers electronic records accepted by IRAS.

How to claim, step by step

1. Classify each professional invoice by what it secured: a revenue matter or a capital transaction.
2. Deduct revenue fees in the tax computation under professional fees; add back capital fees.
3. For a new business, identify revenue fees incurred up to 12 months before the deemed commencement date and claim them under section 14U.
4. Claim input tax on the GST return with a full tax invoice for fees of S$1,000 or more.
5. Give GST-registered overseas advisers your GST number; apply the reverse charge only if you are partially exempt.
6. Keep itemised invoices for five years.

Common mistakes

• Deducting the legal fees on a business or property acquisition as professional fees.
• Missing section 14U and losing a year of pre-revenue accounting and advisory costs.
• Treating incorporation and share issue fees as revenue.
• Claiming input tax on a fee without a full tax invoice when the amount is S$1,000 or more.
• Applying the reverse charge to an overseas adviser’s fee when the business recovers input tax in full.

Software that helps

• Dext captures adviser invoices and attaches them to the transaction for the five-year record.
• ExpenseFlow reads legal and accounting invoices with frontier vision AI, explains under each line whether a fee is a running cost or belongs to an asset, lowers its confidence for review when the invoice names a transaction without saying what was acquired, flags overseas adviser bills that need reverse-charge treatment, flags invoices of S$1,000 or more that lack full tax invoice details, and syncs the approved bill to Xero or QuickBooks with the document attached.
• Xero maps professional fees to their own account so the Form C-S computation picks them up cleanly.

FAQ

See the answered questions above for deductible fees, capital fees, pre-commencement costs, audit and tax fees, and GST.