Log in to Bizfile as an individual user, using Singpass, when you are transacting in your own name rather than on behalf of a registered entity. That covers first-time business registration, endorsing your own appointment as a director or secretary, and verifying your email address.
Bizfile has two front doors and only one of them will work for what you are trying to do. Pick the wrong one and you will either be stopped at the login screen or, more confusingly, get all the way in and then find that the transaction you came for is not on the menu.
The distinction is not about who you are. It is about whose behalf you are acting on. A director of three companies uses the business user route on Monday to file an annual return and the individual user route on Tuesday to verify her own email address. Same person, same Singpass, two different doors.
Here is how to tell which one you need.
What “individual user” actually means on Bizfile
An individual user is a natural person transacting in a personal capacity. The login is authenticated by Singpass, which is your own national digital identity, and nothing about the session is tied to a company.
A business user is a person acting for a registered entity. That login is authenticated by Singpass too, but it is routed through Corppass, which then attaches you to an entity and to a set of permissions that somebody at that entity granted you.
The practical test is a single question: does the transaction belong to a company, or to you?
If the answer involves a Unique Entity Number, you are a business user. If it does not, or if the UEN does not exist yet because you are in the middle of creating it, you are an individual user.
Singpass route or Corppass route, at a glance
| Your situation | Which login | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Registering a business name or a new entity for the first time | Individual user, Singpass | There is no UEN yet, so there is nothing for Corppass to attach you to |
| Verifying your email address after being appointed | Individual user, Singpass | The email belongs to you, not to the entity |
| Endorsing your appointment or withdrawal as a position holder | Individual user, Singpass | You are consenting personally |
| Registering or renewing as a registered qualified individual | Individual user, Singpass | The registration is personal to you |
| Buying a business information product in your own name | Individual user, Singpass | No entity involved |
| Filing an annual return or a lodgement for your company | Business user, Corppass | The filing belongs to the entity |
| Updating shareholders, shares or officers | Business user, Corppass | The filing belongs to the entity |
| Filing for a client as a corporate service provider | Business user, Corppass | You act for the client entity |
Who actually needs the individual route
Four groups end up here, and only one of them expects to.
People with no entity at all. You want to buy business information, or you are simply looking something up in your own name. Nothing complicated.
People about to have an entity. If you are registering a business name or incorporating for the first time, you cannot possibly have Corppass yet, because Corppass attaches to a UEN and you do not have one. So the very first filing of a company’s life is made through the individual door. Corppass comes afterwards, which is the sequence we set out in setting up Corppass for a new Singapore company.
Sole proprietors, but only at the start. This one causes real confusion. Registering the sole proprietorship is an individual transaction, because the business does not exist yet. Once it is registered it has a UEN, and filings for the business from that point are entity filings that run through Corppass. The same human being changes doors partway through the process. If you are winding one down rather than starting one, the mechanics are in our note on closing a sole proprietorship or partnership.
Anyone who has been asked to confirm something personally. Endorsements and email verification are the big two. ACRA will not let a company confirm on your behalf that you agreed to be its director, and it will not let a company verify that your email address is really yours. Those are personal acts and they sit behind the personal login.
The steps, in order
You need a Singpass account. If you do not have one, apply through Singpass before you go anywhere near Bizfile, because there is no way around it.
- Open the Bizfile homepage and select Login.
- Choose Individual User. This is the fork in the road. The other option routes you through Corppass.
- Authenticate with Singpass, either by scanning the QR code with the Singpass app or by entering your credentials.
- You will land on a dashboard that shows your personal pending actions rather than any company’s.
- Pick the eService you need from the navigation menu and start the transaction.
That is the whole login. It takes under a minute. The complications all live either side of it.
Email verification: the task that quietly sits there
Of everything on this page, email verification generates the most confusion, so it is worth being precise about how it works.
ACRA triggers a verification whenever an email address enters or changes in its records in a way that matters. In practice that means when a new entity is registered, when a position holder or shareholder’s email address is updated, when someone is newly appointed as a position holder, and when an individual registers as a registered qualified individual.
Bizfile then sends a verification email to the address given. Three things about that email catch people out.
The link expires after 24 hours. If it arrives on a Friday evening and you open it on Monday, it is dead. That is not a fault, it is the design.
Clicking the link does not log you in. You get a confirmation page and nothing else. If you need to file something, you log in separately afterwards. People routinely assume the verification link is their way into the system and then wonder why they are looking at a static page.
The address may simply be wrong. A single typo in the email keyed during incorporation means the verification email goes nowhere. Check the junk folder first, then check the address itself. If your corporate secretary handled the registration, the address in ACRA’s records is whatever they were given, and they are the fastest route to correcting it.
If the link has expired or never arrived, log in to Bizfile with Singpass and look under Pending actions on your dashboard. There is a resend option there. This is the specific reason a business user sometimes has to go round through the individual door: the resend lives on the personal dashboard, not the entity one.
What goes wrong in practice
The wrong door, then a wasted afternoon. Somebody tries to file an annual return after logging in with Singpass as an individual, cannot find the eService, and concludes that Bizfile is broken. It is not. Entity filings are simply not on that menu. Log out and come back through the business user route.
An unverified email blocks a transaction the user believes is unrelated. The message on screen rarely says “your email is unverified” in those words. It says the transaction cannot proceed. The cure is the personal login and the pending task, not a call to your corporate secretary about your filing rights.
Nobody notices the appointment was never endorsed. A director is appointed, the filing goes in, and the endorsement sits unactioned in a personal Bizfile dashboard that the appointee has never opened. The appointment is not complete until the individual endorses it. Because changes in company officers must be notified to the Registrar within 14 days under Section 173 of the Companies Act 1967, an endorsement that drifts for a month has consequences beyond the inconvenience, and late lodgement penalties apply per late transaction. Our guide to director changes and ACRA filings sets out the full sequence.
A new director cannot get in at all. They have Singpass, so they assume they have access. They do not have Corppass access to the company, which is a separate grant made by the company’s Corppass administrator. Who holds what, and why over-granting is its own risk, is covered in assigning Bizfile e-Service roles in Corppass.
Registered qualified individuals: the 60-day window
If you are registering or renewing as a registered qualified individual, the login is the same individual route, but the timing is not flexible.
Renewal can only be done within 60 days of the expiry date. Try earlier and the system will not let you proceed, which people mistake for a fault. Leave it too late and you are dealing with a lapse rather than a renewal.
This sits inside the wider corporate service provider regime, and if that is your world, our Corporate Service Providers Act 2024 compliance FAQ covers the obligations that come with it.
Frequently asked questions
I am a company director. Should I log in to Bizfile as an individual or a business user?
Both, depending on the task. Use the business user route with Corppass for anything filed on behalf of the company, such as annual returns or officer changes. Use the individual route with Singpass for anything personal to you, such as endorsing your own appointment or verifying your email address.
Do I need Corppass to register a new company?
No. You cannot have it yet. A new entity has no Unique Entity Number until it is registered, and Corppass attaches to a UEN. The first registration is made through the individual user login with Singpass, and Corppass is set up afterwards.
Why does my Bizfile transaction say it cannot proceed?
Most often because your email address has not been verified. Log in with Singpass as an individual user, open the pending task on your dashboard, and complete the verification. This is a one-time step per address, after which the block does not recur.
The verification link in my email does not work. What now?
The link expires 24 hours after it is sent, so an old email is simply dead. Log in to Bizfile with Singpass, find the resend option under pending actions on your dashboard, and use the fresh link promptly. Check your junk folder before assuming it never arrived.
Can my corporate secretary verify my email address for me?
No. Verification is a personal act tied to your own Singpass. Your corporate secretary can correct a wrong address in ACRA’s records so that the verification email reaches you, but only you can click the link and confirm it.
Does clicking the verification link log me in to Bizfile?
No. It confirms the address and shows a confirmation page, nothing more. To file anything you log in separately, with Singpass for personal transactions or Corppass for entity transactions.
The part worth outsourcing
None of this is difficult. It is just fiddly, and fiddly things at the start of a company’s life have a habit of surfacing eighteen months later as an unverified email, a lapsed endorsement or a director who has never once been able to log in.
Raffles Corporate Services sets up the whole chain for new companies as a matter of course: registration, Corppass, e-Service access, email verification and endorsements, all closed off before the file is handed over. If you have inherited a company where some of that was never finished, we can find the gaps quickly. Once your access works, the first thing worth doing is downloading your company registers from Bizfile for free.
More at Singapore Secretary Services.
— The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services