ACRA announces BizFile+ portal unavailable from 10 to 15 December 2020

13 November 2020

The Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (“ACRA”) has announced that BizFile⁺, ACRA’s online business filing and information portal, will undergo a major system upgrade and will not be available from 6pm, Thursday, 10 December 2020 to 8am, Tuesday, 15 December 2020.

During this period, BizFile⁺ users will not be able to lodge any online transactions via the portal, nor access business information. The following eServices will not be available:

• All transactions including business name applications/reservations, incorporations/renewals, as well as applications for refunds
• All purchase of business information products from the ACRA iShop and data Application Programming Interface (“API”) calls from ACRA API Mall
• All Deposit Service Account related transactions, such as application, top-up, termination and payment

Applications and transactions with expiry/effective dates on 10 to 15 December 2020

For applications or transactions with due dates on 10 to 15 December 2020, ACRA advises BizFile⁺ users to complete such transactions before 6pm, 10 December 2020.

ACRA will assess and assist with critical or time sensitive transactions that must be completed during the system upgrade from 10 to 15 December 2020, on a case-by-case basis.

Set out below are some of the applications and transactions affected by the unavailability of the BizFile⁺ portal:

• Name reservation: BizFile⁺ users with name reservations due to expire between 10 and 15 December 2020 inclusive are advised to complete the registration/incorporation before 6pm, 10 December 2020.
• Expiry of business/limited partnership (“LP”) registration: Businesses and LPs whose registrations are due to expire between 10 and 15 December 2020 inclusive are encouraged to renew the registration in BizFile⁺ before 6pm, 10 December 2020.
• Amalgamation transactions: Amalgamation transactions with effective amalgamation dates that fall between 10 and 18 December 2020 inclusive should file their amalgamation transactions in BizFile⁺ before 6pm, 10 December 2020. 
• Other applications: Applications including notice of errors and order of courts (expunge documents, rectify errors) which are lodged with ACRA through BizFile⁺ from 7 to 10 December 2020 along with business name applications that have been referred to other authorities for approval will take a longer time than usual to process. For some applications, the processing may only be completed after 15 December 2020.

Extension of filing time without penalties imposed

As BizFile⁺ will not be available from 6pm, 10 December 2020 to 8am, 15 December 2020, ACRA will extend the time to file certain transactions as set out in the table below and not impose any late filing penalties:

Filing transactions with due dates on 10 to 15 December 2020
Filing of annual returns	No filing penalties if the filing is done by 20 December 2020
Other types of filings (e.g. change of particulars/appointments/cessation, notice of error, lodgement of court order)

Extension of validity of download links for business information products

The validity of the download link for the following information products will be extended from the usual seven days to 14 days:

• Purchase of all information products from ACRA iShop from 6pm, 3 December 2020 to 6pm, 10 December 2020
• Free copy of business profile following successful incorporation, registration, or filing of annual returns from 6pm, 3 December 2020 to 6pm, 10 December 2020

Authorised information resellers

The following information products are available for purchase from ACRA’s authorised information resellers, during the period when ACRA iShop is unavailable:

• Business Profile
• People Profile
• Other business information packages

Reference materials

The full media release is available on the ACRA website www.acra.gov.sg or by clicking here.