GST and Digital Economy

Key Requirements

Local-business guidance covers reverse charge on imported services and relevant low-value goods. Overseas-business guidance covers the Overseas Vendor Registration regime for imported services and low-value goods. These are different compliance routes, so identify the supplier’s location, the customer’s status and the nature of the supply before choosing a guide. Registration under the overseas simplified regime should not be confused with a local customer’s entitlement to input tax or reverse-charge liability. The branch is a navigation point; use the detailed rules to check thresholds, exclusions, registration and evidence for the particular transaction.

Identify the Customer Before Choosing the Regime

For these regimes, a business customer is not automatically a B2B customer. IRAS uses GST registration status: a Singapore business that is not GST-registered is within the B2C definition. An overseas supplier must therefore distinguish the customer’s registration status from the customer’s company name. Its Singapore customer records also need to support where the customer belongs; the overseas-business guidance describes two non-conflicting pieces of evidence for remote services.

The overseas registration test combines annual global turnover exceeding S$1 million with annual Singapore B2C remote-service and low-value-goods supplies exceeding S$100,000. Both elements matter. A marketplace or redeliverer may be treated as supplier under the specified conditions, so identify who accounts for a platform sale before duplicating GST collection in the merchant’s own checkout.

Check the Purchase and Input-Tax Route

A GST-registered local purchaser should give its GST registration number to the overseas vendor for business purchases. Where GST was incorrectly charged because that number was not provided, IRAS directs the customer to seek a vendor refund rather than claim that charge as input tax. Separately assess reverse charge if full input-tax recovery is unavailable. The simplified overseas pay-only registration does not allow input-tax claims; it should not be used as a substitute for the local business’s own recovery analysis.