- Profit from selling online in Singapore is taxable, whether you sell on your own site or a marketplace like Shopee or Lazada.
- Sell as an individual and your online profit is taxed as personal income; sell through a company and it is taxed as company profit at 17%.
- You must register for GST once your taxable turnover passes S$1 million, then charge 9% GST on your standard-rated sales.
- Imported low-value goods of S$400 or less have been subject to GST since 1 January 2023, usually collected by the overseas seller or marketplace.
- Clean records, built from your platform payout reports, make both income tax and GST filing manageable.
Singapore ecommerce tax works in two parts: income tax on the profit you make selling online, and GST once your turnover crosses the registration threshold. It doesn’t matter whether you sell through your own store or a marketplace like Shopee or Lazada, and it doesn’t matter that this started as a weekend side hustle. What changes your obligations is how much you sell and how you’re set up.
Getting accounting for online sellers right early saves a scramble later, so this guide covers what you owe at each stage, from your first sale to your first GST return.
Not sure whether your online shop has already crossed into “business” territory?
Do you pay tax on money you make selling online in Singapore?
Profit from selling online in Singapore is taxable, whether you sell through your own website or a marketplace. If you sell as an individual, that profit is taxed as part of your personal income; if you sell through a company, it’s taxed as company profit. GST is a separate obligation that only starts once your taxable turnover crosses the registration threshold.
The platform you use doesn’t change the principle. IRAS treats income from online selling like any other trade: sell for profit, and the profit is taxable and has to be declared. What the platform changes is the paperwork, since your sales and fees arrive as a payout report rather than a shop till.
When does selling online become a business?
The line that matters is hobby versus trade. Clearing out your old wardrobe on Carousell isn’t a business. Buying or making stock to sell on at a profit, repeatedly and with some organisation behind it, is.
IRAS uses factors often called the “badges of trade” to decide which side of the line you sit on, looking at how often you sell, whether you bought the goods intending to resell them, and how businesslike your activity is.
Once your selling looks like a trade, the profit is taxable from the first dollar, and there’s no separate tax-free allowance just for being small. Many sellers cross this line without noticing, often around the time they start restocking or selling on Shopee in volume rather than clearing out a cupboard.
Should you sell as an individual or set up a Pte Ltd?
You can sell online as an individual (a sole proprietor) or through a private limited company. As a sole proprietor, your business profit is added to your other personal income and taxed at personal income tax rates. As a Pte Ltd, the company is a separate taxpayer, and its profits are taxed at the flat corporate rate of 17%, with new-company exemptions that lower the effective rate in the early years.
For a small store, the sole-proprietor route is simpler and cheaper to run. As profit grows, the liability protection and tax treatment of a company start to matter more. It’s a genuine trade-off, so it’s worth reading up on choosing a business structure before you commit.
TIPTip: Marketplace accounts are usually opened in your own name first. If you later incorporate, plan to move the store to the company cleanly, so your income tax and GST records don’t straddle two entities mid-year.
How is income tax charged on your ecommerce profit?
Income tax is charged on your net profit, not your total sales. That means you take everything the store brought in and subtract the costs of earning it: the cost of stock, platform and payment fees, advertising, packaging and shipping. What’s left is the figure that gets taxed, either on your personal return or your company return.
Missing costs is where sellers leave money on the table, because platform commissions and ad spend add up fast. IRAS only allows expenses genuinely incurred to earn your income, not personal spending. Sleek’s accounting and taxes resources go deeper on what you can and can’t claim.
When do online sellers have to register for GST?
GST for online sellers comes down to one number: turnover. You must register for GST once your taxable turnover passes S$1 million a year, and there are two ways you can cross that trigger.
On a retrospective basis, if your taxable turnover was more than S$1 million at the end of the calendar year, you must apply by 30 January of the following year, and your registration takes effect on 1 March. On a prospective basis, if at any point you can reasonably expect turnover to exceed S$1 million in the next 12 months, you must apply within 30 days of forming that view.
Below S$1 million, GST registration is voluntary. Some sellers register early to reclaim GST on their costs, but it also means charging 9% GST to customers and filing regular returns, so it’s a decision to weigh rather than rush. If you’re close to the threshold, it helps to understand how GST registration works before the deadline forces your hand.
Can you charge 0% GST to overseas customers?
If you’re GST-registered and you ship goods to customers outside Singapore, those export sales can often be zero-rated, meaning you charge 0% GST rather than 9%. The catch is evidence: IRAS expects you to keep proof the goods actually left Singapore, such as shipping and export documents, before you treat a sale as zero-rated.
Getting the documentation wrong is a common reason zero-rating is denied on review. The rules on when a sale qualifies are set out in full under zero-rating sales to overseas customers, so treat this section as the signpost and that page as the detail.
Do you pay GST on stock you import to resell?
Yes, and the rules changed in recent years, so this is worth getting right. Since 1 January 2023, GST applies to imported low-value goods, defined as goods valued at S$400 or less brought in by air or post, when bought by consumers in Singapore from a GST-registered supplier. Higher-value shipments have long attracted GST at the border through the normal import process.
For you as a seller, there are two situations. If you import stock yourself to resell, you may pay GST on the way in and, once registered, claim it back as input tax. If goods ship directly from an overseas seller or platform to your Singapore customers, the GST on low-value goods is often charged at checkout by the overseas supplier or marketplace under the rules below.
Do Shopee, Lazada and Carousell handle GST for you?
Mostly, no. For a Singapore-based seller making local sales, the marketplace is not treated as the supplier of your goods, so it doesn’t charge or account for your GST. You remain responsible: once you’re registered, you charge 9% GST on your standard-rated sales and file your own returns.
There is one important exception. Under Singapore’s Overseas Vendor Registration rules, an electronic marketplace can be treated as the “deemed supplier” for low-value goods and remote services sold on behalf of overseas suppliers, in which case the platform charges and remits the GST. That mainly affects overseas sellers and imported low-value goods, not a local store selling local stock.
| Your situation | Does the platform account for your GST? | What you still have to do |
|---|---|---|
| Singapore seller, local sales, not GST-registered | No | Track your turnover and register once you pass S$1 million |
| Singapore seller, local sales, GST-registered | No, you remain the supplier | Charge 9% GST and file your own GST returns |
| Overseas seller shipping low-value goods to Singapore buyers | Often yes, platform as deemed supplier under OVR | Confirm the handling in that platform’s current seller terms |
Shopee, Lazada, Carousell and Amazon each set out their own GST handling in their seller terms, and those terms change, so check your platform’s current documentation rather than assuming. If you also sell on Amazon, our Amazon seller tax questions page covers that platform in more detail.
What if you sell across more than one channel?
Plenty of sellers run a Shopee store, a Lazada store and their own website at once. Your tax doesn’t split by channel: income tax looks at your total profit across everything you sell, and the S$1 million GST threshold is measured on your total taxable turnover, not per platform.
That’s easy to underestimate when the money arrives in three or four separate payouts. Add them up as one business, because IRAS does, and remember that service income counts towards the same GST turnover figure as your product sales.
Keeping records when your sales come through platform payouts
Bank-statement bookkeeping breaks down fast for online sellers, because a single payout nets off sales, refunds, platform fees and shipping into one deposit. To file correctly, you need the underlying detail, which lives in your platform payout reports and your ad and shipping invoices, not just the amount that hit your account.
IRAS expects you to keep proper records and supporting documents for at least five years from the relevant Year of Assessment. The practical fix is to pull each platform’s payout and fee report every month and reconcile it, so that at year-end your income and your claimable costs are already sitting in one place.
What goes wrong if you register late or under-report?
Two mistakes cause the most pain. The first is registering for GST late: if you cross S$1 million and miss the window, IRAS can backdate your registration and hold you liable for the GST you should have collected, even if you never charged it to customers. The second is under-reporting income, which is easy to do accidentally when payouts are scattered across platforms, and some sales feel too small to count.
Both are avoidable with a running record of turnover, and if you’re not sure whether you’ve already passed a threshold, it’s far cheaper to check now than to unwind it later.
How Sleek helps online sellers stay on the right side of tax
Sleek works with online sellers across Singapore, handling bookkeeping, GST returns and tax filing from your platform payout reports rather than your bank statements. If you’re deciding whether to keep selling as an individual or move to a company, Sleek also handles incorporating a company in Singapore and the compliance that comes after, so the tax and the structure are looked after in one place.
Ready to put your online business on a proper footing?
Sleek keeps your accounting, GST returns and tax filing in order, working from your real sales data so nothing slips.
450,000
businesses worldwide.
from 4,100+ reviews.
FAQs on singapore ecommerce tax
Do I need to register a company to sell on Shopee or Lazada?
No, you can sell on Shopee or Lazada as an individual sole proprietor without setting up a company. What the marketplace requires to open a seller account is separate from your tax position: either way, you still have to declare the profit as income.
Is dropshipping taxed differently in Singapore?
No, dropshipping follows the same rules as any other online selling. Your profit, the margin between what the customer pays and what you pay your supplier, is taxable income. If goods ship from overseas straight to a Singapore customer, GST on low-value goods may apply at checkout, and the S$1 million GST threshold applies to you like any other seller.
Do I have to declare income from a small side-hustle online shop?
If you’re selling for profit rather than clearing out personal items, yes, the profit is taxable, and you declare it, even from a small shop. There’s no separate tax-free allowance just because the shop is a side gig. Occasional sales of your own second-hand belongings are generally not treated as a trade.
Can I claim GST back on stock and tools I buy before I register?
While you’re not GST-registered, you can’t reclaim the GST you pay on purchases; it’s simply a cost. Once you register, you charge GST on sales and reclaim GST on business costs going forward. IRAS does allow limited claims for GST incurred before registration under specific conditions, worth checking if you register with stock on hand.
How long do I need to keep my ecommerce records?
You should keep your business records and supporting documents for at least five years from the relevant Year of Assessment. For an online seller that means your platform payout reports, fee statements, supplier invoices and shipping records, not just your bank statements.
Do overseas marketplaces add GST when I buy stock from them?
They can. Since 1 January 2023, GST applies to imported low-value goods of S$400 or less bought by Singapore consumers, and overseas suppliers or marketplaces that meet the registration thresholds charge it at checkout. For higher-value shipments, GST is collected through the normal import process at the border instead.
Does IRAS know about my online income if the platform pays me directly?
You should assume so and declare in full regardless. Tax authorities increasingly obtain data on online and platform income, and the obligation to report your profit sits with you whether or not a platform reports it.
