PTC Costs in Singapore: Setup, Annual Fees and What Drives Them
A private trust company (PTC) in Singapore has small statutory fees and large professional ones. ACRA charges a few hundred dollars to incorporate the company. The real budget goes to drafting the trust deed and constitution, the licensed trust company you must engage, and the audit, accounting and tax work every year. In our experience, a straightforward PTC runs into the tens of thousands of dollars a year, and the first year costs more than that.
Below is a line-by-line view of what you pay once, what you pay every year, what is optional, and how to compare quotes fairly. Dollar amounts are Singapore dollars.
TL;DR
Government fees are small: ACRA charges S$300 to register a company plus a S$15 name application, and S$60 for each annual return.
Professional fees dominate. Drafting the trust deed and PTC constitution is the largest one-time cost, and the licensed trust company, audit, accounting and tax work make up the recurring cost.
Our indicative range for operating a straightforward PTC is roughly S$43,000 to S$118,000 a year. Multi-jurisdictional structures sit at the top end.
A PTC is exempt from a trust-business licence, but it must still engage a licensed trust company for anti-money-laundering checks, and that is a fixed cost.
Compare quotes by scope, not by headline price: what is included, how many trusts sit under the PTC, and what triggers extra fees.
Table of Contents
What a PTC is, and why its costs look the way they do
A PTC is a company that acts as trustee for the trusts of one family, rather than handing the role to a commercial trustee. Under Singapore’s framework, a qualifying PTC does not need a trust-business licence, provided it serves only specified connected-person trusts and does not offer trust services to the public.
That exemption is why a PTC is not a cheap alternative to a trustee. You are not buying a product from a provider. You are building a small regulated-adjacent company, staffing its board, and paying professionals to keep it compliant. The cost structure follows from that: a modest incorporation bill, a heavy drafting bill, and a permanent running bill.
If you are still deciding whether the structure fits your family, our guide to PTC benefits for HNW families covers the control argument. This article is about the money.
One-time setup costs
Setup is where the first-year bill is front-loaded. The table shows the indicative ranges we work with for a straightforward family structure. These are planning estimates, not quotes, and your actual figure depends on the factors covered further down.
Setup item | Indicative one-time range |
ACRA incorporation (including filing and registered-office set-up) | S$315 to S$1,000 |
Trust deed drafting | S$15,000 to S$60,000 |
PTC constitution drafting | S$10,000 to S$40,000 |
The ACRA part is the only one with a fixed public price. ACRA’s fee schedule sets S$300 for registering a new company and S$15 for the name application, which together give the S$315 at the bottom of the incorporation range. Anything above that is secretarial support, a registered office, or bundled filing services.
Why drafting costs so much
The trust deed and the PTC constitution are bespoke legal documents. They decide who sits on the board, how directors are replaced, which decisions need a protector’s consent, how investment powers are shared, and what happens if the settlor loses capacity or dies. A template does not do this work. A document that is poorly drafted at this stage tends to cost far more to repair later than it saved at the start.
Two of our guides go into the clauses that move the price: five trustee terms a family must set and who should sit on the PTC board, including the director paperwork.
What is optional at setup
Not every item on a quote is mandatory. These are the usual optional or situational lines:
Letter of wishes and family governance documents. Useful, not legally required to form the PTC. See our note on a family constitution versus a trust.
Foreign legal opinions. Needed only when assets or beneficiaries sit abroad.
Asset-transfer work. Moving shares, property or a private company into the trust costs extra and depends on the asset type.
Insurance for directors. A sensible protection for the family members who serve, though not a statutory requirement for an exempt PTC.
Annual running costs
The recurring bill is what families underestimate. It covers the licensed trust company, the audit, the accounting and corporate secretarial work, and tax advice. The ranges below are the indicative figures we use for a straightforward structure.
Annual item | Indicative annual range |
Licensed trust company (administrator) fees | S$30,000 to S$80,000 |
Annual audit | S$8,000 to S$15,000 |
Accounting and corporate secretarial | S$7,000 to S$12,000 |
Tax advisory | S$3,000 to S$8,000 |
Total, straightforward structure | S$43,000 to S$118,000 |
The statutory filing fee is a rounding error next to these. ACRA’s annual return fee is S$60, which is already inside the accounting and secretarial line.
The licensed trust company is not optional
The biggest recurring line exists because the law requires it. A PTC must engage a licensed trust company to carry out trust-administration services for the checks needed to comply with MAS directions on preventing money laundering and terrorist financing. The wider obligations are set out in MAS Notice TCA-N03, which requires both licensed trust companies and exempt PTCs to perform due diligence and risk assessments and to maintain policies against money laundering and terrorism financing.
So the choice is not between a PTC and paying a trustee. It is between paying one commercial trustee to do everything, or paying a licensed administrator for the compliance layer and running the rest of the trusteeship yourselves. The second route buys control, and the price is a bundle of recurring professional fees.
Do not confuse PTC fees with licence fees
Some price lists quote MAS licence fees as if they applied to a PTC. MAS publishes an application fee of S$1,000 and an annual fee of S$4,000 for a trust-business licence, but those apply to a licensed trust company, not to a qualifying exempt PTC. The same page states that a company conducting licensed trust business needs at least S$250,000 in paid-up capital or qualifying assets, and that MAS expects a straightforward complete application to take no more than six months. If a quote includes these, either the structure is not an exempt PTC or the quote is wrong.
First-year total
Add the two tables for a straightforward structure and the first year typically lands between roughly S$58,000 and S$218,000 in our planning range: S$25,315 to S$101,000 of setup, plus S$43,000 to S$118,000 of running costs. Many published guides quote narrower first-year figures, and some start well below ours. The gap is almost always scope. A low number often excludes the administrator, the audit, or the asset transfers, or assumes a single simple trust with a family-only board.
Timing matters for cash flow too. In straightforward cases we plan for about 10 to 18 weeks from first meeting to a functioning PTC, mostly because of drafting rounds and the licensed trust company’s onboarding checks. Some providers advertise shorter timelines for lighter structures. Treat any promise of days rather than weeks with caution when AML onboarding of overseas beneficiaries is involved.
What makes your PTC cost more or less
Four variables account for most of the spread between a low and a high quote.
Asset complexity. Listed securities and cash are easy to administer. Operating companies, real estate in several countries, art and private investments push up the administrator’s fees, audit time and legal work.
Number of underlying trusts. One PTC can act for several trusts of the same family, which spreads fixed costs, but each trust adds reporting and administration.
Cross-border elements. Foreign beneficiaries, foreign assets and foreign tax exposure mean more legal opinions and slower onboarding. We advise a contingency of at least 20% to 30% on top of quoted fees for multi-jurisdictional matters.
Board design. A board of family members and a protector is cheaper to run than one with professional independent directors, but the second can reduce disputes and governance risk.
Tax can also change the economics. How trust income is taxed depends on residency and structure, so ask your tax adviser before you finalize anything. Our guides on trust taxation for Singapore trustees, trustee residency and settlor-interested trusts explain the points that most often lead to a surprise bill.
How to compare PTC quotes
A fair comparison needs the same scope on every quote. Ask each provider to price against this checklist:
Trust deed and PTC constitution drafting, with the number of revision rounds included
Incorporation and the first year of corporate secretarial work
The licensed trust company’s onboarding fee and annual fee, and what the annual fee covers
Audit and accounting, and whether they are quoted separately
Tax advisory and tax filing
Director onboarding paperwork and MAS notifications
Charges for asset transfers, amendments, new trusts, or extra beneficiaries
Hourly rates for work outside the fixed scope
Then look at the exclusions. A quote that is S$30,000 lower but leaves out the administrator is not lower. It is incomplete. Ask also who your day-to-day contact will be and how fee increases are handled after the first year.
Check the legal basis as well. A quote should state that the PTC will rely on the exemption and name the connected-person trusts it will serve. If the provider talks about serving other families, that is no longer a private trust company. Our note on trustee investment powers and AML duties shows where the compliance duties sit once the PTC is running.
Is a PTC worth the cost?
A PTC makes sense when the cost is small relative to what it controls. Practitioners commonly point to families with consolidated wealth above S$50 million, or those holding an operating business where the family wants to keep decision-making in-house. Below that, a professional trustee or a simpler trust arrangement is often more proportionate. Confidentiality is a further consideration, and our piece on trust confidentiality and the five-year record rule covers what has to be kept and for how long.
If you are comparing structures, also read how to choose the right trustee in Singapore. Sometimes the honest answer is a trust with a professional trustee now and a PTC later, once assets and family complexity justify it.
Perspective: price the structure, not the entity
Families usually ask us what a PTC costs as if it were a product with a sticker price. It is closer to a small institution. The cost of incorporating it is trivial. The cost that matters is the quality of the governing documents, because those are what the family will live with for a generation. We would rather a family spend properly on the deed and constitution than save on drafting and pay for it in disputes, deadlocks or a restructure. We also encourage clients to map their assets, liquidity and nominations first. A PTC built on an unexamined balance sheet is the most expensive kind. Our approach is to start with the family’s actual assets and succession goals, then recommend the lightest structure that does the job. Sometimes that is a PTC. Sometimes it is a Living Trust or a Standby Trust with a professional trustee. Either way, you should know the full multi-year cost before you commit. Joseph
Start with the estate groundwork
Before a PTC is priced, the family’s assets, liquidity and nominations need to be mapped. Our published fees for this stage are Schedule of Assets, Estate Liquidity Analysis and Asset Nomination from S$500, and Portfolio Structuring and Estate Optimisation from S$1,500. Both are one-off fees. Business owners can look at the Business Value Protection Trust (a Buy-Sell Agreement) from S$8,000, and a Comprehensive Will is S$1,250 to S$1,900.
These sit on our services page. For a PTC, we scope the work after a consultation, because the cost turns on the factors above. Talk to us and we will tell you whether a PTC fits your family before you spend on one.
FAQ
How much does it cost to set up a PTC in Singapore?
The ACRA fee is S$300 plus a S$15 name application, but the legal drafting is the real cost. In our planning range, a straightforward structure costs about S$25,315 to S$101,000 to set up, depending on the trust deed, constitution and incorporation support.
What are the ongoing annual costs of a PTC?
For a straightforward structure, we budget roughly S$43,000 to S$118,000 a year. That covers the licensed trust company, audit, accounting and corporate secretarial work, and tax advisory. ACRA’s annual return fee of S$60 is a minor part of it.
Does a PTC need a MAS licence?
No, a qualifying PTC is exempt from the trust-business licence if it serves only connected-person trusts and does not solicit the public. It must still engage a licensed trust company for anti-money-laundering checks, which is why the administrator fee exists.
How long does it take to set up a PTC?
In straightforward cases we plan for 10 to 18 weeks. Drafting revisions and the licensed trust company’s onboarding checks take most of that time. Cross-border beneficiaries or complex assets usually extend it.
Is the setup cost one-time or recurring?
Incorporation, trust deed and constitution drafting, and asset transfers are one-time. The licensed trust company, audit, accounting, tax advice and ACRA annual return recur every year, and these usually outweigh setup within a few years.
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