How to Close a Restaurant in Singapore Properly: Lease, Licences, Staff and Accounts

Last checked against ACRA, IRAS, SFA, SPF, MOM and CPF Board pages: September 2026. This is a general checklist, not legal or tax advice. Speak to your accountant or lawyer about your own situation.

Start with a timeline, not a closing date

Most owners pick a closing date first and then discover their lease or staff contracts need more notice. It works better the other way round. Before you announce anything, gather:

• Your tenancy agreement, including the notice period, early termination terms, reinstatement clause and deposit terms.
• Every employment contract, with the notice period for each person.
• Your licences: SFA, liquor, and any others, with their expiry dates.
• Your contracts with suppliers, equipment lessors, POS and payment providers, delivery platforms and utilities, with their notice periods.
• Any grants or loans linked to the business, as these may have conditions about closing.

Also consider whether closing is the only option. For the wider picture, see what the official data shows on restaurant closures. A going concern may be worth more to a buyer than the equipment is at auction, and a buyer may take over the lease. Our guide to selling an F&B business explains how that works.

When	What to do
Before announcing	Check lease, contracts, licences and loans. Speak to your landlord and accountant.
Notice period	Give written notice to staff and suppliers. Stop taking advance bookings and selling vouchers.
Last trading day	Pay all final salaries, leave and notice pay. Run final stock count and POS reports.
Within days	Cancel SFA and liquor licences. Cancel Work Permits. Close supplier accounts.
Within 30 days	Apply to cancel GST registration. Hand back the premises after reinstatement.
Afterwards	File final tax returns and GST F8. Apply to strike off or cease the business with ACRA.

Lease, reinstatement and the landlord

The lease is usually the largest liability in a closure. Commercial leases vary a lot, so read yours carefully or ask a lawyer to. The points to look for are:

• Early termination. Many leases have no right to end early. If yours does not, you may be liable for rent until the end of the term unless the landlord agrees otherwise or a replacement tenant takes over.
• Reinstatement. Most leases require you to return the unit to its original condition, which can mean removing kitchen exhaust, grease traps, partitions and fittings. Get quotes early, because reinstatement can take weeks.
• Deposit. The landlord will usually hold the security deposit until reinstatement is complete and any arrears are settled.
• Assignment or subletting. Some leases allow you to assign to a buyer with the landlord’s consent, which can save both rent and reinstatement costs.

Talk to the landlord early and honestly. Landlords often prefer a negotiated handover to an empty unit and a dispute. For more on lease terms, see our F&B commercial lease guide. For a hawker stall, check your NEA tenancy agreement for its own terms on ending the tenancy and confirm the process with NEA.

Staff: notice, final pay and retrenchment

Treat staff fairly and follow the rules. MOM’s page on termination with notice says notice must be in writing, and the notice period is whatever the contract states. If the contract is silent, the statutory minimum depends on length of service:

Length of service	Minimum notice (no contract term)
Less than 26 weeks	1 day
26 weeks to less than 2 years	1 week
2 years to less than 5 years	2 weeks
5 years or more	4 weeks

You can pay salary in lieu of notice instead. Unused annual leave must be paid at the gross rate of pay, except where employment ends for misconduct.

Closing a restaurant usually means retrenchment. MOM’s responsible retrenchment page says you must pay all salaries, including unused annual leave and notice pay, on the employee’s last day of work. Employees with at least two years’ service are eligible for retrenchment benefit. The amount depends on the contract or collective agreement, or is negotiated. MOM says the prevailing norm is between two weeks and one month’s salary per year of service, depending on the company’s finances and industry. If you have at least 10 employees, you must file a Mandatory Retrenchment Notification with MOM within five working days of telling staff. Smaller employers are encouraged to notify too.

CPF, foreign workers and tax clearance

Final CPF contributions are easy to forget in the rush. The CPF Board says contributions are due on the last day of the calendar month, enforcement starts if they are not paid by the 14th of the following month, and late payment interest is 1.5% a month. MOM notes that CPF is payable on salary earned during the notice period but not on salary in lieu of notice, and its retrenchment page says no CPF is payable on retrenchment benefit. Confirm your final CPF calculation with your payroll provider or accountant.

For Work Permit holders, follow MOM’s steps to cancel a Work Permit. MOM says the levy is charged until one day before cancellation, so cancel promptly. You should seek tax clearance from IRAS at least one month before the worker’s last day, settle all outstanding salary, and buy a one-way ticket with a departure date within 14 days of cancellation. If the worker has already left Singapore, cancel within one week of departure.

For any foreign or Singapore PR employee who stops working for you, IRAS requires you to file Form IR21 for tax clearance and withhold all monies due to the employee until clearance. Plan for this in your final payroll.

Licences: SFA, liquor and others

SFA says a food establishment that has stopped operating should cancel its licence at the point of cessation, and that you remain responsible for all activities at the licensed premises until the licence is officially cancelled. Cancellation is free, done on GoBusiness by the licence holder (Singpass for individuals, Corppass for companies), and approved immediately. If you pay SFA by GIRO, end that arrangement with your bank as well.

For alcohol, the Singapore Police Force says you may cancel a liquor licence at any time before it expires, but there is no refund of the licence fee. If you are selling the business rather than closing it, ask SPF how the licence is handled for a new owner. See our liquor licence guide for the details.

Make a list of every other permit and registration you hold, such as halal certification, signage approvals or a Temporary Occupation Licence for outdoor seating, and cancel or let each one lapse according to its own rules. Check with each issuing agency.

GST: cancelling your registration

If you are GST-registered, IRAS says you must apply to cancel your registration within 30 days when you stop making taxable supplies and do not intend to make them again, or when the business is transferred as a whole. You apply on myTax Portal. Most applications are approved the same day, and some take 1 to 10 working days.

After cancellation you must not charge GST. IRAS then issues a final return, the GST F8, covering the period up to the last day of registration, which is due one month after the end of that period. In the F8 you must account for GST on business assets you still hold on the last day of registration, such as kitchen equipment and furniture, if their total open market value exceeds $10,000 and you claimed input tax on them. This is worth planning for if you intend to keep or sell equipment after closing. See our GST registration guide for background.

Suppliers, customers and the POS

Close off the commercial side in an orderly way:

• Suppliers. Give notice, stop standing orders, return any supplier-owned equipment such as chillers or coffee machines, and settle final invoices. Keep the statements.
• Leases and subscriptions. Check notice periods for equipment leases, POS, payment terminals, music licensing, pest control and waste collection.
• Customers. Stop selling gift vouchers and stored value well before closing, and decide how you will honour or refund what is outstanding. Tell customers about the closure early and clearly.
• Delivery platforms. Deactivate your listings so no orders come in after your last day.
• Data. Export your POS sales reports, tax records and customer lists before you close accounts, and handle customer data in line with your privacy obligations.

If you use ChaChaCha, run your final POS reports and export your data before the account ends. If you sync to Xero, make sure the last period is posted. Ask us to confirm how the export works for your account, and get in touch before your last trading day.

Closing the business entity with ACRA

How you close the legal entity depends on its structure.

Sole proprietorship or partnership. ACRA’s page on closing a sole proprietorship or partnership says you file a cessation on Bizfile. Before that, settle administrative matters such as outstanding contracts, vehicle transfers and loans or grants linked to the business, and cancel your GST registration. If the registration has expired, renew it first. The closure takes effect when you submit, and it cannot be reversed once ACRA approves it.

Private limited company. A company that has stopped trading can apply to be struck off. ACRA’s striking off page lists the criteria. The company must have stopped trading, have no unpaid debts or unresolved issues with any government agency, have no charges on the register, not be involved in legal cases or regulatory action, own nothing and owe nothing, and all or a majority of directors must agree. Applying without meeting the criteria can count as a false declaration. The application is free on Bizfile, and the process takes at least three months after approval, including a 60-day period for objections after the First Gazette notification. Any tax credits left in the company pass to the Insolvency and Public Trustee’s Office when it is dissolved.

IRAS says companies must settle all outstanding tax matters before applying, including filing the final corporate income tax returns up to the date the business stopped. Otherwise IRAS will object, and if the objection is not resolved within two months the application lapses. A company that cannot pay its debts cannot be struck off and will need to be wound up instead, so get professional advice.

Records to keep after you close

Closing the business does not end your record-keeping duties. IRAS says you must keep records of all business transactions for at least five years, even if your GST registration was cancelled before the end of that period. Keep sales reports, invoices, payroll and CPF records, tax filings and the key closing documents, such as the landlord’s handover confirmation and staff settlement letters, somewhere safe and accessible.

If you plan to open again later, keep your recipes, supplier contacts and sales history too. They are valuable when you plan the next venture.