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HR team reviewing IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme payroll tax submissions in a Singapore office.

IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) 2026: A Guide for Singapore Employers

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Published in: Blog

Key Summary:

  • The IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) requires Singapore employers with five or more employees to submit employment income data electronically by 1 March each year.
  • AIS removes the need to issue hardcopy IR8A forms and lets employees benefit from pre-filled tax returns via myTax Portal.
  • Penalties for non-compliance include fines of up to S$5,000 for employers and up to S$10,000 plus possible imprisonment for key personnel.
  • The 2026 filing cycle brought new IRAS enhancements – including extended back-year filing (now four years) and simplified amendments directly on the portal.
  • Employers not yet on AIS can register between 1 April and 31 December each year for the following tax season.
  • Accurate payroll data is the foundation of a clean AIS submission – errors in salary, CPF, or benefits records cascade directly into employee tax assessments.

Table of Contents

HR team reviewing IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme payroll tax submissions in a Singapore office.

Young Asian business woman employee or executive manager using computer looking at laptop and talking leading hybrid conference remote video call virtual meeting or online training working in office.

For employers in Singapore, the IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) sits right at the centre of the annual tax reporting pressure point. If your company has five or more employees, participation is mandatory. 

Most AIS problems don’t start in February, though. They start much earlier in the year, when payroll data is incomplete, inconsistent across systems, or never properly reconciled in the first place. By the time the submission window opens, there’s little runway to fix 12 months of records. 

This guide lays out what Singapore employers need to know about AIS: who is covered, what to submit, how the process works, and what happens when submissions are late or inaccurate.

What Is the IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS)?

The Auto-Inclusion Scheme is IRAS’s electronic income reporting programme for employers. Instead of issuing employees a hardcopy IR8A form for them to manually declare their income, participating employers transmit that data directly to IRAS. The information is then pre-populated into each employee’s tax return on myTax Portal, removing a step for employees and, in many cases, triggering the No-Filing Service (NFS) or a Direct Notice of Assessment (D-NOA) so they don’t need to file at all.

As of YA 2026, 123,000 employers are on AIS, covering the income data of more than two million employees. The scheme has been running for years, but mandatory participation thresholds and the volume of first-time filers keep growing. Over 11,000 employers submitted under AIS for the first time ahead of the 1 March 2026 deadline.

Who Must Register for AIS?

Participation is mandatory under Section 68(2) of the Income Tax Act for employers who meet any one of the following conditions:

  • The company had five or more employees during the calendar year (counting all staff employed at any point in the year, including those who have since left).
  • The employer received a “Notice to File Employment Income of Employees Electronically” from IRAS.
  • The employer was registered for AIS on or before 1 March of the filing year and remained registered as at that date.

Employers with fewer than five employees are not compelled to join, but IRAS encourages them to register voluntarily. Once enrolled, participation continues even if headcount later drops below five.

For those not on AIS, the obligation shifts: hardcopy IR8A forms must be distributed directly to employees by 1 March. Employees use these to manually key in their income details when filing their own tax returns on myTax Portal. 

What Information Do You Need to Submit?

The primary document is Form IR8A, which captures each employee’s total remuneration for the year. That covers base salary, bonuses, allowances, CPF contributions, and director’s fees. Depending on the employee’s compensation structure, additional forms may also apply:

  • Appendix 8A – Benefits-in-kind such as company vehicles, accommodation, or club memberships.
  • Appendix 8B – Employee share options or share award gains.
  • Form IR21 – Required at least one month before a non-citizen employee leaves the company or Singapore. This is a clearance form and carries its own deadline separate from AIS.

All employees must be included (resident and non-resident), full-year and part-year, and those who left during the year but received income in the reporting period (such as share option gains). The only exception is a non-resident director who received only director’s fees and whose income is exempt from AIS reporting.

How the Submission Process Works

AIS submissions go through myTax Portal. Employers have two main routes:

  • Direct portal submission – Log in to myTax Portal and key in or upload employee income data manually.
  • Payroll software with AIS API integration – The less manual option. Systems with AIS API connectivity can transmit income records directly to IRAS once prepared and verified, cutting out manual re-entry entirely.

IRAS also offers the CPF Data Link-up Service, which pre-populates income details for CPF-contributing employees using data from the CPF Board. It reduces manual entry and helps flag inconsistencies between CPF and IRAS figures early – a common issue when payroll and statutory submissions run on separate systems.

On timing:

  • Submissions open from 1 February.
  • The deadline is 1 March. There is no built-in grace period.
  • Employers needing more time must submit a formal extension request with valid supporting reasons before 1 March. Approval is not guaranteed.

What Changed for YA 2026

IRAS rolled out several enhancements to the AIS digital service ahead of the 2026 filing cycle. The most significant ones for employers managing multi-year or retrospective submissions:

  • Extended back-year filing – Employers can now submit income records for up to four previous years, doubled from the previous two-year limit. This matters for businesses that discover prior-year omissions and want to correct them.
  • Simplified amendments – Employers can now directly overwrite previously submitted income information, rather than going through a more complex amendment process.
  • Additional pre-filled data – The CPF Data Link-up Service now populates more fields automatically, reducing the amount of manual input required.

These changes are available on the IRAS website and apply to all AIS submissions for YA 2026 and beyond.

Penalties for Non-Compliance

The 2025 filing season is a useful reference point for what non-compliance looks like at scale. According to IRAS’s official newsroom release, over 12,000 employers missed the AIS deadline, and the knock-on effect was inaccurate or delayed tax assessments for more than 160,000 employees. IRAS prosecuted 1,207 repeat offenders, resulting in penalties exceeding S$1,000,000 combined.

The financial exposure for individual employers is material:

  • Late or non-filing (employer): Fine of up to S$5,000 under Section 94(1) of the Income Tax Act.
  • Key personnel (directors, precedent partners): Fine of up to S$10,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 12 months for failure to respond to IRAS notices.
  • Inaccurate submissions: Penalties of up to double the amount of tax undercharged.

IRAS operates a Voluntary Disclosure Programme for employers who identify past errors. Coming forward proactively typically results in reduced penalties. 

Clean Payroll Data, Every Time

AIS submission is only as accurate as the data behind it. A mismatch between CPF Board records and what an employer submits to IRAS, caused by an uncorrected payroll run, a missed bonus posting, or a benefits-in-kind figure that was never properly captured, creates problems in both directions.

This is where tax reporting payroll Singapore becomes a year-round question. Companies running payroll on spreadsheets or legacy systems often discover the problem at filing time, while those with integrated HRMS platforms that connect payroll, CPF, and leave data would probably have it much easier.

For businesses that find themselves managing AIS submissions manually each year or chasing payroll records across disconnected systems, consider payroll outsourcing in Singapore. 

Handing payroll administration to a specialist means the underlying data is structured, verified, and maintained in a format that maps cleanly to IRAS reporting requirements. The compliance burden doesn’t disappear, but it sits with a team whose entire job is to keep it in order.

YesPay Group works with companies across Singapore to manage payroll and statutory compliance as an integrated service, not a once-a-year scramble. With ISO 27001-certified data security, built-in CPF and IRAS compliance workflows, and backing from HRnetGroup’s 33-year track record in Asia, the infrastructure is already there. Explore YesPay’s payroll outsourcing in Singapore to see how it works in practice.

References:

  1. Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) for Employment Income. Retrieved on 9 April 2026 from https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-tax/employers/auto-inclusion-scheme-(ais)-for-employment-income
  2. 123,000 AIS Employers to Submit Employees’ Employment Income Data by 1 Mar 2026, Enabling IRAS to Pre-fill Over 2 Million Tax Returns. Retrieved on 9 April 2026 from https://www.iras.gov.sg/news-events/newsroom/123-000-ais-employers-to-submit-employees–employment-income-data-by-1-mar-2026–enabling-iras-to-pre-fill-over-2-million-tax-returns
  3. Join the Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) for Employment Income. Retrieved on 9 April 2026 from https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-tax/employers/auto-inclusion-scheme-(ais)-for-employment-income/join-the-auto-inclusion-scheme-(ais)-for-employment-income
  4. Tax Season 2026 – All you need to know. Retrieved on 9 April 2026 from https://www.iras.gov.sg/taxes/individual-income-tax/basics-of-individual-income-tax/understanding-my-income-tax-filing/tax-season-2026—all-you-need-to-know

Frequently Asked Questions About the IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme Singapore

1) What is the IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme and how does it work?

The IRAS Auto-Inclusion Scheme (AIS) is an electronic income reporting programme that requires Singapore employers to submit their employees’ employment income data directly to IRAS by 1 March each year. Once submitted, IRAS pre-populates the income details into each employee’s tax return on myTax Portal. Eligible employees may qualify for the No-Filing Service (NFS) or receive a Direct Notice of Assessment (D-NOA), meaning they don’t need to file a tax return themselves. Employers under AIS are not required to distribute hardcopy IR8A forms to employees.

Under Section 68(2) of the Income Tax Act, AIS participation is mandatory for employers who had five or more employees during the calendar year, received a “Notice to File Employment Income of Employees Electronically” from IRAS, or were already registered for AIS on or before 1 March of the filing year. The five-employee count includes all staff employed at any point in the year, not just those still on the payroll at year-end. Employers with fewer than five employees may join voluntarily, and once registered, participation continues regardless of subsequent headcount changes.

Employers who fail to submit by 1 March can be fined up to S$5,000 under Section 94(1) of the Income Tax Act. Directors and precedent partners of non-compliant companies face fines of up to S$10,000 and potential imprisonment of up to 12 months if they do not respond to IRAS notices. Submitting inaccurate income information is also an offence, with penalties reaching double the amount of tax undercharged. Employers who identify past errors can use IRAS’s Voluntary Disclosure Programme to reduce their exposure.

No. Employers registered under AIS are not required to issue hardcopy IR8A forms to employees. Because the income data is submitted directly to IRAS and pre-filled into each employee’s tax return, employees can simply review their information on myTax Portal. Employees should check their payslips for earnings details and can view the auto-included income figures at myTax Portal when their tax filing period opens. If there is a discrepancy, the employee should raise it with their employer, who can resubmit corrected data to IRAS.

AIS submissions depend entirely on the accuracy of the payroll data behind them. Companies managing payroll in-house on fragmented or manual systems often encounter reconciliation issues at filing time. A payroll outsourcing provider maintains the underlying records throughout the year in a format aligned to IRAS reporting requirements, reducing the risk of errors at submission time.

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