No. A Singapore company can generally be incorporated while the founders are overseas, provided all ACRA filing requirements and the Corporate Service Provider’s identity verification and due diligence requirements are met. Foreigners must engage an ACRA-registered CSP to carry out the registration.
Physical presence may nevertheless be required for separate matters after incorporation, such as issuance of an approved work pass or a bank’s own KYC process. Those are not ACRA incorporation requirements.