Employment Pass

What the Employment Pass is

The Employment Pass (EP) is Singapore’s principal work pass for foreign professionals, managers, executives and specialists, the group the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) refers to as PMETs. If you are a degree-holding professional taking up a skilled role with a Singapore employer, the EP is almost certainly the pass you will be applying for.

What sets the EP apart from Singapore’s other work passes is what it does not carry. There is no company quota limiting how many EP holders a firm may employ, and there is no monthly levy payable to the government for each holder, both of which apply to the S Pass and Work Permit. In exchange for that freedom, the bar to qualify is higher, and since September 2023 it has become meaningfully harder to clear.

The single most important thing to understand before you go any further is that the EP now has two independent gates, not one. For years, meeting a minimum salary was effectively the whole test. Today an application must clear both a minimum qualifying salary and a separate points assessment called COMPASS. You can earn well above the salary floor and still fail COMPASS, and both are covered in full below.

One structural point worth fixing in your mind early: you never apply for an EP yourself. A Singapore-registered employer, or an employment agent acting for them, submits the application against a specific job. That means your prospects depend not only on your own profile but on the employer, their workforce and whether they have advertised the role correctly. Much of this guide is therefore as relevant to hiring managers and HR teams as it is to candidates.

Who the Employment Pass is for

The EP is designed for skilled professionals, but that covers a wide range of people, and the way the assessment weighs each profile differs. It helps to locate yourself in one of the typical situations below before working through the detail, because the right preparation is not the same for a fresh graduate as it is for a mid-career specialist.

The mid-career professional

The most common EP holder is someone with several years of experience moving into a managerial or specialist role. If that is you, salary is rarely the binding constraint, your market rate usually sits comfortably above the floor, and the assessment tends to turn on COMPASS, specifically on your employer’s workforce profile rather than on you. This is the group most often surprised by a rejection, because they assume a strong CV and a good salary are enough.

The fresh graduate or early-career hire

Younger candidates face the opposite pressure. The salary floor is lowest for them, but so is their market rate, which means an offer can land uncomfortably close to the minimum. For this group the qualification score under COMPASS matters a great deal, and the difference between a degree from a strongly regarded university and a lesser-known institution can be the difference between a pass and a fail.

The finance-sector professional

If you are joining a bank, asset manager or other financial institution, you sit under a higher salary schedule than every other sector. That premium runs through the whole age range, so a finance offer that looks generous can still fall short of the sector-specific floor. Read the finance figures, not the general ones.

The specialist in a shortage skill

Candidates whose occupation appears on the Shortage Occupation List are in the strongest position of all, because that single fact adds a large block of COMPASS points and can carry an application that would otherwise be marginal. If your field is genuinely scarce in Singapore, it is worth confirming whether your role qualifies before anything else.

The intra-company transferee and the very high earner

Two groups sidestep COMPASS entirely: people transferred within a multinational under a trade agreement, and anyone whose fixed monthly salary is at least S$22,500. If you fall into either category the salary floor and paperwork still apply, but the points test does not, which simplifies the picture considerably.

The two hurdles, at a glance

Before the detail, hold the shape of the test in your head. Almost every EP decision comes down to these two questions, assessed independently:

The two are not interchangeable. A generous salary improves your COMPASS salary score but does not rescue a firm that scores badly on diversity and local hiring, and a firm that scores well on those cannot compensate for a salary below the floor. You have to clear both.

Hurdle 1: the qualifying salary in detail

The qualifying salary is the minimum fixed monthly salary a candidate must be paid to be eligible. The word that matters is fixed. MOM counts basic monthly salary plus fixed monthly allowances. It does not count variable bonuses, commissions, overtime, or benefits in kind such as housing or a car. An offer built around a large discretionary bonus can therefore look generous on paper and still fail, because the fixed component is what is measured.

From 1 January 2025, the entry floor for a new EP is S$5,600 a month in most sectors and S$6,200 a month in the financial services sector. Those figures apply to the youngest candidates. They are a starting point, not a target, and they rise with age.

Why the floor rises with age

The salary benchmark is pegged to what local professionals earn at each stage of their careers. Because local PMET salaries climb with experience, the EP floor climbs too. A candidate in their early forties is expected to earn close to double the entry figure to qualify. In round terms the general-sector floor rises from S$5,600 for the youngest applicants to roughly S$10,700 by the mid-forties, and the financial services floor from S$6,200 to roughly S$11,800 over the same span.

The table shows the shape of the curve rather than a figure for every age. The practical takeaway is simple: the older and more experienced the candidate, the higher the salary needs to be, and a mid-career professional offered an entry-level salary will not qualify no matter how strong the rest of the profile is.

Hurdle 2: how COMPASS actually works

COMPASS, the Complementarity Assessment Framework, is the part of the EP that trips up the most applicants, because it is the part that is genuinely new and the part that depends on your employer. It has applied to all new EP applications since 1 September 2023 and to renewals since 1 September 2024. An application needs at least 40 points to pass.

Points come from six criteria: four foundational criteria worth 0, 10 or 20 points each, and two bonus criteria. The detail that catches people out is that two of the four foundational criteria are about the hiring company, not the candidate. Two identical people, same CV, same salary, can get different COMPASS results simply because they are joining different employers.

The candidate criteria: C1 and C2

C1 rewards salary relative to local PMETs in the same sector. Clear the floor comfortably and you earn 10 points; sit at the top of the local range and you earn 20. C2 rewards qualifications, with a top-tier degree earning the full 20 and a recognised degree earning 10. For a well-paid candidate with a strong degree, these two alone deliver 40 points, which is a pass on their own. This is why senior, highly paid hires rarely worry about COMPASS.

The firm criteria: C3 and C4

C3, diversity, looks at how concentrated the firm’s professional workforce is by nationality. If your nationality already makes up a large share of the firm’s PMETs, you score 0 on C3; if the firm is nationally diverse, you score 20. C4, support for local employment, compares the firm’s share of local PMETs against others in its industry. A firm with a healthy local core scores well; one that is thin on locals scores badly. Neither of these has anything to do with you as a candidate, which is exactly why a strong applicant can be let down by the employer they are joining.

The bonus criteria: C5 and C6

C5 awards a full 20 points if the job is on the Shortage Occupation List, a list of roles Singapore has too few locals to fill. This single bonus can turn a failing application into a passing one. C6 awards 10 points where the firm participates in an approved programme supporting innovation or internationalisation. Most ordinary applications rely on the four foundational criteria and treat any bonus as a welcome cushion.

A worked example

It is easier to see how the maths falls out with two candidates.

Candidate A earns a strong salary for their sector (C1: 20), holds a top-tier degree (C2: 20), and joins a diverse firm with a solid local base (C3: 20, C4: 10). That is 70 points before any bonus. A comfortable pass, and COMPASS is a non-event.

Candidate B earns just above the floor (C1: 10), holds a recognised but not top-tier degree (C2: 10), and joins a firm where their nationality is already dominant (C3: 0) and locals are under-represented (C4: 0). That is 20 points, a clear fail. But if the role sits on the Shortage Occupation List, C5 adds 20, lifting the total to 40 and turning the decision around. Without that shortage bonus, Candidate B needs a higher salary, a stronger qualification, or a different employer.

The strategic lesson from COMPASS is that where you work matters as much as what you earn. If you are a candidate, it is entirely reasonable to ask a prospective employer how they perform on the firm-level criteria before you rely on the pass. If you are an employer, improving your local-PMET ratio and the diversity of your team raises the odds for every foreign hire you make, not just one.

Advertising the role: the Fair Consideration Framework

Before most EP applications can be submitted, the employer has to satisfy the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF). In practice this means advertising the job on the government’s MyCareersFuture portal for at least 14 consecutive days, giving local jobseekers a fair chance to apply, before turning to a foreign hire.

Not every role has to be advertised. Common exemptions include jobs paying a fixed monthly salary of S$22,500 or more, roles being filled by an intra-corporate transferee, and firms with fewer than ten employees. Where no exemption applies and the advertising step is skipped, the application will not succeed, and this is one of the more common avoidable reasons an otherwise sound case fails.

The advertising requirement also connects back to COMPASS. A firm that genuinely tries to hire locally, and can show it, tends to have the healthier local-PMET ratio that C4 rewards. The two mechanisms pull in the same direction: give locals a fair shot first.

The application process, step by step

From accepting an offer to holding the pass card, a straightforward EP runs through the sequence below. Most of the effort sits before submission, in getting eligibility and documents right, rather than in the mechanics of the application itself.

Two habits smooth the whole process. First, keep the details on the application identical to the supporting documents, the same spelling of names, the same dates, the same salary figure. Second, respond quickly to any request for further information, because the clock on a case effectively pauses while MOM waits for you.

Documents you will need

The employer submits most of the paperwork, but the personal documents come from you, and an application only moves as fast as its slowest document. Prepare these early, especially anything that needs translating or verifying, because those steps sit outside your control and take time.

The most common documentary problem is not a missing paper but an inconsistent one: a name spelled two ways across a passport and a degree, a salary in the contract that differs from the figure on the application, a date that does not line up. These small mismatches create doubt out of nothing and are entirely avoidable with a careful final check.

Fees and costs

The direct government fees for an EP are modest relative to the salaries involved. As of 2025 they are:

Beyond these, budget for the costs that sit around the application rather than in it: qualification verification if MOM asks for it, certified translations, and a medical examination where one is required. Unlike the S Pass and Work Permit, the EP carries no monthly levy, which is a significant ongoing saving for employers and part of why the pass is preferred wherever a candidate qualifies for it.

Validity, renewal and what changes at renewal

A first Employment Pass is granted for up to two years. Renewals can be granted for up to three years. The exact duration is stated on the IPA letter and depends on the profile and the role.

Renewal is not a formality, and this is the point most holders underestimate. Since 1 September 2024, renewals are assessed under COMPASS just like new applications. A pass that was comfortable when it was first issued can be tighter on renewal for reasons that have nothing to do with the individual: the salary benchmark rises each year and with the holder’s age, and the firm’s diversity and local-hiring scores can drift as its workforce changes.

The practical advice is to treat renewal as a live assessment, not a rubber stamp. Well before a pass expires, check that the salary still clears the current age-adjusted floor and that the firm still scores as it did. Where a holder has had no raise for two or three years, the rising benchmark alone can move them from comfortably above the floor to below it. Employers can begin a renewal up to six months ahead of expiry, which leaves room to fix a problem before it becomes urgent.

Changing jobs, and what happens if you lose one

An Employment Pass belongs to a specific employer, so it does not travel with you when you change jobs. Moving to a new employer means that employer applies for a fresh pass; the old one is cancelled. The important discipline is timing: do not resign into a gap. Line up the new pass approval before leaving, and coordinate the start date so there is no window in which you are in Singapore without a valid pass.

If a job ends unexpectedly, the pass is cancelled by the employer and you have a short grace period to find a new role and secure a new pass, or to make arrangements to leave. A Dependant’s Pass held by your family is tied to your pass, so it is affected at the same time, which is a consideration families sometimes overlook in the stress of a redundancy.

If you expect to change roles frequently and you earn enough, the Personalised Employment Pass is worth understanding, because it is held by the individual rather than the employer and survives a job change. It carries its own strict conditions and is covered in its own guide.

Bringing your family

One of the practical attractions of the EP is that it lets you bring your immediate family, provided you earn enough. The thresholds are specific and worth knowing before you accept an offer, because they can influence how you negotiate salary.

• Spouse and children. If your fixed monthly salary is at least S$6,000, you can sponsor your legally married spouse and unmarried children under 21 on a Dependant’s Pass.
• Parents. To sponsor your parents on a Long-Term Visit Pass, the salary bar is higher, generally around S$12,000 a month.
• Working dependants. A Dependant’s Pass holder who wants to work now needs their own work pass. The old Letter of Consent route that once allowed a dependant to work has been removed.

Because the family thresholds sit above the EP salary floor, a candidate can qualify for an EP yet not earn enough to bring their family. Where family matters, the S$6,000 and S$12,000 marks are as important to the negotiation as the qualifying floor itself.

Employment Pass compared with the alternatives

The EP is not the only way to work in Singapore, and choosing the right pass at the outset saves a great deal of wasted effort. The table below sets the EP against the passes it is most often confused with.

In short: if you meet the EP salary and clear COMPASS, the EP is usually the strongest choice, because it avoids the quota and levy of the S Pass while keeping normal validity. Look to the ONE Pass only at the very top of the market, and to the PEP when job mobility matters more than the ability to run your own business, which the PEP forbids.

Why Employment Pass applications get rejected

Most refusals are not mysterious. They cluster around a handful of causes, and almost all of them are addressable before you apply rather than after you are turned down.

The pattern across all of these is that the problems are visible in advance. Running the Self-Assessment Tool, checking the employer’s COMPASS standing, confirming the advertising step and proof-reading the documents together remove the great majority of rejection risk before a single form is submitted.

Mistakes to avoid

Beyond outright rejection reasons, a few recurring mistakes cost applicants time and, occasionally, an approval that was within reach.

• Reading the wrong salary line. Finance-sector candidates who plan around the general floor, or older candidates who plan around the entry figure, budget for the wrong number and negotiate too low.
• Building the offer around a bonus. Because only fixed salary counts, an offer weighted toward a discretionary bonus can fail even when the headline package looks strong.
• Treating COMPASS as the candidate’s problem alone. Two of the four criteria are the employer’s. Candidates who do not ask about the firm’s profile can be blindsided by a rejection that had nothing to do with them.
• Assuming renewal is automatic. With COMPASS now applying to renewals and benchmarks rising each year, a pass that was easy to obtain can be hard to renew if nothing in the package has moved.
• Resigning into a gap. Because the pass is employer-tied, leaving before the next pass is approved can leave you without status. Sequence the move carefully.

Three worked scenarios

To bring the rules together, here is how they play out for three realistic candidates.

The 26-year-old marketing manager

Offered S$5,700 in a general-sector firm, just above the entry floor. Salary qualifies but only just, so C1 scores 10. A solid but not top-tier degree scores 10 on C2. The firm is diverse and has a healthy local base, adding 20 and 20. Total 60, a comfortable pass. The lesson: a modest salary can still work when the employer scores well on the firm criteria.

The 43-year-old operations director

Offered S$10,000 in a general-sector firm. Strong salary, but at 43 the floor is close to S$10,700, so the offer actually falls short of the age-adjusted benchmark and fails on hurdle one before COMPASS is even reached. The fix is not more points but a higher fixed salary. This is the most common senior-hire surprise.

The 31-year-old software engineer

Offered S$7,000, comfortably above the floor (C1: 20), with a strong degree (C2: 20). Even if the employer scores poorly on diversity and local hiring, the candidate criteria already reach 40. If the role is also on the Shortage Occupation List, the application is doubly secure. The lesson: a well-paid, well-qualified specialist has the most resilient application of all.

For employers: how to strengthen an application

Because two of the four COMPASS foundational criteria are about the hiring company, an employer’s own profile is often the deciding factor in whether a foreign hire succeeds. If you recruit internationally with any regularity, the following moves raise the odds on every application, not just the one in front of you.

• Build and keep a healthy local core. The local-employment criterion (C4) compares your share of local PMETs against your industry. Steady local hiring at the professional level lifts C4 for every subsequent foreign application.
• Watch your nationality concentration. The diversity criterion (C3) penalises firms whose professional workforce is dominated by a single nationality. If most of your PMETs share one nationality, candidates of that nationality will keep scoring 0 on C3 until the mix broadens.
• Advertise properly, every time. Meeting the Fair Consideration Framework is not only a compliance step; a genuine local search feeds the same healthy local ratio that C4 rewards.
• Pay a margin above the floor. Offers set clearly above the age-adjusted benchmark score better on C1 and leave headroom as the benchmark rises each year, which makes renewals easier.
• Use the Self-Assessment Tool before you commit. Running a candidate through the free tool takes minutes and tells you whether the hire is viable before you make an offer or advertise.

None of these is a trick. They are the same behaviours the framework is designed to encourage, and firms that adopt them find that hiring foreign professionals becomes markedly more predictable.

The Employment Pass and your path to Permanent Residence

For many holders the EP is not the destination but the first step toward Permanent Residence and, eventually, citizenship. It is worth understanding how the two connect, because the way you hold and use your EP shapes a later PR application.

Permanent Residence is assessed by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority, not MOM, and on a completely separate, holistic basis. There is no points formula and no published pass mark. That said, a stable EP with rising salary and a consistent employer builds exactly the picture a PR assessment looks for: economic contribution, stability, and roots being put down in Singapore. An EP holder who job-hops erratically, or whose salary has stagnated, presents a weaker profile even if the pass itself is secure.

There is no fixed number of years on an EP that entitles you to PR, and applying too early is a common misstep. As a general guide, a track record of steady, progressing employment, usually a couple of years or more, gives an assessment something solid to weigh. Time spent building that record on the EP is rarely wasted, and it is the reason the EP and PR guides on this site are best read together rather than in isolation.

The practical link is this: treat your years on the EP as the foundation of a future PR case. Keep your salary moving in the right direction, stay with employers long enough to show stability, and keep your documentation clean, and you arrive at a PR application already holding most of what it needs.

Planning your timeline

An EP is not something to leave to the last fortnight before a start date. Working backwards from when you need to begin work, several stages each need their own runway, and underestimating them is the most common cause of an awkward gap.

Allow at least two clear weeks for the Fair Consideration Framework advertising before the application can even be submitted, unless an exemption applies. Allow around ten business days for a straightforward assessment, and up to eight weeks where documents need verifying. Allow further time after approval for the medical examination, if required, and for issuing and collecting the pass card. Where qualifications need an independent verification report, that step alone can add weeks and should be started as early as possible.

Stacked end to end, a comfortable plan runs to a couple of months from decision to pass in hand, and longer if verification is involved. Candidates moving from another employer should be especially careful here: because the EP is employer-tied, the new pass must be approved before you leave the old role, so the timeline is not just about convenience but about keeping valid status throughout.

After approval: your obligations as a holder

Getting the pass is the beginning of a relationship with MOM, not the end of one. A handful of ongoing obligations keep your pass in good standing, and quietly breaching them is an avoidable way to jeopardise a renewal or the pass itself.

• Be paid what the application said. Your actual salary should match the fixed figure the pass was granted on. Paying less than declared is a serious problem, not a technicality.
• Keep your details current. Changes to your role, salary, or personal particulars should be updated through the employer, and a new passport needs to be registered so your pass stays linked to valid travel documents.
• Understand your tax position. EP holders are taxed in Singapore on their Singapore employment income, and tax residency depends on how long you spend in the country in a year. It is worth understanding this early rather than at filing season.
• Mind the pass, and your family’s. Your Dependant’s Pass holders depend on your pass remaining valid, so a lapse or cancellation affects the whole household.
• Plan the renewal, not just the approval. With benchmarks rising annually and COMPASS applying to renewals, the healthiest holders treat each renewal as a checkpoint to confirm salary and firm scores still clear the bar.

None of this is onerous, but each item is the kind of thing that is easy to let slide and awkward to explain later. Treating the pass as a live obligation rather than a one-off achievement is what keeps the path to renewal, and beyond it to PR, clear.

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