If you are hiring into Singapore or trying to move here for work, the choice of pass usually comes down to your salary, your sector, and whether the role is professional, mid-skilled, or labour. The rules tightened again in 2026 and they tighten further in 2027. A candidate who would have cleared the bar two years ago may not clear it now, even on the same paper.
This guide walks through the six work passes that actually matter, what each one costs to qualify for, and the parts of the process that catch most applicants out. The numbers below are current to mid-2026, and the calendar matters more than usual this year because of the 2027 step-ups already on the books.
Who issues what, and how a work pass application starts
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) runs every work pass except Tech.Pass, which sits with the Economic Development Board (EDB). Every standard work pass is employer-applied. The candidate cannot file on their own. The employer logs into the myMOM Portal (the successor to EP Online) or WP Online, submits the application, and pays the fees on behalf of the candidate.
For EntrePass the applicant files in their own name through MOM because the role is founder, not employee. ONE Pass and Tech.Pass also accept self-applications. Everything else needs a sponsoring company that is registered with ACRA, in good standing, and able to show legitimate hiring intent. For more on how the broader Singapore residency picture fits together, see our Singapore PR, LTVP and work pass overview.
Online applications are usually decided in about three weeks. MOM publishes a 10 business day target for most cases, but a request for additional documents adds another three to five weeks once the employer responds. Paper submissions go up to eight weeks and almost nobody uses them now.
Employment Pass: the professional default
The Employment Pass (EP) is the standard pass for foreign professionals, managers, executives, and specialists. The minimum fixed monthly salary in 2026 is S$5,600 in most sectors and S$6,200 in financial services. Those numbers scale up with age: by 45, the candidate needs around S$10,700 in most sectors and S$11,800 in financial services to clear the salary bar.
From 1 January 2027, the base lifts again. New EP applications need S$6,000 in most sectors and S$6,600 in financial services. Renewals catch the new floor from 1 January 2028. Anyone planning a fresh EP close to the line should know which side of the calendar they sit on.
COMPASS, and why renewals now matter as much as new applications
Since September 2023, every new EP application has also had to clear COMPASS, a points-based check that scores salary against local PMET benchmarks, qualifications, the employer’s local-foreign workforce mix, and support for local hiring. A pass is 40 points. Candidates earning at least S$22,500 in fixed monthly salary are exempt.
COMPASS has applied to EP renewals since 1 September 2024. The change in 2026 is that updated C1 salary benchmarks, released in August 2025, start applying to renewal applications for EPs expiring from 1 July 2026. A profile that comfortably cleared C1 in 2024 may now fall a band lower without the candidate or the employer doing anything different.
The most common reasons MOM declines an EP are a salary that falls under the local PMET benchmark for the role, inflated or generic job titles that don’t match the listed duties, and weak local-hiring signals from a young company with no Singaporean staff on file. Educational credential fraud comes up less often than people think, but it is an automatic refusal when it does.
S Pass: mid-skilled roles, with a quota
The S Pass covers mid-skilled technical and associate professional roles. The 2026 minimum fixed monthly salary is S$3,300 in most sectors and S$3,800 in financial services, also age-scaled. A candidate in their mid-40s typically needs around S$4,800 to qualify. From 1 January 2027, the base rises to S$3,600 and S$4,000.
S Passes carry a sub-Dependency Ratio Ceiling: 10% of total workforce in services and 15% in manufacturing, construction, marine shipyard, and process. The headcount counts locals at the Local Qualifying Salary, which rises from S$1,600 to S$1,800 on 1 July 2026. A worker paid at least S$1,800 counts as a full local headcount. A worker paid between S$900 and S$1,800 counts as half. Below S$900 they don’t count at all.
Employers also pay a monthly levy per S Pass holder. From 1 September 2025, MOM harmonised the S Pass levy to a flat S$650 per month across all sectors and quota levels, replacing the previous Tier 1 / Tier 2 structure. The practical effect of the July LQS change is that some employers will find their quota shrinks overnight if their local payroll has staff sitting between S$1,600 and S$1,800. For how long an S Pass and other work passes take to come through, MOM’s three-week target is the baseline, with renewals usually faster.
Work Permit: lower-skilled labour and MDWs
Work Permits cover lower-skilled labour in construction, marine shipyard, manufacturing, process, and services, plus migrant domestic workers (MDWs). There is no fixed qualifying salary in the same sense as EP and S Pass. Typical wages sit in the S$1,600 to S$2,000 range depending on sector and experience.
The Work Permit is tied to the employer and the sector. The candidate cannot switch employers freely, and the pass dies with the employment contract. Dependants cannot be brought in on a Work Permit at all.
Levies do the heavy lifting on cost. Budget 2026 announced Basic-Skilled levy increases of S$100 a month in marine shipyard and S$150 a month in process, to take effect from 2028, with the long-term plan being to align both sectors with construction. Rates in 2026 run from S$250 a month for Higher-Skilled holders in Manufacturing Tier 1 up to S$950 a month for Basic-Skilled construction workers hired outside the Man-Year Entitlement (MYE) quota.
From 2028, MOM plans to streamline the levy framework: in manufacturing and services, the bottom two tiers will be combined into one. The highest tiers will stay where they are. The signal is consistent across the whole sector: hiring lower-skilled foreign labour gets more expensive each year, not less.
For sourcing help, our guide to Singapore work permit agents covers what licensed agents can and cannot do for you.
Working out which Singapore work pass your salary and role qualify for? Send us your fixed monthly salary, sector, and target start date and we will tell you the pass, the COMPASS score, and the realistic timeline before you file.
ONE Pass: top of the stack, no employer sponsor
The Overseas Networks and Expertise (ONE) Pass sits at the top of the hierarchy. It needs a fixed monthly salary of at least S$30,000 over the previous twelve months from an established company (market cap above US$500 million or annual revenue above US$200 million), or a confirmed offer at that level from a Singapore employer meeting the same size criteria. Applicants with outstanding achievement in business, the arts, sport, science, or technology can also qualify without hitting the salary bar.
The S$30,000 is fixed monthly salary, not total compensation. A package of S$15,000 base plus S$200,000 in annual bonus does not qualify, even though it averages well above S$30,000 a month. MOM has stayed firm on that distinction.
The pass runs for five years, is not tied to any one employer, and lets the holder work for multiple companies or start their own. Renewal hinges on maintaining an average S$30,000 monthly salary over the term, or running a Singapore business that employs at least five locals each earning at least the prevailing EP qualifying salary. A new ONE Pass (AI and Tech) track absorbs Tech.Pass from January 2027.
Tech.Pass: closing the door in 2027
Tech.Pass was launched by EDB in January 2021 for senior technology leaders and founders. Applicants need to meet two criteria: a last-drawn fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500 over the past 12 months, and at least 5 cumulative years in a leading role at a tech company with a valuation of at least US$500 million or at least US$30 million in funds raised (or a VC firm with US$500 million in AUM).
The pass runs two years initially. The reason to flag it now is that MOM confirmed at March 2026 Committee of Supply that Tech.Pass closes to new applicants when the ONE Pass (AI and Tech) track opens in January 2027. Existing holders will be migrated under transition rules. If a candidate qualifies for ONE Pass directly, that is the route to file now.
EntrePass: foreign founders only
EntrePass is for foreign entrepreneurs starting an innovative business in Singapore. The candidate must hold at least 30% of the issued shares in an ACRA-registered private limited company and play an active role as director. The company can be incorporated with just S$1 paid-up capital. The cited “S$50,000 paid-up capital” figure applied to an older version of the scheme that was retired in 2017.
The catch is that the business has to be genuinely innovative. Routine SMEs in food and beverage, retail, or trading won’t clear the bar. The company needs to satisfy at least one criterion from a published list: at least S$100,000 raised from a recognised VC or angel investor, ownership of proprietary intellectual property, participation in a government-recognised incubator, or three years’ track record of entrepreneurial achievement. Renewal is assessed against business spending, local employment, and progress on the original innovation criteria.
Application flow and the parts that go wrong
For EP and S Pass, the employer files through the myMOM Portal with Singpass. The candidate is identified by passport, the role and salary are declared, and the employer’s local-foreign mix is auto-populated from CPF records. Work Permits run through WP Online on the same logic. In-principle approvals are valid for six months. The candidate then enters Singapore, completes medical checks where required, gives biometrics, and collects the physical pass card.
A few things show up over and over in applications that don’t go through:
The salary is above the floor but well under the local PMET benchmark for the age and role. COMPASS picks this up immediately on C1.
The job description is generic or copy-pasted from a template. MOM reads the listed duties against the title, and a “Senior Manager” doing what reads like analyst work raises flags.
The employer is a young company with no Singaporean staff on the books. This is not automatic grounds for a refusal, but it costs points on COMPASS C3 and C4 and shifts the burden onto a strong candidate-side score.
Degrees can’t be verified. MOM uses Dataflow and similar services. A school that doesn’t respond to verification holds up the application even when the credential is genuine.
For applicants moving from India, our guide on the Singapore work visa for Indians covers the credential step in more detail. For HR teams new to the process, what visa sponsorship actually involves on the employer side is worth reading before lodging the first application.
What to file when
For most professionals earning between S$5,600 and S$22,500 a month, the EP is the right pass. File through the employer, run a COMPASS pre-score before submitting, and budget for three weeks plus one round of follow-up requests.
For mid-skilled roles between S$3,300 and around S$5,500, the S Pass works, but only if the employer has quota headroom. The July 2026 LQS step matters here.
For lower-skilled labour in construction, marine, manufacturing, or services, the Work Permit is the only practical route, and the cost sits in the levy, not the salary.
Above S$30,000 fixed monthly, ONE Pass is worth the extra paperwork because it drops the employer sponsor entirely. Below that line, EP usually beats Tech.Pass on certainty, especially with Tech.Pass closing to new applicants in January 2027. EntrePass is the founder route, not the early-career route. Go in with a real innovation story or wait until the company has venture funding on the books.
The system rewards filing the right pass the first time. A polite no on the wrong pass costs three weeks plus the cooldown before refiling on the correct one.
Ready to apply for a Singapore work pass and want a second look at the file before it goes in? Send us the salary, sector, and a draft of the role description and we will tell you what to fix before MOM sees it.