The Singapore Workplace Fairness Act 2025 (WFA) is Singapore’s first codified statutory anti-discrimination employment law, passed by Parliament in January 2025. It commences by end-2027 for employers with 25 or more employees, and in 2030 for employers with 5 to 24 employees. That timeline may sound distant, but the compliance preparation required — reviewing job advertisements, establishing grievance procedures, training hiring managers, and updating documentation — takes 12 to 18 months to do properly. Employers who move now have first-mover advantage; those who wait until 2027 risk a last-minute scramble under regulatory scrutiny.
This guide covers what the WFA requires, who is covered, the 11 protected characteristics, the mandatory grievance procedure, penalties for non-compliance, and the practical steps HR managers should start taking this year.
What Is the Singapore Workplace Fairness Act 2025?
The Workplace Fairness Act 2025 codifies anti-discrimination obligations that previously existed only as guidelines under the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TGFEP). The WFA makes workplace discrimination unlawful, gives employees a statutory right of redress, and establishes a new enforcement framework through the Employment Claims Tribunal — with claims of up to SGD 250,000 available to affected employees.
The WFA covers adverse employment decisions across the full employment lifecycle: hiring, performance review, promotion, training, transfer, and dismissal. An employer cannot make any of these decisions on the basis of a protected characteristic of the employee or job applicant — directly or indirectly.
The WFA is distinct from, and broader than, the existing Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), which applies specifically to employers applying for Employment Passes for foreign workers. The WFA applies to all employer-employee relationships in Singapore, regardless of whether the workforce includes foreigners. You can find the full text of the Act on the MOM Fair Employment Practices page. If your business sponsors foreign talent under the EP framework, see our Complete Singapore Employment Pass Guide 2026 for how FCF obligations interact with your EP applications.
The 11 Protected Characteristics
The workplace discrimination protected characteristics Singapore under the WFA are:
- Age
- Nationality
- Sex (including gender)
- Marital status
- Pregnancy status
- Caregiving responsibilities
- Race
- Religion
- Language ability
- Disability
- Mental health condition
Employers who have been operating in compliance with the TGFEP will recognise most of these characteristics, as the TGFEP has long required merit-based hiring practices that avoid discrimination on these grounds. What the WFA adds is statutory enforceability — employees now have a legal right of redress, not merely a complaint channel to the Tripartite Alliance for Fair and Progressive Employment Practices (TAFEP).
Note that nationality is on the list, but the WFA does not override MOM’s work pass framework — which separately permits, and in some cases requires, employers to consider nationality when making pass applications. The WFA’s nationality provision addresses discriminatory treatment of employees and job applicants already lawfully working in Singapore.
Who Is Covered and When
The commencement schedule under the WFA is staged:
- Employers with 25 or more employees: commences by end-2027
- Employers with 5 to 24 employees: commences in 2030
- Employers with fewer than 5 employees: timeline to be confirmed
Employee count refers to the total number of employees in Singapore, including part-time workers. Employers should monitor their headcount growth: a business that has fewer than 25 employees now but plans to grow will hit the commencement threshold and should build compliant practices from the outset.
All employers — regardless of size — remain bound by the TGFEP guidelines now, before the WFA commences. The WFA does not create a gap in fair employment obligations; it upgrades enforcement.
Mandatory Grievance Handling Procedure
One of the most operationally significant WFA employer obligations Singapore is the mandatory grievance procedure requirement. Under Section 27 of the WFA, every covered employer must establish a written grievance-handling procedure for employees who believe they have been subject to discriminatory treatment.
The grievance procedure must:
- Be accessible to all employees and communicated clearly
- Provide a fair process for investigating complaints
- Include anti-retaliation protections — employees must be able to raise complaints without fear of adverse consequences
- Be documented in writing and made available on request
Employers who do not have a formal HR grievance procedure at all — common in SMEs — need to establish one. Employers who have an existing procedure need to review it against the WFA requirements, particularly the anti-retaliation provisions and the 11 protected characteristics.
Documentation Obligations: Why Record-Keeping Matters Now
The WFA creates a practical obligation to document hiring decisions. If an employee or job applicant brings a claim alleging discriminatory treatment in a hiring process, the employer must be able to demonstrate that the decision was made on merit-based grounds. This requires:
- Structured interview scoring: using consistent, documented scoring criteria for all candidates interviewed for a role
- Job advertisement review: removing any language that directly or indirectly references a protected characteristic (e.g., “energetic young team” implies age; “native English speaker” implies language ability beyond what the role genuinely requires)
- Assessment criteria documentation: retaining notes on why candidates were selected or rejected, tied to role requirements rather than personal characteristics
Many SMEs do not currently maintain this level of hiring documentation. Starting to build these habits now — well before commencement — means the records will be there if a claim arises. Retrofitting documentation after a complaint is filed is not the same as maintaining contemporaneous records, and a tribunal would treat the two differently.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
The grievance procedure Singapore employment law penalties under the WFA are significant. Companies found to have made adverse employment decisions on the basis of protected characteristics face fines of up to SGD 50,000 per violation. For individuals (such as directors or managers who personally made the discriminatory decision), fines of up to SGD 5,000 and/or imprisonment of up to 6 months apply for the most serious offences.
Employees may seek redress through the new Tripartite Fair Employment Practices Tribunal, with claims of up to SGD 250,000. This is a materially higher stakes environment than the current TAFEP advisory framework.
How the WFA Interacts With the Fair Consideration Framework
Singapore employers who sponsor Employment Pass applications are already subject to the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF), which requires EP-sponsoring employers to give fair consideration to Singaporeans and PRs before hiring foreigners for professional roles. The WFA is separate from and broader than the FCF: it applies to all employment decisions for all employees, including Singaporeans and PRs, and is not limited to EP-sponsoring employers.
Employers subject to both the FCF and the WFA (i.e., most professional services businesses and technology companies) will need to maintain two overlapping compliance frameworks. The operational approach is largely the same — documented, merit-based hiring — but the legal bases and enforcement mechanisms are distinct. For a detailed breakdown of how COMPASS and FCF affect foreign professional hiring, see our guide on the EP COMPASS Renewal Audit for 2026.
Practical Preparation Steps for Employers in 2026
Given the 12–18 months of preparation time recommended by employment law advisers, the following steps are appropriate to begin in 2026:
1. Audit your job advertisements. Review current and template job advertisements for language that could be read as discriminatory on the basis of any of the 11 protected characteristics. Update templated descriptions now so that future postings are clean.
2. Review your hiring process. Map your end-to-end hiring process — job posting, screening, interviewing, offer — and identify where protected characteristic information is being captured or influencing decisions unnecessarily. Introduce structured interviews with documented scoring criteria.
3. Establish or update the grievance procedure. If you do not have a formal written grievance procedure, draft one. If you have one, review it against the WFA’s requirements — particularly anti-retaliation protections and coverage of the 11 protected characteristics.
4. Train hiring managers and HR teams. Line managers making hiring and promotion decisions need to understand what constitutes direct and indirect discrimination under the WFA. Training does not need to be extensive, but it needs to be documented and relevant.
5. Update employment contracts and HR policies. Review standard employment contracts and HR policies for any provisions that could constitute adverse treatment based on a protected characteristic — for instance, different terms for married versus unmarried employees, or performance criteria that indirectly disadvantage caregivers.
For a broader view of employer compliance obligations in Singapore — including MOM work pass compliance, IR21 tax clearance, levy schedules and renewal calendars — see our Singapore HR MOM Compliance Calendar 2026.
How LBEA Can Support WFA Readiness
LBEA is a MOM-licensed employment agency (Licence 19C9790) with broad experience advising Singapore employers on fair employment practices, HR compliance and workforce planning. We assist businesses across professional services, technology, F&B, retail and the healthcare sector with structured, MOM-compliant hiring processes.
For questions about how the Singapore Workplace Fairness Act 2025 affects your hiring and HR operations, or to discuss work pass applications for foreign professionals, contact us at Singapore Employment Agency. For corporate secretarial support, including employment contract review and company compliance, Raffles Corporate Services provides comprehensive corporate services for Singapore businesses.
— The Editorial Team, Little Big Employment Agency