If you are reading this in 2026, you are reading about a moving target. Singapore raised the Employment Pass (EP) qualifying salary on 1 January 2025, started applying the new floor to renewals from 1 January 2026, and on 3 March 2026 the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) confirmed at the Committee of Supply that the floor will move again to S$6,000 (S$6,600 in financial services) from 1 January 2027. So an EP guide that reads “definitive” today will be partly obsolete in nine months.
This guide takes the long view. It explains, as at 26 April 2026, exactly what an Employment Pass is, who qualifies, how the Complementarity Assessment Framework (COMPASS) actually scores candidates, what changes are already on the calendar, and where most applications quietly die. It is written for foreign professionals being recruited into Singapore, for HR managers running EP applications in volume, and for founders trying to build a team here without burning months on rejected files.
Singapore Employment Agency is the consumer brand of Little Big Employment Agency Pte Ltd (LBEA), MOM Licence 19C9790. Where this guide gets technical we cite MOM and ICA primary sources directly. Where it goes beyond the official text into pattern observation, we say so.
What the Employment Pass actually is
The Employment Pass is the work pass for foreign professionals, managers, executives and specialists employed in Singapore. Per the Ministry of Manpower, an EP holder must work for the sponsoring employer in the role specified on the pass. EP holders can apply for a Dependant’s Pass for spouse and children, are eligible to apply for Permanent Residence after sufficient time in Singapore, and pay personal income tax in Singapore on their Singapore-sourced employment income.
An EP is not a generic work permit. It is a sector-specific, salary-anchored, COMPASS-scored pass tied to a named employer and a named role. Move job, lose pass — you must apply for a fresh EP under the new employer.
Eligibility: salary, qualifications, COMPASS
EP eligibility rests on three pillars: a fixed monthly salary at or above the qualifying floor for the candidate’s age and sector, recognisable professional qualifications or experience, and at least 40 points on COMPASS (unless the candidate is exempt).
Qualifying salary as at 26 April 2026
Per MOM’s eligibility page, the minimum qualifying salary for a new EP application is SGD 5,600 per month for most sectors and SGD 6,200 per month for Financial Services. Both floors took effect for new applications from 1 January 2025 and apply to renewal applications for passes expiring from 1 January 2026.
The headline number is age-23 baseline only. The qualifying salary scales with age: a candidate in their mid-40s currently needs to be paid materially more than the headline floor to clear the bar. MOM’s Key Facts page sets out the full age-progressive table. Older candidates routinely fail the salary leg not because the employer is underpaying for the role, but because the role is not commensurate with the candidate’s years.
What changes on 1 January 2027
At COS 2026 on 3 March 2026, MOM announced that from 1 January 2027 the new-EP qualifying floor moves to SGD 6,000 per month (most sectors) and SGD 6,600 per month (Financial Services). Renewal applications follow from 1 January 2028. The age-progressive curve adjusts in lockstep, with the upper-age band reaching around S$11,500 for older Financial Services candidates.
If you are negotiating an offer in 2026 that will be renewed in 2028, model the renewal floor — not the application floor. We have seen too many EPs sponsored at the 2026 minimum and then failing the 2028 renewal because the salary did not grow.
Qualifications
MOM expects a degree-equivalent professional qualification from a recognised institution, professional body or accreditation. The fact that a candidate has a degree is necessary but not sufficient — under COMPASS, where the degree is from materially affects the score. Top-tier institutions (the list refreshed in November 2025 and applies to new EP applications from 1 January 2026) attract more points than non-top-tier institutions, and unranked or unaccredited institutions can score zero on the qualifications attribute.
COMPASS in plain English
COMPASS — the Complementarity Assessment Framework — replaced the old Fair Consideration Framework job advertisement requirement for most EP applications. It is a points system. Candidates need at least 40 points to pass. Two ways to skip COMPASS entirely: a fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500, or a qualifying overseas-employment role on the Shortage Occupation List (subject to other conditions).
COMPASS scores four candidate attributes (C1 Salary, C2 Qualifications, C3 Diversity, C4 Local PMET workforce contribution from the firm) and two bonus attributes (C5 Skills bonus – Shortage Occupation List, and C6 Strategic Economic Priorities bonus). C1 measures the candidate’s fixed monthly salary against the 65th percentile of local PMET salaries in the same sector. C2 measures qualifications against MOM’s top-tier list. C3 and C4 are firm-level: they reward a diverse nationality mix and a healthy local PMET hiring profile.
The practical implication: you can pay a candidate well, give them a good degree, and still fail COMPASS if your firm has a top-heavy single-nationality concentration or weak local PMET hiring. EP applications fail at the firm level more often than HR teams realise.
How an EP application actually works
The flow is short on paper, long in practice:
Step 1. Use MOM’s Self-Assessment Tool and the COMPASS calculator to test the file before submission. If you fail either, fix the file before applying.
Step 2. The employer (or appointed employment agent — that is what an MOM-licensed agency like LBEA exists to do) submits the application via EP Online. Standard processing time is around three weeks for most cases; complex cases can take longer.
Step 3. On approval, MOM issues an in-principle approval (IPA) letter. The candidate then enters Singapore on the strength of the IPA, completes any required medical examinations, gets fingerprinted, and the physical/digital pass is issued.
Step 4. First-issue EP validity is up to two years. Eligible tech roles on the Shortage Occupation List can attract a five-year first-issue validity (see the 5-year tech EP page). Renewals are typically up to three years.
Where applications quietly die
From the agency desk, three patterns dominate rejection and failed appeals: salary that meets the absolute floor but not the C1 sector benchmark, qualifications from institutions that do not score under C2, and firm-level COMPASS failures (C3 nationality concentration, C4 local PMET hiring) that have nothing to do with the candidate. The candidate file is rarely the problem in isolation. We covered the rejection patterns in more depth in why your work pass appeal failed and 5 common COMPASS mistakes.
If you are running EP applications at scale, audit your firm-level COMPASS score before you commit to any new hire. The candidate is downstream of the firm.
EP, dependants, PR and what comes next
An EP holder earning at or above the threshold (currently SGD 6,000 per month for new Dependant’s Pass applications) can sponsor a spouse and children under 21 on Dependant’s Passes, and parents on Long-Term Visit Passes. DP holders need a Letter of Consent or their own work pass to work in Singapore.
An EP holder is also on a runway to Permanent Residence under the Professionals/Technical/Skilled (PTS) scheme administered by the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority. PR is a holistic, discretionary decision. Salary, employment continuity, family ties and economic contribution all weigh on the file. We deal with the PR pathway in detail in our 2026 PR pathway guide.
Practical recommendations
For candidates: do not accept an offer at the EP floor unless it is a genuinely entry-level role for your age band. Do not accept an offer that depends on a renewal at a salary below the 1 January 2028 renewal floor — you may not get renewed.
For employers: run the COMPASS firm-level diagnostic before hiring foreign talent in volume. Address C3 (nationality mix) and C4 (local PMET hiring) deficiencies before lodging applications, not after rejection. For senior tech and finance hires, look at whether the role qualifies for the five-year SOL EP.
For relocating businesses: incorporate the entity, build minimum local PMET headcount and only then run EP applications. Trying to staff up the foreign team and the local team simultaneously almost always sinks the COMPASS score on the first wave of applications. Raffles Corporate Services handles the incorporation, accounting and corporate-secretarial groundwork that turns a paper company into a viable EP-sponsoring employer.
Where to go from here
If you are applying for an EP and you want a licensed agency to take the file from intake to issue, that is what we do. Singapore Employment Agency / LBEA handles employment passes, S Passes, ONE Pass applications, dependant passes and appeals. For sister-brand corporate-secretarial work (incorporation, ACRA filings, audit support), see Singapore Secretary Services. For end-to-end relocation including incorporation, accounting and family services, see Raffles Corporate Services.
Authoritative sources: MOM Employment Pass · EP Eligibility · COS 2026 · ICA · IRAS.
— The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services