Singapore’s Workplace Fairness Act 2025 (WFA) is the most significant piece of employment discrimination legislation the country has ever enacted — and employers have a finite window to prepare before it commences. The first of two bills was passed by Parliament in January 2025; the second, covering dispute resolution, followed in November 2025. Commencement is expected by end-2027. That sounds distant. It is not. The obligations the WFA imposes — across every stage of employment, from job advertisement to dismissal — require structural changes to hiring processes, employment contracts, and internal grievance procedures that take time to implement correctly.
This guide sets out what every Singapore employer needs to know about the Workplace Fairness Act 2025: the protected characteristics it covers, the employer obligations it creates, the penalties for non-compliance, and the practical steps HR managers should be taking right now.
What the Workplace Fairness Act 2025 Covers
The WFA prohibits employers from making employment decisions that adversely affect an individual on the basis of any protected characteristic. The Act covers the following characteristics:
- Age
- Nationality
- Sex (excluding sexual orientation and gender identity, which are not protected under the WFA)
- Marital status
- Pregnancy status (including past, current, or intended pregnancies)
- Caregiving responsibilities
- Race
- Religion
- Language
- Disability
- Mental health conditions
These characteristics are protected across all stages of employment: job advertising, shortlisting, interviewing, assessment, job offers, employment terms, performance management, promotion decisions, and dismissal.
Notably, criminal record and medical condition (outside of disability and mental health) are not explicitly protected. Sexual orientation and gender identity — significant omissions noted by advocacy groups — are also not covered under the current WFA text.
Key Employer Obligations Under the Workplace Fairness Act
1. Job Advertisements: No Discriminatory Criteria
The WFA imposes obligations on employers to ensure that job advertisements do not specify criteria — whether explicit or implicit — that screen out candidates on the basis of a protected characteristic. Examples of non-compliant language include age caps (e.g. “applicants must be below 40”), nationality preferences (“Singaporeans preferred”), or descriptions that imply gender requirements for roles not involving genuine occupational requirements.
HR managers should audit all job advertisement templates now. The Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP), which exist alongside the WFA, have been enforced against employers for discriminatory job advertisements since 2010. The WFA elevates this from a guideline to a statutory obligation with criminal liability. Where your company uses a licensed employment agency to source candidates, that agency is also bound by these standards. Our guide to the Singapore Employment Pass Guide 2026 covers the Fair Consideration Framework advertising requirements that already apply to EP-eligible roles.
2. Hiring Process: Documented Assessment
Employers must be able to demonstrate that candidate selection was based on merit — job-related criteria — not on any protected characteristic. This means:
- Interview questions must be job-relevant. Questions about a candidate’s pregnancy intentions, religion, or nationality in a way that influences the hiring decision are prohibited.
- Assessment tools and scoring criteria must be documented and defensible.
- Shortlisting decisions should be recorded with reference to objective criteria.
In practice, this is the standard the Ministry of Manpower’s Fair Consideration Framework already expects. The WFA makes non-compliance a statutory offence, not just a reputational risk.
3. Employment Terms and Performance Management
Discrimination in the terms of employment — offering different salaries, benefits, or promotion tracks to employees on the basis of a protected characteristic — is prohibited. Performance management systems must be structured so that outcomes cannot be challenged as discriminatory on the face of the assessment criteria.
4. Mandatory Grievance Handling Procedures
All employers with 25 or more employees must implement a written internal grievance procedure for handling workplace fairness complaints. Key requirements:
- The procedure must be accessible to all employees and communicated at onboarding.
- Complaints must be handled within defined timelines (expected to be specified in subsidiary legislation).
- Mediation is required before an employee can escalate a complaint to the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) or the High Court.
- Anti-retaliation protections apply: employers cannot take adverse action against an employee for raising a WFA complaint in good faith.
5. Dismissal and Adverse Action
Dismissal of an employee on the basis of a protected characteristic — or as retaliation for raising a WFA complaint — is prohibited. Employers should review their termination checklist to ensure dismissal decisions are documented with reference to performance or conduct, not personal characteristics. This intersects with existing protections under the Employment Act for wrongful dismissal. See the Singapore HR Manager’s MOM Compliance Calendar 2026 for the full annual compliance timeline, including termination procedures and IR21 tax clearance obligations.
Penalties for Non-Compliance
The WFA introduces a graduated penalty framework administered by MOM:
| Penalty Type | First Breach | Subsequent Breach |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate financial penalty | SGD 5,000 | SGD 10,000 |
| Individual financial penalty | SGD 2,500 fine or 6 months’ imprisonment | Higher court-determined penalties |
| Civil claims (ECT) | Up to SGD 250,000 per claim | — |
MOM has stated it will adopt an education-first approach at commencement — guiding non-compliant employers towards rectification before imposing penalties. However, egregious cases will be prosecuted from day one. Repeated non-compliance will attract the higher penalty tier.
Employers with fewer than 25 employees are expected to be partially exempt at commencement, with an exemption review scheduled after the initial implementation period. This exemption — if confirmed in subsidiary legislation — applies to the grievance procedure requirement, not to the prohibition on discriminatory employment decisions, which applies to all employers regardless of size.
How the WFA Interacts with the Existing TAFEP Framework
The Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices (TAFEP) have been in place since 2007. They cover the same ground as the WFA — fair hiring, fair treatment, fair dismissal — but have operated as guidelines, not law. Breaches of TAFEP guidelines have been enforceable indirectly through MOM pass application scrutiny (employers with TAFEP complaints can have EP applications refused), but not through direct criminal prosecution.
The WFA converts TAFEP’s substantive requirements into statutory obligations. Employers who are already fully TAFEP-compliant will find that most of the WFA requirements are already met. Employers who have been merely notionally compliant — following the guidelines in form but not substance — face more significant remediation work. The Foreign Worker Levy and quota framework, covered in our guide to Singapore Foreign Worker Levy 2026, also intersects with fair employment requirements: employers who fail TAFEP-linked checks face levy and quota restrictions in addition to WFA penalties.
What Employers Should Do Before 2027
With roughly 18 months until expected commencement, here are the practical steps HR managers should take now:
- Audit all job advertisement templates. Remove any language that specifies age, nationality, or other protected characteristics unless a genuine occupational requirement exists (e.g. specific language fluency for a role requiring communication in that language).
- Train hiring managers. All managers involved in interviewing and selection decisions should understand which questions are prohibited, how to document assessment criteria, and how to handle complaints under the new framework.
- Draft or update internal grievance procedures. If your company does not have a written workplace fairness grievance procedure, draft one now. It must specify who receives complaints, the timelines for response, the mediation step, and the anti-retaliation protection.
- Review employment contracts. Ensure that employment terms — salary, benefits, performance expectations — are documented consistently and do not create differential treatment on protected grounds.
- Create a documentation discipline for HR decisions. Selection decisions, performance outcomes, and terminations should all be documented with reference to objective, job-related criteria. This documentation is your primary defence in any WFA complaint.
- Review your use of employment agencies. Licensed agencies that source candidates for you are also subject to TAFEP and WFA obligations. Ensure your agency agreements include clear instructions that selection criteria must be merit-based.
Conclusion
The Workplace Fairness Act 2025 transforms Singapore’s employment fairness framework from guidelines to law. Employers who have genuinely been operating fair, merit-based hiring and HR processes will find the transition manageable. Employers who have been relying on discriminatory shortcuts — nationality preferences, age caps, opaque selection criteria — face a more fundamental overhaul. The 18 months before commencement is a preparation window, not a grace period.
If your company needs HR compliance advisory support — including reviewing hiring processes, updating employment contracts, and drafting grievance procedures — Singapore Employment Agency provides HR compliance and pass advisory services through our MOM-licensed team. For companies establishing a Singapore presence that need to build a compliant HR framework from the outset, Raffles Corporate Services provides corporate setup and HR compliance advisory as part of end-to-end relocation and incorporation services.
— The Editorial Team, Little Big Employment Agency