Hiring employees in Singapore in 2026: EOR rules, costs, and compliance

Singapore accepts employment through an Employer of Record, but whether that route works for a hire depends on nationality. The Ministry of Manpower treats a worker employed by an EOR under a contract of service as an employee with Employment Act entitlements, even though the work is done for a client.

For Singapore citizens and permanent residents, an EOR arrangement can be used where the EOR is the contractual employer and provides the required employment entitlements. For foreign nationals who need a work pass to work in Singapore for an overseas company, the Ministry of Manpower does not allow an EOR to obtain that pass and states that doing so would be an offence.

For local hires, employers should also budget CPF contributions up to the S$8,000 monthly ordinary wage ceiling and issue written key employment terms within 14 days.

Yes, and the ministry has said so directly about the employer of record model. In a written parliamentary answer in November 2023, the Ministry of Manpower stated that a worker employed by an Employer of Record is considered an employee as long as there is a contract of service between the worker and the EOR and the worker is accorded Employment Act entitlements. That applies even though the worker performs work for the EOR’s client. The same answer noted that the ministry does not track how many EORs operate in Singapore or how many people they employ.

The condition in that answer is doing real work. Recognition rests on a genuine contract of service with the EOR and on the EOR actually delivering statutory entitlements. The arrangement is easier to defend where the EOR:

• Signs and can enforce the employment contract
• Pays salary and issues payslips
• Makes CPF contributions
• Administers leave and termination
• Keeps employment records

The client can still direct day-to-day work and deliverables. An EOR that functions only as a payroll conduit, with the client holding every employer decision, is further from what the ministry described.

Nationality and immigration status are central to whether the EOR route works in Singapore. The ministry’s work pass FAQ answers the question of whether an EOR in Singapore can apply for a work pass for a foreigner to be based in Singapore while working for an overseas company with a single word: no. Work passes exist for foreigners to work for Singapore-based companies, and an EOR that applies for passes on that basis would be committing an offence.

The practical consequence divides hires into two groups:

That makes immigration status the first question to settle, before any commercial conversation about fees or onboarding. A provider that offers to arrange an Employment Pass or S Pass for a foreign national who will in substance work for an overseas client is describing the arrangement the ministry has said is an offence. The exposure runs to the applicant, and a client relying on that arrangement is relying on something that should not exist.

Singapore has no licence labelled for Employers of Record. The question is whether what a provider does falls within the Employment Agencies Act 1958, and that turns on activity, not on the name given to the service.

The Act draws the line through three provisions:

• Section 6(1): Prohibits carrying on an employment agency without a licence.
• Section 6(2): Extends that to work done in Singapore in connection with the employment of people, whether on one’s own behalf or for an agency outside Singapore.
• Section 6(3)(c): Excludes a person doing that work “for the sole purpose of recruiting persons for employment on that person’s own behalf”. The Act’s definition of an employment agency similarly excludes a registry an employer sets up solely to recruit for itself.

The Act also lists “specified employment agency work”, including:

• Communicating with applicants to process their applications
• Collating résumés to help establish an employment relationship
• Submitting a work pass application on behalf of an employer or applicant
• Facilitating the placement of an applicant with an employer

Read against those provisions, a working interpretation looks like this:

This is an interpretation of the law, not a ministry ruling. The ministry has not confirmed whether simply employing a worker already selected by the client requires an employment agency licence. If the provider also recruits or sources candidates, that recruitment activity should be treated as regulated.

Where a foreign national is employed by a Singapore-based company for its own business, the passes and their qualifying salaries apply as normal. Both qualifying salaries rise with the candidate’s age, and both are set to increase.

For renewals, the higher Employment Pass and S Pass figures apply to passes expiring from 1 January 2028. Employment Pass candidates must also pass COMPASS, the points-based framework that assesses the application in addition to the salary threshold. S Pass holders are additionally subject to quota rules and a monthly levy for the sponsoring employer, with the Tier 1 levy set at S$650 from 1 September 2025.

The Employment Act 1968 sets the baseline for people employed under a contract of service, while its hours and overtime rules in Part 4 apply to a narrower group defined by salary.

• Written terms and pay slips: An employer must give each employee a written record of key employment terms no later than 14 days after they start, for contracts entered on or after 1 April 2016 that meet the prescribed minimum period of service. Pay slips must be issued for salary paid in each salary period.
• Hours and overtime: Part 4 covers workmen earning up to S$4,500 a month and other employees earning up to S$2,600, excluding overtime and bonus payments. For those employees, the limits are eight hours a day or 44 hours a week, overtime at no less than one and a half times the hourly basic rate, and no more than 72 hours of overtime a month.
• Leave: After three months’ service, employees are entitled to seven days’ paid annual leave in the first 12 months, increasing by one day for each further year up to 14 days, with part-years prorated. After six months’ service, paid sick leave runs to 14 days a year without hospitalisation, or the lesser of 60 days and 14 days plus the days hospitalised where hospitalisation is needed. Employees also receive paid public holidays, with 11 gazetted in 2026, plus a substitute working day or payment where a holiday falls on a rest day or non-working day.

For Singapore citizens and for permanent residents from their third year, CPF contributions are set by age. Rates below apply from 1 January 2026 to monthly wages above S$750, on ordinary wages up to the S$8,000 ceiling.

Two features change the calculation at the edges:

• Lower wages: Nothing is payable on S$50 or less; the employer alone contributes between S$50 and S$500, and between S$500 and S$750 the employee’s share phases in.
• Permanent residents: Those in their first and second years contribute at graduated rates, with the employer able to contribute at graduated or full rates, under separate tables in the CPF rate tables.

The Skills Development Levy is payable by the employer on every employee working in Singapore, at 0.25% of monthly total wages, with a minimum of S$2 and a maximum of S$11.25 a month once wages reach S$4,500.

A cost estimate then adds salary, the employer’s CPF share, the levy, any benefits, and the provider’s fee, which the pricing page sets out on the platform side.

Wage floors for local employees come from:

• Progressive Wage Model ladders: Apply to lower-wage citizens and permanent residents in named sectors such as cleaning, security, retail and food services.
• Local Qualifying Salary: S$1,800 a month, which a local employee must earn to count towards an employer’s foreign-worker quota.

Singapore taxes resident individuals at progressive rates, with a top rate of 24% from the 2024 year of assessment onwards. Employment income of a non-resident individual is taxed at a flat 15% or at the progressive resident rates, whichever produces more tax.

On the employer side, the obligation is reporting. Under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme, employers submit employees’ income information directly to the tax authority, which includes it in the employees’ tax returns. Submission is mandatory for:

• Employers with five or more employees in 2026
• Employers that received a notice to file electronically
• Employers registered for the scheme on or before 1 March 2027, and still registered on that date.

A separate tax clearance obligation applies when a non-citizen employee leaves, set out in the questions below.

Either party can end a contract of service by giving notice. The length must be the same for employer and employee, and where the contract says nothing, the Act sets a minimum:

Either party can instead pay salary in lieu for the notice period, and either may end the contract without notice for a wilful breach of a condition by the other.

The Act does not entitle an employee with less than two years’ continuous service to any retrenchment benefit on dismissal for redundancy, and it sets no statutory amount for longer-serving employees. Employers also carry a statutory obligation to furnish information to the Ministry about retrenchments, so a provider should be able to show how it handles that notification.

Several changes affect a hire made this year:

• The CPF ordinary wage ceiling reached S$8,000 a month on 1 January 2026, and total contribution rates rose by 1.5 percentage points for employees aged above 55 to 65.
• Shared parental leave rose to ten weeks, shared between parents, for children born, expected or formally adopted on or after 1 April 2026.
• The S$3,300 S Pass qualifying salary, in force for new applications since 1 September 2025, extended to renewals of passes expiring from 1 September 2026.
• Employment Pass and S Pass qualifying salaries rise for new applications from 1 January 2027, and for renewals of passes expiring from 1 January 2028.

The Workplace Fairness Act is not yet in force. Both of its Bills have passed, and the ministry stated in November  2025 that it intends to implement the Act by the end of 2027, without a fixed commencement date. Employers can prepare policies now, but their obligations should not be presented as in force until the date is set.

The sequence starts with the candidate rather than the provider, because nationality and immigration status decide whether the rest of the process applies.

1. Confirm the candidate’s nationality and immigration status before discussing structure, because it decides whether an EOR route is available at all.
2. Rule out any arrangement in which an EOR would obtain a work pass for a foreign national who works for an overseas company.
3. Establish what the provider actually does, and whether any of it is specified employment agency work that needs a licence.
4. Confirm the provider’s Singapore entity signs the contract of service and delivers Employment Act entitlements directly.
5. Issue written key employment terms within 14 days of the start date, and set up itemised pay slips from the first salary period.
6. Register CPF contributions at the rate for the employee’s age and residency status, including graduated rates for a newer permanent resident.
7. Plan the exit process, covering notice, the tax position of non-citizen employees, and retrenchment notification.

Not every engagement should be employment. The Employment Act applies to people working under a contract of service, while a genuinely independent service under a contract for service sits outside it. Where the work is a defined, independent service, an Agent of Record arrangement with properly drafted terms can be the better structure.

The Ministry of Manpower says there is no single conclusive test. Relevant factors include:

• Who controls hiring, dismissal, pay, and how and when the work is done
• Who owns the tools, equipment, materials, and workplace
• Whether the person operates on their own account and shares in profit or risk of loss

Where those factors point to employment, employment is the structure that fits.