Employment Pass in 2026: salary floors, COMPASS and founders

Hiring a foreign professional — or sponsoring your own pass as a founder — means clearing two gates set by the Ministry of Manpower: a qualifying salary and a 40-point score on COMPASS. Both are published in full by MOM, and both are tightening on a known schedule.

Stage 1 — the qualifying salary

The floor scales with age, benchmarked to the top third of local PMET wages:

	Now	New applications from 1 Jan 2027
General sectors	S$5,600 (early 20s) → S$10,700 (45+)	S$6,000 → S$11,500 (45+)
Financial services	S$6,200 → S$11,800 (45+)	S$6,600 → S$12,700 (45+)

Renewals meet the new floors a year later, from 1 January 2028. If a hire is close to the line, an application lodged before 1 January 2027 is assessed on today's floors — a real timing lever for the next few months.

Stage 2 — COMPASS, the 40-point test

Four foundational criteria score 0, 10 or 20 points each (MOM's scoring rubric):

Criterion	20 points	10 points	0 points
C1 Salary vs local PMET benchmarks for the sector and age	≥90th percentile	65th–90th	below 65th
C2 Qualifications	top-tier institution	degree-equivalent	none
C3 Diversity — candidate's nationality among firm's PMETs	under 5%	5–25%	25% or more
C4 Local employment — firm's local PMET share vs subsector	≥50th percentile	20th–50th	below 20th

Bonus points: C5 adds 20 where the role is on the Shortage Occupation List (reduced to 10 if the candidate's nationality already makes up a third or more of the firm's PMETs), and C6 adds 10 for firms partnered on strategic economic programmes. "PMET" is proxied by employees earning at least S$3,000 a month.

The founder's arithmetic

New and small companies get a deliberate concession: firms with fewer than 25 PMET employees score 10 default points on both C3 and C4 — 20 points before anyone looks at the candidate. The remaining 20 can be assembled several ways, and they do not require a maximum score on either criterion:

Route to the remaining 20	C1 salary	C2 qualifications
Two mid-tier scores	10 (65th–90th percentile)	10 (degree-equivalent)
Strong salary alone	20 (≥90th percentile)	0
Top-tier degree alone	0	20 (top-tier institution)

So a founder with an ordinary degree paying themselves at the 65th–90th percentile of local PMET salaries reaches exactly 40 and passes — the common case, and a far lower bar than a top-tier degree or a 90th-percentile salary. C5/C6 bonuses can add on top where they genuinely apply.

Where it does get hard is the founder with no degree-equivalent qualification and a below-65th-percentile salary: that combination scores 0 on both and cannot reach 40 on the small-firm defaults alone. The usual answers are to raise the salary into a scoring band, or to incorporate with a nominee resident director first, build substance, and apply once the numbers work. The blunt alternative: a fixed monthly salary of S$22,500 or more is exempt from COMPASS entirely.

Process, fees, family

Applications cost S$105, with S$225 on issuance, and most are processed within 10 business days (MOM). First-time passes are typically issued for up to two years, with longer renewals. A Dependant's Pass for a spouse and children under 21 requires the EP holder to earn at least S$6,000 fixed monthly.

If the EP doesn't fit: the other doors

• EntrePass — for founders with venture backing (at least S$100,000 from recognised investors), recognised incubator support, IP, or research collaboration; no salary floor and no COMPASS, but narrow criteria and renewal milestones tied to local spending and hiring (MOM).
• ONE Pass — a five-year, employer-agnostic pass. Salary alone is not automatically enough: candidates applying from overseas on the salary route generally also need to have worked for an established company meeting specified revenue or market-capitalisation thresholds, and there are separate non-salary routes for outstanding achievement in their field. Check the current criteria before assuming eligibility.
• Tech.Pass → ONE Pass (AI & Tech) — Tech.Pass remains open through 2026; from January 2027 MOM replaces it with a ONE Pass track for senior tech talent, where the S$30,000 bar can be met with S$22,500 cash plus vested equity.

Once the pass is approved and your hire starts, the employer obligations begin — payroll, and for local hires CPF. Note that EP holders themselves are not CPF-eligible; their cost is salary plus the pass fees, benchmarked honestly against the local hire the COMPASS framework is designed to have you consider.