Almost everyone who moves to Singapore for work or study arrives on one of three passes. Which one you get is not really your choice — it follows from your salary, your job and who is sponsoring you — but understanding the differences early saves a lot of confusion, because each pass comes with its own rules about family, changing jobs, and what happens when it ends.
Before you read. This is personal experience and opinion, not official advice. The figures below are the ones on MOM’s and ICA’s websites on the “last checked” date at the top of this page; they are revised regularly (the next salary increases are already announced for 1 January 2027), so use the links at the end to confirm before making decisions.
The short version
| Employment Pass (EP) | S Pass | Student’s Pass | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Who it’s for | Professionals, managers, executives | Mid-level skilled workers and technicians | Full-time students at an approved school |
| Who applies | Your employer | Your employer | You, via your school’s registration |
| Salary floor (general, 2026) | S$5,600, rising with age to S$10,700 at 45+ | S$3,300, rising with age to S$4,800 at 45+ | Not applicable |
| Extra hurdle | COMPASS points test (40 points needed) | Employer’s quota and a monthly levy | Acceptance into an approved full-time course |
| Bring family? | Yes, if you earn S$6,000+ (Dependant’s Pass) | Only if you earn S$6,000+ | No |
| Work allowed? | Only for the sponsoring employer | Only for the sponsoring employer | Up to 16 hours a week in term, at approved schools |
| Issued by | MOM | MOM | ICA |
Employment Pass: the professional’s pass
The EP is the one most people mean when they say “work visa”. It has two stages. First, your salary has to clear the qualifying floor. In general sectors that is S$5,600 a month if you are 23 or younger, rising with age to S$10,700 at 45 and above; financial services is higher, S$6,200 rising to S$11,800. From 1 January 2027 those floors go up again, to S$6,000 (S$11,500 at 45+) for general sectors and S$6,600 (S$12,700 at 45+) for financial services. The age scale catches people out: an offer that clears the bar for a 28-year-old may not clear it for a 44-year-old doing the same job.
Second, since 2023 every EP application is scored under COMPASS. You need 40 points across five criteria: your salary compared to local peers in the sector, your qualifications, how diverse the employer’s workforce nationality mix already is, how many locals the employer hires, and a bonus for jobs on the shortage occupation list. Two of those criteria are about the company, not you, which is why the same candidate can pass at one employer and fail at another. Anyone paid a fixed S$22,500 a month or more is exempt from COMPASS altogether, as are short-term roles of a month or less.
What this means in practice: ask your prospective employer, before you resign from your current job, whether they have run your profile through MOM’s self-assessment tool. Good HR teams do this routinely. If they look blank, that is useful information.
The EP is tied to the employer. Changing jobs means a new application by the new company, and there is no grace period to job-hunt if your pass is cancelled — you get a short-term visit pass and a matter of weeks. Plan job moves with the new pass in hand.
S Pass: the mid-skilled pass
The S Pass covers technicians, supervisors and skilled roles that don’t meet the EP salary bar. The floor is S$3,300 a month (S$3,800 in financial services), rising with age to S$4,800 (S$5,650 in financial services) at 45 and above. From 1 January 2027 the general floor moves to S$3,600. Declaring qualifications is now optional, but if the employer declares them they must be from an institution on MOM’s approved list.
The catch is on the employer’s side. S Pass holders count against a quota — a percentage of the company’s total workforce that varies by sector, with services the tightest — and the employer pays a monthly levy for each S Pass holder. Both make an S Pass more expensive and less certain for the employer than it looks from the outside, and it is the reason some job ads say “Singaporeans and PRs only”: the company has simply run out of quota.
Two things that matter for your life here. Bringing a spouse or children on a Dependant’s Pass needs a salary of at least S$6,000, which is well above the S Pass floor, so most S Pass holders cannot sponsor family. And like the EP, the pass belongs to the job — leave the employer and the pass is cancelled.
Student’s Pass: the study pass
If you have been accepted onto an approved full-time course — universities, polytechnics, ITE, international schools and a list of approved private institutions — you need a Student’s Pass from ICA, not MOM. Part-time, evening and weekend courses do not qualify. The exceptions are people already on a Dependant’s Pass or Long-Term Visit Pass, who can study on that.
The process runs through ICA’s SOLAR system. Your school registers you and gives you a registration acknowledgement letter; you then submit the application yourself. For institutes of higher learning, apply at least two months and not more than three months before the course starts. Processing takes about a week (two if you also need an entry visa), and there is a non-refundable S$45 processing fee, with an issuance fee on top when the pass is granted. You collect the pass in person after arriving.
On work: students at institutions on MOM’s approved list may work up to 16 hours a week during term without a separate work pass, and without an hours cap during official vacation, provided you are 14 or over, full-time, and your pass is valid. Exchange students cannot work at all. Working outside those limits is an offence and can end the pass, so check that your school is on the list before accepting a job.
Which one applies to me?
Work through it in this order. If you have a full-time place at an approved school, it is a Student’s Pass — the school will walk you through it. If you have a job offer, look at the monthly salary: at or above the EP floor for your age and sector, and the employer will apply for an EP and run COMPASS; below that but above S$3,300, it is an S Pass, and the employer needs quota. Below S$3,300 you are looking at a Work Permit, which has its own rules and is outside the scope of this guide.
If you are close to a threshold, remember the floors rise on 1 January 2027, and that a pass renewal is checked against the rules in force at renewal time, not the ones you were first approved under.
Questions to ask before you accept
- Which pass will you apply for, and have you checked my profile against the salary floor for my age and COMPASS (EP) or your quota (S Pass)?
- Is the salary in the offer fixed monthly salary? Allowances and bonuses do not count towards the floor.
- How long will the application take, and will you cover the pass fees?
- If I want to bring my family, does the salary clear S$6,000?
- Does the application include the Dependant’s Pass for my spouse and children, or is that separate?
Read next
Once your In-Principle Approval arrives, the first 30 days checklist takes over: pass collection, Singpass, bank account and a place to live, in the right order.