Minimum Wage in Singapore (2026): PWM, LQS and Employer Cost

No. Singapore has no single statutory minimum wage that covers every worker. Instead, the Ministry of Manpower sets mandatory pay floors for specific jobs through the Progressive Wage Model (PWM), and a general floor, the Local Qualifying Salary (LQS), for local staff at any company that employs foreign workers. Singapore is one of a handful of countries in our minimum wage by country tracker that set pay floors by sector rather than nationally.

For foreign hires, the floor is set by the work pass instead: an Employment Pass or S Pass is only issued above a minimum qualifying salary. The Employment Act covers almost every employee but sets no wage amount, so a local hire at a firm with no foreign staff and no PWM role has no legal pay floor at all.

The government’s position is that a single minimum wage would become a ceiling as well as a floor. PWM ladders tie pay to job level and training, with a fixed schedule of annual increases agreed by unions, employers and government, so each rung rises on a known date.

The floor depends on two things: the worker’s status (citizen or permanent resident versus foreign pass holder) and the job. Work through the table in order and apply the first row that fits; where more than one applies, the highest floor wins.

PWM wages range from S$2,080 to S$3,090 a month at entry level, for full-time staff working 35 to 44 hours a week. The table shows the rates in force on 24 October 2026, taken from each sector page on the MOM Progressive Wage Model site. Part-time staff are paid pro-rata hourly rates published alongside.

Cleaning, landscape, lift and escalator and outsourced security set a minimum basic wage, so allowances cannot be counted towards it. Retail, food services, waste management, in-house security and the OPWs set a minimum gross wage, which includes allowances and productivity incentives but excludes overtime, bonuses, the Annual Wage Supplement and employer CPF.

Each sector also sets training requirements per rung, and the top roles (retail managers, senior cooks, waste collection captains) are left to market pay. Cleaning has the most detail: office, F&B and conservancy sites each have their own rungs, with conservancy general cleaners on S$2,495 and F&B table-top cleaners on S$2,180 from 1 July 2026.

PWM rates rise every year on fixed dates already published to 2028. Each sector has a Tripartite Cluster of unions, employers and government agencies that recommends a multi-year schedule, which MOM then makes mandatory through work pass rules and sector licensing.

The National Wages Council (NWC) adds an annual guideline on top. Its 2026/2027 guidelines, accepted by the government on 19 October 2026, ask employers to give workers earning up to S$2,800 gross a month a raise of 6% to 8%, or at least S$120 to S$170, between 1 December 2026 and 30 November 2027. The guidelines are voluntary, but PWM rates are not.

The food services 2025 rate ran from 1 March 2025 to 30 June 2026. The 2026 driver figure is the new Group A Level 1 rung, which replaced the general driver rung on 1 July 2026.

Over four years the cleaner floor rises 43% and the LQS 29%. No change to the LQS or the CPF ceiling has been announced for 2027.

The LQS is S$1,800 a month for full-time local employees and S$10.50 an hour for part-timers, from 1 July 2026, up from S$1,600. It applies to every citizen and PR on a contract of service, including directors, at any firm that employs Work Permit or S Pass holders, according to the MOM LQS page.

It works through the foreign worker quota. Locals count towards the quota that decides how many Work Permit and S Pass holders a company may employ, and only locals paid at least the LQS count in full.

Firms that hire foreign workers must also pay PWM or OPW wages to locals in covered roles and at least the LQS to every other local. A firm that falls short cannot apply for or renew work passes until it fixes the gap.

Overtime raises the requirement: staff working more than 44 hours a week must clear a higher LQS figure for each extra hour, set out in an MOM schedule.

Foreign professionals and mid-skilled workers are not covered by PWM or the LQS. Their floor is the work pass qualifying salary, which rises with age, is higher in financial services, and is rising again in January 2027 for new applications and January 2028 for renewals, per MOM’s Employment Pass and S Pass eligibility pages.

An EP also has to pass COMPASS, a 40-point test scored on salary against local benchmarks, qualifications, nationality diversity and local hiring. Roles paying a fixed S$22,500 a month or more are exempt. The current S Pass minimum of S$3,300 has applied to new applications since 1 September 2025 and to renewals since 1 September 2026.

Work Permit holders have no salary floor, but each one costs a monthly levy (S$450 for a basic-skilled worker in the services sector’s first tier) and counts against a quota. From 2028 the services and manufacturing levy tiers merge. Our guide to EOR visas and work permits covers the application side.

Workfare Income Supplement (WIS) is a government payment to lower-paid citizens, not an employer cost. It goes to Singapore citizens aged 30 and above (any age for persons with disabilities) who earn S$500 to S$3,000 a month, with 40% paid in cash and 60% into the worker’s CPF, according to the CPF Board.

The employer’s part is to pay wages and CPF correctly and on time. WIS is calculated from the CPF contributions an employer submits, so late or missing CPF delays the worker’s payout as well as triggering penalties for the employer. Permanent residents and foreign workers are not eligible.

Employers pay 17% CPF on top of wages for citizens and PRs aged 55 and under, on ordinary wages up to S$8,000 a month from 1 January 2026, according to the CPF Board. The employee pays a further 20% by deduction from pay. Rates fall with age, and the ceiling rose from S$7,400 in 2025.

From 1 January 2027 the employer rate rises to 16.5% for ages 55 to 60 and 13% for ages 60 to 65; the CPF Transition Offset partly covers that rise for 2027. Wages between S$50 and S$750 carry phased-in rates, with no employee share below S$500. New PRs start on graduated rates of 4% (year one) and 9% (year two) for the employer before moving to the full rate.

Bonuses are additional wages, subject to the annual salary ceiling of S$102,000 for ordinary and additional wages combined. Foreign pass holders do not pay CPF at all.

The Skills Development Levy (SDL) is 0.25% of each employee’s monthly pay, with a minimum of S$2 and a maximum of S$11.25 per worker. It applies to every employee, including part-timers and foreign pass holders, and is paid with CPF each month.

A full-time citizen cleaner on the 2026 PWM rate of S$2,080 costs an employer S$2,532.80 a month, 21.8% above the wage. The add-ons are employer CPF, the PWM bonus and the skills levy; Singapore has no separate payroll tax or social insurance for employers.

For a foreign pass holder the CPF line disappears and a work pass levy may take its place, so the comparison between a local and a foreign hire is closer than the salary floors suggest.

Assumptions: general office cleaner aged 55 or under, rate from 1 July 2026. CPF is rounded under CPF Board rules (37% total of S$769.60 rounds to S$770, less the S$416 employee share). The two-week PWM bonus is S$960 a year (S$2,080 x 12 / 52 x 2), or S$80 a month, plus S$13.60 employer CPF. Work injury insurance is extra and varies by insurer.

Two points stand out. Older locals are cheaper to employ because CPF rates fall after 55, though less so from 2027. And an S Pass hire at the minimum costs S$650 a month in levy before any recruitment or pass fees. To model a specific role, use the EOR cost calculator or the calculator in the Singapore hiring guide.

A worker on a PWM wage pays little or no income tax, and employers do not withhold tax monthly from residents. Singapore has no pay-as-you-earn system: residents file and pay their own tax, and employers report annual pay to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS) on Form IR8A by 1 March, mostly through the Auto-Inclusion Scheme.

A cleaner on S$2,080 earns about S$25,920 a year including the PWM bonus. After CPF relief on the 20% employee contribution and earned income relief, chargeable income falls below S$20,000, so the tax bill is zero.

Non-residents, generally anyone working in Singapore for fewer than 183 days in a year, pay 15% on employment income or resident rates, whichever is higher. When a foreign employee leaves, the employer must seek tax clearance on Form IR21 and withhold final pay until IRAS clears it.

Normal hours are capped at 44 a week, and overtime is paid at least 1.5 times the hourly basic rate, according to MOM’s hours of work rules. These rules sit in Part 4 of the Employment Act, which covers workmen earning up to S$4,500 basic a month and other employees earning up to S$2,600, so nearly every PWM and LQS worker is covered.

PWM sectors add their own overtime requirements. In food services, waste management, retail and the OPWs, staff who work beyond 44 hours must reach a higher gross wage figure as well as the 1.5x rate, and the LQS scales up with overtime hours in the same way. Rest day and public holiday work carry further premiums under the Employment Act.

Paid annual leave starts at 7 days in the first year, once an employee has served three months, and rises by one day a year to 14 days. It applies to employees covered by the Employment Act, which includes nearly all PWM and LQS staff.

Singapore also has 11 paid public holidays. Outsourced PWM workers in several sectors, including landscape and lift and escalator, are due to see minimum annual leave rise from 7 to 10 days from 2029, on a timeline still being agreed.

After three months of service, employees get 14 days of paid outpatient sick leave and up to 60 days of hospitalisation leave a year, inclusive of the 14.

Eligible mothers get 16 weeks of maternity leave and fathers 4 weeks of paternity leave. From 1 April 2026, parents also share 10 weeks of shared parental leave, taking the total to 30 weeks. For citizen children most of this is government-paid: the employer pays the employee and claims the money back, so the main cost is cover for the absence.

Singapore has no general 13th-month law, but the Annual Wage Supplement (AWS), usually one month’s pay, is common practice and candidates often expect it. Two PWM bonuses are mandatory: at least two weeks of basic wage a year for cleaners and landscape workers, and at least one month for waste management workers.

Either side can end employment with the contractual notice or pay in lieu. There is no statutory severance; retrenchment benefits for staff with two or more years of service are set by contract or collective agreement, and tripartite guidance points to between two weeks and one month of pay per year of service.

From 1 July 2026 the minimum retirement age is 64 and the re-employment age 69. Employers must offer re-employment to eligible staff who reach 64, which matters in PWM sectors where many workers are older.

PWM floors sit well below typical pay. The median gross monthly income of full-time employed residents was S$5,775 in 2025, including employer CPF, and the 20th percentile was S$3,164, according to preliminary figures released by MOM in November 2025.

Even counting employer CPF, a cleaner on S$2,080 receives about S$2,434 a month, well under half the median, and the S$1,800 LQS sits further below. For skilled roles these floors are compliance minimums, not benchmarks: offers for professional roles start near the EP threshold and above. Costs at higher salary levels are worked through in the Singapore hiring guide.

Singapore is one of the most expensive cities in Asia, alongside Hong Kong, and rent is the largest pressure on a low wage. Most PWM workers are citizens who live in public HDB housing, which keeps costs down, while foreign low-wage staff usually live in employer-provided dormitories.

That is why the system leans on transfers as well as wages: Workfare, housing grants and CPF top-ups lift the income of low-wage citizens beyond what the PWM floor alone provides. Employers who pay a little above the floor tend to find hiring and retention easier in a tight labour market.

The main penalty for missing a PWM or LQS rate is losing the right to employ foreign staff. MOM blocks new work pass applications and renewals until the firm pays the required wages, and in licensed sectors the cleaning, security, landscape, lift and waste regulators can refuse or withdraw the licence or registration a company needs to operate.

Late or short CPF payments attract late payment interest and can lead to prosecution, and failing to pay salary on time is an offence under the Employment Act. Underpaying a foreign worker against the salary declared in a work pass application, or taking salary back as a kickback, is treated as a serious work pass offence.

Salaries are paid in Singapore dollars, usually monthly and within seven days of the end of the salary period. Citizens and PRs need CPF registration from the first month, every employee needs SDL, and foreign staff need a work pass issued before they start.

The system is simple compared with most of Asia, but it is data-driven: MOM sees every CPF submission, so a wage below the PWM, LQS or declared pass salary shows up quickly.

Companies without a Singapore entity can hire through an employer of record, which acts as the legal employer and handles contracts, payroll, CPF, SDL, IR8A reporting and work pass applications. Because the EOR’s own workforce decides its foreign worker quota and LQS position, check how a provider handles S Pass and EP sponsorship before you sign. Our guide to the best EOR providers in Singapore compares them, and the Singapore hiring guide covers costs at every salary level, work passes and contracts.

Short answers to what employers ask most about PWM, the LQS, work pass salary floors and the real cost of a low-wage hire, checked against MOM and CPF Board guidance on 24 October 2026.