The number of S Pass holders you can hire is limited by a quota. You must also pay a monthly levy for these workers.
Quota requirement
A dependency ratio ceiling (DRC), or quota, is the maximum ratio of foreign workers to the total workforce that a company in a given sector can employ.
| Sector |
DRC |
| Construction |
83.3% |
| Process |
83.3% |
| Marine shipyard |
77.8% |
| Manufacturing |
60% |
| Services |
35% |
If the DRC for the services sector is 35%, the total number of Work Permit and S Pass holders employed by a services company cannot exceed 35% of its total workforce.
In addition, the number of PRC Work Permit holders your company can hire is limited by a PRC sub-quota and is capped at:
- 8% of your company’s total workforce if your company is in the services sector.
- 25% of your company’s total workforce if your company is in the manufacturing sector.
Under the existing quota, the number of S Pass holders your company can hire is capped at:
- 10% of the company’s total workforce in the services sector.
- 15% in the construction, manufacturing, marine shipyard and process sectors.
We use information from your company’s CPF account to compute the number of local employees hired by your company, which determines the foreign worker quota.
The foreign worker quota is calculated based on the average number of local employees in your company over the last 3 months. To ensure your quota is calculated correctly, please declare the paid salaries and CPF contributions of your local employees promptly and accurately.
The Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) determines the number of local employees who can be used to calculate your Work Permit and S Pass quota entitlement.
A Singaporean or Permanent Resident employee employed under a contract of service, including the company’s director, is counted as:
- 1 local employee if they earn the LQS of at least $1,400 per month.
- 0.5 local employee if they earn half the LQS of at least $700 to below $1,400 per month.
The number of local employees will be updated every Saturday and you can check the quota balance on the next working day.
Any late or non-payment of CPF contributions and salaries declaration will affect your quota and may cause your foreign workers to be allocated higher levy tiers.
You may:
Calculate your quota
If you have never applied for a Work Permit or S Pass, you need to declare your business activity. Based on your declaration, we will assign your company to the most relevant sector, which determines the number of Work Permit and S Pass holders you can hire.
Levy requirement
The foreign worker levy, commonly known as “levy”, is a pricing mechanism to regulate the number of foreign workers in Singapore.
As an employer, you must pay the levy for all your S Pass holders. The levy liability starts from the day the S Pass is issued and ends when the pass is cancelled or expires.
You have to pay the levy using GIRO.
Levy rate
For the services sector, the levy rate is as follows:
|
Tier
|
Quota %
|
Monthly levy rate
|
Daily levy rate
|
|
Basic / Tier 1
|
Up to 10% of the total workforce
|
$550 |
$18.09
|
If you temporarily exceed the 10% S Pass quota for the services sector due to workforce attrition, you will be charged the Tier 2 levy rate for the excess S Passes.
For all sectors (excluding services), the levy rate is as follows:
|
Tier
|
Quota %
|
Monthly levy rate
|
Daily levy rate
|
|
Basic / Tier 1
|
Up to 10% of the total workforce
|
$550 |
$18.09 |
|
Tier 2
|
Above 10% to 15% of the total workforce
|
$650
|
$21.37 |
Levy rates are regularly reviewed and adjusted as required. See the upcoming changes in S Pass levy rates and quota.
Note: The daily levy rate applies only to S Pass holders who did not work for a full calendar month. The daily levy rate is calculated as follows: (Monthly levy rate x 12) / 365 = rounding up to the nearest cent.