Singapore Work Visa for Indian Professionals: Types, Eligibility, and How to Apply in 2026

The Employment Pass (EP), the S Pass, and the Work Permit are the three main types of work permits in Singapore that Indian professionals need. Each one has different requirements for processing, eligibility, and minimum salaries.

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Source: Ministry of Manpower Singapore. Verify current thresholds before submission.

Note: 2027 update: As announced in Budget 2026, EP minimum salaries will increase to SGD 6,000 (general) and SGD 6,600 (financial services) for new applications from 1 January 2027. Renewals of passes expiring from 1 January 2028 must also meet the new thresholds. If your current offer is between SGD 5,600 and SGD 6,000, discuss the 2027 renewal implications with your employer before accepting

Counselor insight: Indian professionals often assume that the salary they are offered is sufficient for an EP position without checking whether the Financial Services threshold applies to their job. If you are keen to work for a bank, insurance company, asset manager, or fintech company regulated by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS), you must pay an additional SGD 6,200. Check with your boss about this fee before you send in your application.

There is a points system called COMPASS that is used to evaluate all new Employment Pass applications starting in January 2023. It's not enough to just make the salary threshold. You also need to get at least 40 points on all of the COMPASS criteria.

COMPASS has four foundational criteria (Salary, Qualifications, Diversity, and Local Support, each scored 0–20 points) plus two bonus criteria: a +20-point Shortage Occupation List (SOL) bonus if your role is on MOM's in-demand list and a +10-point Strategic Economic Priorities bonus if your employer is part of an approved government investment program. The minimum passing score is 40 points across all six criteria combined:

• Salary: How much you make compared to the local PMET (Professionals, Managers, Executives, and Technicians) average for your job and age group.
• Diversity: The percentage of employees at your company who are from your country. If Indians already make up a big part of the staff, you get fewer points on this criterion.
• Local workforce: The ratio of local professionals to foreign professionals working for you; employers with a better track record of hiring locals will be rewarded.
• Skills bonus: If your job is on MOM's Shortage Occupation List, or if you have a degree from a school that is known all over the world.

Candidates from India who meet the criteria for the skills bonus should have degrees from top universities, according to the QS World University Rankings. People who graduated from IIT, IIM, NIT, or BITS Pilani can get the full skills bonus. Indian applicants from Tier 2 or Tier 3 schools may get fewer points here, so they'll need to make up for it with a better salary offer.

At mom.gov.sg, MOM has a free self-assessment COMPASS calculator that you and your employer can use to get an idea of your score before you officially apply for a Singapore work visa. Do this math first every time.

Counselor insight: Indian applicants from IITs or NITs often do better than they think on the skills bonus test. In most cases, you can get the full bonus if your school is in the QS top 200. But if your university isn't in MOM's list of recognised institutions, you should ask your boss to get a credential evaluation from a recognised third-party body and send it in with your application. This step is often skipped, and it's one of the main reasons Indian applicants are turned down for lack of credentials.

Only employers can apply for a work visa to Singapore. You can't start the application or send it in yourself. This is how it works, step by step:

• Step 1: Getting a job offer. Before the company in Singapore can apply for your Singapore work visa, they need to have a signed offer letter from you. The salary in the job offer letter needs to be at least the EP level for your field.
• Step 1b: Employer action. Before submitting, your employer must advertise the role on MyCareersFuture for at least 14 days under the Fair Consideration Framework (FCF). Exemptions apply for salaries above SGD 22,500 and certain senior roles. Ask your employer whether they have completed this step; it typically adds 2–3 weeks to the pre-application phase.
• Step 2: The employer sends it through EP Online. Your employer (or the job agent they hired) sends in your application through the EP Online portal on the MOM website. They put your school records, work history, passport information, and salary information online.
• Step 3: We sent out a letter of In-Principle Approval (IPA). If MOM agrees with the application, they send an IPA letter. This is not the work pass itself; it is a permit with rules. Usually, the IPA is valid for six months.
• Step 4: You get to Singapore. You can get into Singapore with an Employment Pass or a Visit Pass. You need the IPA letter. Indian citizens will also have to go to the Singapore High Commission in India to get an Entry Visa if they need one.
• Step 5: The employer turns on the EP. Your company will finish the EP process through MOM once you get to Singapore. MOM then sends out the real Employment Pass card. You can't work until the pass is turned on.

Time for processing varies. Usually, it takes three weeks for an EP to be processed after it is submitted. Standard processing takes approximately 2–3 weeks from submission. If MOM requires manual credential verification, processing can extend to 8 weeks.

Counselor insight: Indian professionals often think they can start working as soon as they get to Singapore, according to counselors. It is against Singapore's Employment of Foreign Manpower Act for you and your boss to start working before your EP is activated. Do not plan your trip based on the IPA date alone.

Your employer assembles and sends most of the paperwork, but you must provide some of it. This table lists all the documents that are needed and gives advice on how to fill them out in India.

Counselor insight: The main reason why Indian applicants for work visas in Singapore have to wait so long is that they take too long to collect their documents. If you lose your degree certificate from a private Indian university, it can take between 4 and 8 weeks to get a new one. As soon as you hear an offer over the phone, not after you sign the contract, start gathering your papers.

The employer has to pay the SGD 105 (Rs.7,694 or $105) application fee for each job pass. Once the application is accepted, the employer also pays the SGD 225 fee, which is equal to Rs.16,488 or $225. Legally, employers can ask employees to pay back some costs, so make sure you understand how this will work before you accept the offer.

Extra fees that Indian applicants need to pay:

• The fee to apply for a Dependent's Pass is SGD 105 (Rs.7,694 or $105) per dependent.
• Indian citizens need to pay SGD 30 (Rs.2,100 or $30) for an entry visa. If you need a credential evaluation, it costs between Rs.8,000 and Rs.15,000 ($96 and $179), but this depends on the company doing the evaluation.

Counselor insight: Most Indian professionals only plan to spend money on the EP application fee and forget to include the cost of the Entry Visa, the evaluation of credentials (if needed), and the time it takes to get Indian documents ready. The total cost in India before you get to Singapore is usually between Rs. 12,000 and Rs. 25,000 ($144 and $299), depending on whether your credentials need to be checked.

This calendar is based on the idea that Indian professionals usually give 90 days' notice before leaving a job. Change it if your notice period is too short or too long. If you're planning to leave around March, keep in mind that filing taxes and final settlement in India can take a while.

The kind of Singapore work visa you get depends on your job, your salary, your qualifications, the makeup of the employer's workforce, and the industry you work in. Here are three situations that only happen in India.

Are you in your last year of BTech or MTech at an IIT, NIT, or BITS Pilani? If so, and a Singaporean tech company has offered you a job paying SGD 6,000 or more per month, you are a strong EP candidate. You can get the COMPASS skills bonus because of your degree, and your salary easily meets the requirements. Your boss should apply for a Singapore work visa in March or April 2026, before you graduate, so that the IPA letter is ready when you finish your degree. After your final exams, make sure you have your provisional certificate with the university seal right away. Your real degree certificate won't come out for a few months.

The EP threshold for that sector is currently SGD 6,200. If you are an Indian IT professional with 5 years of experience and your Singaporean employer has offered you SGD 4,500 per month to work in a Financial Services firm, you do not meet that threshold. Your boss can either raise the offer to meet the minimum level or they can apply for an S Pass (minimum level: SGD 3,150). There are limits on how many S Passes an employer can give out. Before you accept the job offer, you should ask your boss directly what kind of pass they are applying for and if they have room for a new employee in their current S Pass quota. The most common reason Indian IT professionals' work visas are turned down for Singapore is a salary offer below the Financial Services EP threshold. Such a situation is something that can be avoided.

You are in a favourable position if you have an MBA from NUS, NTU, SMU, or another Singaporean school and can find work in Singapore. Your degree from a university in Singapore gets you a good COMPASS skills bonus, and employers in Singapore tend to have good workforce diversity ratios. The most important thing for you is to act quickly: your employer must send in the EP application while you are still in Singapore legally with a valid Student's Pass. Do not wait until your Student's Pass is about to run out. You should start the process of getting a Singapore work visa at least two to three months before your Student's Pass expires.

Read about job opportunities in Singapore for Indians to learn more about the job market before you apply. See the full guide to the Singapore study visa for Indian students for more information on how to make the change if you studied in Singapore on a student visa.

A rejection of a Singapore work visa isn't always the end of the story. MOM doesn't always say the exact reason why an application was turned down, but for Indian applicants, these are the most common reasons:

• score of less than 40 points, usually because of a low salary compared to the benchmark or problems with employer diversity
• The educational credentials were not checked, or they were not found in MOM's database.
• The employer had more S-passes than they needed.
• Offer of pay below the minimum level for the applicant's field
• Documents that are missing or don't match up (for example, pay stubs with different numbers than those in the experience letter).

If your EP application is turned down, you have three months to appeal it through EP Online. Your boss sends the appeal along with more supporting documents. For Indian applicants, the best ways to appeal are:

• Ask MOM for information about your COMPASS score. The breakdown will reveal which criterion received a low score.
• If it was the salary that was the problem, make the offer better. Your boss changes the contract and sends it again.
• Send in a report on your credentials from a body approved by the MOM if your Indian university was not recognised.
• If the diversity criterion was low, ask your boss to look at their workforce diversity data. This may require the employer to change their hiring practices before reapplying.

However, if the appeal fails, you can submit a new application after resolving the main issue. No set amount of time must pass between applications.

Counselor insight: It's common for the first Singapore work visa application to be turned down, especially if the Indian applicant's university isn't immediately recognised by MOM's verification system. If you want to appeal a rejection based on credentials, usually you can get the employer to send in a formal credential evaluation from a verification body listed by MOM. Do not think that a first rejection means the end of the application process until you know which COMPASS criteria failed.

If your monthly salary is SGD 6,000 or more (Rs.4,39,680 or $6,000), you can apply for a Dependent's Pass (DP) for your spouse and children under 21 who are not married. If you make less than SGD 6,000 a year, your family members may be able to get a Long-Term Visit Pass (LTVP), which gives them fewer rights to work.

Once you have activated your EP, you (the EP holder) fill out the Dependent's Pass application through EP Online. It takes about three to five weeks to process. For a spouse application, you will need to show your marriage certificate, and for children, your birth certificates. Indian documents need to be attested before they can be sent. For the latest attestation rules, contact the Singapore High Commission in India.

MOM's Dependent's Pass guidelines say that someone with a Dependent's Pass can work in Singapore without a separate work pass as long as their EP-holder sponsor makes at least SGD 6,000 a month.

• Take the COMPASS test on mom.gov.sg before your boss sends in the application. If your estimated score is less than 40, figure out what the problem is, whether it's salary or verifying credentials and fix it before you send it in, instead of after you've been turned down.
• As soon as you get a job offer over the phone, get all of your Indian documents together. It can take 4 to 8 weeks to get degree certificates, mark sheets, and experience letters from previous Indian employers. This is the main reason why Indian applicants for Singapore work visas are often delayed.
• If the salary offer you get is less than the EP threshold, you should ask your boss directly if a S Pass is an option. For many Indian professionals, the S Pass is a valid work permit, and it doesn't stop you from applying for an EP in the future once you meet the requirements.

Verified by LeapScholar's Singapore counselling team. Have questions? Book a free session with a LeapScholar counselor.