Setting up a company in Singapore is the easy part. Securing the right to live here and run it yourself is where many foreign founders lose time, and the decision that shapes everything is which work pass you hold. For someone starting their own business, the choice comes down to two options: the Employment Pass and the EntrePass.
Both let a foreigner work in Singapore, but they are built around completely different ideas. The Employment Pass treats you as a professional employed by a company. The EntrePass treats you as the owner of a venture. That difference decides what you have to prove, how long it takes, and whether you qualify at all.
A lot of founders assume the EntrePass is the pass for entrepreneurs and plan their move around it, only to find the bar is higher and narrower than expected. In practice, the Employment Pass is the better fit for most people setting up a company. This guide walks through both in detail so you can make the call with confidence before you file anything.
The short version
The Employment Pass is the route most founders take. There is no ownership test and no requirement that the business be innovative, so it works for almost any company, including profitable but ordinary ones. What it asks in return is that your company pays you a qualifying salary and that the application scores at least 40 points on a framework called COMPASS.
The EntrePass is a specialist pass for founders building innovative or venture-backed companies. It has no salary requirement and no COMPASS scoring, and it recognises your ownership directly. In exchange, it sets a high bar on the business itself, requires you to hold at least 30% of the company throughout, and ties every renewal to growing business spending and local hiring.
If you can pay yourself a proper salary and your business is conventional, the Employment Pass is almost always cleaner. If your company is funded, built on intellectual property, or backed by an accelerator, the EntrePass is worth the extra effort.
Employment Pass and EntrePass at a glance
| Employment Pass | EntrePass | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it suits | Founders running a conventional or established business who can pay themselves a market salary | Founders building an innovative or venture-backed company with funding, IP or accelerator support |
| How you are sponsored | Your own company sponsors you as an employee | You sponsor yourself as the owner, through your company |
| Ownership in the company | Not required. You hold the pass as an employee, whatever your shareholding | You must hold at least 30% of the issued shares, for the full life of the pass |
| Salary you must be paid | A qualifying monthly salary set by age and sector, from S$5,600 in 2026 | None. There is no salary floor |
| How the application is judged | You clear the qualifying salary, then score at least 40 points on COMPASS | MOM assesses the strength of the business: its innovation, its funding, and your track record |
| Innovation requirement | None | The business must be genuinely innovative or venture-backed |
| First validity | Up to two years, then up to three years on renewal | One year, with renewals tied to business milestones |
| Typical processing time | Around three weeks | Around eight weeks or more, and a business plan is required |
| Bringing your family | Possible once you earn at least S$6,000 a month | Possible once the business meets its operating milestones |
Employment Pass: how it works for founders
The Employment Pass is issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM) to foreign professionals, managers, executives and specialists who hold a job with a Singapore company. It is tied to one employer and one role. If you change companies, a new application has to be filed.
Using your own company as the sponsor
Since the Employment Pass needs an employer, a founder becomes an employee of their own company and has that company sponsor the pass. The sequence usually runs like this.
First, you incorporate the company. Every Singapore company needs at least one director who is ordinarily resident here, from the day it is registered, and a foreign founder rarely qualifies for that on arrival. Most founders solve this by appointing a nominee resident director through a corporate service provider, purely to meet the requirement while the company gets going. This is the step first-time founders most often overlook, and getting it wrong can hold up the whole setup.
Once the company is incorporated and operational, it sponsors your Employment Pass. When the pass is approved and issued, you can take over as the resident director yourself and the nominee arrangement can end. From that point you are both the owner and the person legally running the business, drawing a salary from it like any other senior employee.
The first test: your salary
An Employment Pass application has to clear two separate tests, and salary is the first. The qualifying salary is a fixed monthly figure that rises with age and differs by sector. For applications in 2026, it starts at S$5,600 a month in most sectors and S$6,200 a month in financial services. Those are the floors for the youngest applicants. The figure climbs steadily with age, reaching roughly S$10,700 in most sectors and S$11,800 in financial services for candidates in their mid-forties.
There is a catch worth understanding early. Clearing the floor only gets you through the first gate. Inside COMPASS, your salary is scored again, and a salary that only just meets the minimum earns zero points on that measure. To score well, the salary needs room above the floor, not just enough to satisfy it.
The second test: COMPASS
Since September 2023, most Employment Pass applications also have to pass COMPASS, a points system that needs a minimum of 40 points. It has six parts. Four are scored, each worth 0, 10 or 20 points depending on whether you fall short of, meet, or exceed expectations:
- Salary (C1). How your pay compares with local professional salaries in the same sector and age group.
- Qualifications (C2). Whether you hold a degree from a recognised or top-tier institution. A degree is not compulsory, and your qualifications are verified once by a MOM-approved screening firm.
- Diversity (C3). How your nationality sits within the makeup of the firm’s professional staff.
- Support for local employment (C4). How the firm’s share of local professionals compares with others in its sector.
Two further parts are bonuses that can lift a borderline score: a skills bonus for roles on the Shortage Occupation List, and a strategic bonus for firms taking part in recognised government programmes.
Here is the point that matters most to founders, and that is often misunderstood. A company with fewer than 25 professional employees is given 10 points each on Diversity and Support for Local Employment automatically. That is 20 points a brand new startup receives before salary or qualifications are even counted. A founder paying themselves a healthy salary and holding a recognised degree can usually get past 40 points comfortably, with no local team in place yet. The common worry that a one-person company cannot pass COMPASS is, in most cases, simply not true.
There is also a shortcut at the top end. A candidate on a fixed salary of S$22,500 a month or more is exempt from COMPASS entirely, as are staff transferred in from an overseas branch of the same group and people filling very short assignments. The qualifying salary still applies.
Validity, renewal and family
A first Employment Pass is usually granted for up to two years, and renewals for up to three, with a longer five-year term available for some experienced technology roles in short supply. At renewal, the application is assessed against the salary and COMPASS rules in force at the time, so it pays to keep an eye on both as thresholds move.
On family, an Employment Pass holder earning a fixed monthly salary of at least S$6,000 can sponsor a spouse and unmarried children under 21 for a Dependant’s Pass. Parents are not eligible for a Dependant’s Pass, though a holder earning at least S$12,000 a month can sponsor them for a Long-Term Visit Pass. One detail trips people up: “fixed monthly salary” means basic pay and fixed allowances only, not bonuses, commissions or reimbursements, so a package that only just reaches S$6,000 deserves a careful look.
EntrePass: how it works for founders
The EntrePass is built for a narrower group: founders of companies that are innovative or venture-backed rather than conventional. It carries no salary floor and no COMPASS scoring, which sounds easier until you see what it does test. It scrutinises the business itself, and it holds you to rising commercial targets at every renewal.
What “innovative or venture-backed” actually means
This is the part that catches people out. The EntrePass is not a general founder’s pass. MOM is looking for a company that is scalable and innovation-led, with something that sets it apart, whether that is technology, intellectual property, or serious investor backing. A consultancy, a trading company, or a straightforward service business will not clear this bar, however profitable it is. If that describes your business, the Employment Pass is the pass to look at.
The two layers you have to satisfy
An EntrePass application works on two levels, and both have to hold. On your side, you must own at least 30% of the shares in a Singapore private limited company and take an active, hands-on role in running it. A passive shareholding does not count. On the company’s side, the business has to be genuinely innovative or venture-backed, as described above.
Beyond that, you need to meet at least one of MOM’s qualifying criteria. In practice, this usually means one of the following:
- Your company has raised meaningful funding, from around S$100,000, from a recognised investor such as a venture capital firm, an accredited angel investor, a corporate venture arm, or a family office.
- You hold registered intellectual property, such as a patent.
- Your company is backed by a recognised incubator or accelerator.
- You have a research collaboration with a Singapore institute of higher learning or a research institution.
- You have a track record of founding and building venture-backed or innovative businesses.
Meeting more than one of these is not required, but a stronger profile makes for a stronger application.
Applying, and the businesses that are shut out
You can apply either before or after you incorporate. If you apply first and MOM approves the concept, you receive an approval in principle and then register the company and meet the conditions. If you apply after incorporating, the company has to be no more than six months old at the point of application. Either way, the centrepiece of the application is a business plan of up to ten pages covering the concept, the market, the revenue model, the ownership structure and the hiring plan.
Some business types are excluded outright. Coffee shops, food courts, bars and nightclubs, foot reflexology and massage outlets, employment agencies, traditional medicine shops and similar trades cannot use the EntrePass. Founders in those sectors are directed toward the Employment Pass instead.
The renewal ladder, and why it matters
An EntrePass is first issued for a single year, and each renewal asks more of the business than the last:
- First renewal, one year. You need only show that you still hold at least 30% of the company. There is no spending or hiring requirement yet.
- Second renewal, two years. Total business spending of S$100,000, plus one local professional employee earning at least S$3,900 a month.
- Third renewal, two years. Total business spending of S$200,000, plus two local professional employees.
- Fourth renewal, two years. Total business spending of S$300,000, plus three local professional employees.
This is the real cost of the EntrePass. It is not a pass you hold quietly in the background; it expects the company to grow and to hire locally on a set schedule, and it checks. A venture that stalls can find itself unable to renew.
The 30% rule you cannot ignore
Your 30% shareholding has to stay in place for the entire life of the pass. This becomes a live issue the moment you raise money. A funding round, a new co-founder, or any restructuring that pushes your stake below 30% can put you out of compliance with your pass, even if it is good for the business. Equity decisions and immigration status have to be planned together, not separately.
Family and government support
An EntrePass holder can bring family on a Dependant’s Pass, but eligibility is tied to the business meeting its operating milestones rather than to any personal salary. Separately, EntrePass founders sit within Singapore’s wider support system, from co-investment schemes such as Startup SG Founder and Startup SG Equity, to Enterprise Singapore grants, recognised incubators and accelerators, and startup tax incentives.
A worked example: two founders, two passes
The clearest way to see the difference is through two founders arriving in the same month.
Founder A is setting up a boutique consulting firm. The business is profitable and well run, but it is not built on new technology and it has taken no outside investment. She plans to pay herself S$9,000 a month and holds a degree from a well-regarded university. For her, the EntrePass is closed, because the business is not innovative or venture-backed. The Employment Pass fits comfortably. Her salary clears the floor with room to spare, her small firm picks up the default COMPASS points for diversity and local employment, and her degree adds more, so she passes COMPASS without difficulty.
Founder B is building a software company with a patented product and S$500,000 of seed funding from a recognised venture capital firm. He owns 60% of the company and would rather reinvest than draw a large salary early on. For him, the EntrePass is the natural choice. It recognises him as the owner, does not force a qualifying salary, and rewards exactly the funding and IP he already has. He accepts the trade-off: a heavier application, milestone-based renewals, and the discipline of keeping his stake above 30% as he raises more.
Same city, same month, two different passes, for sound reasons in each case.
Which pass should you choose?
The Employment Pass is usually right when:
- Your business is solid but conventional, rather than innovation-led.
- You can pay yourself a qualifying salary with some headroom above the floor.
- You want the faster, simpler route, with no ownership or innovation test to clear.
The EntrePass is usually right when:
- Your company is funded, built on intellectual property, or backed by an accelerator.
- You would rather not draw a qualifying salary, or cannot yet.
- You can hold at least 30% of the company and meet the growing renewal milestones.
The common path: start on an EP, move to an EntrePass later
Many founders do not treat this as a permanent choice. A frequent approach is to start on an Employment Pass to get into Singapore and get the company running, then move to the EntrePass later, once a funding round or an intellectual property milestone makes the stronger case and the business can carry the renewal targets.
The order of steps differs between the two passes, and your shareholding affects both, so the switch is worth planning in advance rather than attempting under time pressure. Getting the company structure and the cap table right early makes a later move far smoother.
What is changing in 2027
The Employment Pass qualifying salary is going up. From 1 January 2027, the floors for the youngest applicants rise to S$6,000 a month in most sectors and S$6,600 in financial services, with the age-based figures increasing in step. The change is confirmed, so it belongs in any hiring, relocation or budgeting plan you are making in 2026.
Frequently asked questions
Can I start a Singapore company without a work pass?
Yes. You can incorporate a company while overseas, using a locally resident or nominee director to satisfy the resident-director rule. What you cannot do without a pass is live in Singapore and run the company yourself. That is what the Employment Pass or EntrePass is for.
Do I have to pay myself a salary on the Employment Pass?
Yes. Because you hold the pass as an employee, your company has to pay you at least the qualifying salary for your age and sector. It is worth setting the salary above the floor rather than at it, so that it also scores well under COMPASS.
Can a brand new, one-person startup really pass COMPASS?
In most cases, yes. A company with fewer than 25 professional staff is given 20 points by default across the diversity and local-employment criteria. Add a salary with some headroom and a recognised degree, and you are usually past the 40-point mark without a local team.
Does the EntrePass require outside funding?
Not on its own. Funding is only one of several ways to qualify. Registered intellectual property, backing from a recognised accelerator, a research tie-up with a local institution, or a strong entrepreneurial track record can each satisfy the requirement instead.
Which pass is faster to get?
The Employment Pass, at roughly three weeks in a straightforward case. The EntrePass usually takes around eight weeks or more, and it requires a full business plan as part of the application.
Can I switch from the Employment Pass to the EntrePass later?
Yes, and many founders do. The usual trigger is the business reaching a point, through funding or proven innovation, where the EntrePass becomes both available and worthwhile.
Can I bring my spouse and children?
On the Employment Pass, once you earn a fixed salary of at least S$6,000 a month. On the EntrePass, once the business meets its operating milestones. To sponsor parents, you would apply for a Long-Term Visit Pass, and on the Employment Pass that needs a salary of at least S$12,000 a month.
What happens if my shareholding falls below 30% on the EntrePass?
You risk breaching the conditions of your pass. Since the 30% holding has to be maintained throughout, any funding round or equity change must be structured to keep you at or above that line.
Do I need a university degree for the Employment Pass?
No. A recognised degree helps your COMPASS score, but it is not compulsory. You can reach 40 points through salary, diversity and local-employment factors without one.
Is the EntrePass better than the Employment Pass?
Neither is better in general. The Employment Pass is easier and suits a far wider range of businesses. The EntrePass suits innovative, venture-backed founders. The right answer depends on your business model, your funding, and your shareholding.
Getting the decision right
The Employment Pass and the EntrePass are not interchangeable, and one is not simply a step up from the other. One assumes an employer and a salary; the other assumes ownership and innovation. The most valuable thing you can do is match your own situation, your business, your funding, your shareholding, and your timeline, to the right pass before you file, rather than discovering the mismatch in a rejection.
If you are weighing the two for your move to Singapore, HC Consultancy can review your profile, structure the company and shareholding to support the pass you need, and manage the application from start to finish. Get in touch and we will map the cleanest route for your situation.
