Singapore Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) Checker 2026 — S$1,800 July 2026 Hike Impact, S Pass Quota Calculator, Work Permit DRC, Danger Zone Cost-to-Comply and MOM Headcount Compliance Report

THE LOCAL QUALIFYING SALARY (LQS) IS THE MINIMUM MONTHLY GROSS WAGE a local Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident employee must earn for the employer to count that worker as one full headcount towards the company foreign worker quota. From 1 July 2026, the LQS increases from S$1,600 per month to S$1,800 per month for full-time employees. For part-time employees, the hourly LQS increases from S$9.00 per hour to S$10.50 per hour. The LQS is not a general minimum wage in Singapore. It is a quota-counting threshold that determines how many S Pass and Work Permit holders a company can employ relative to its local workforce. An employee earning below the LQS still legally works for the company and receives all statutory employment protections, but they are counted at reduced or zero value towards the foreign worker quota.

THE LQS HEADCOUNT SYSTEM FROM 1 JULY 2026 WORKS AS FOLLOWS for full-time local employees: (1) Employees earning S$1,800 or more per month are counted as 1.0 full headcount towards the foreign worker quota. (2) Employees earning at least S$900 but below S$1,800 per month are counted as 0.5 (half) headcount. (3) Employees earning below S$900 per month are not counted at all towards the quota. Before 1 July 2026, the thresholds were: S$1,600 for full count (1.0) and S$800 for half count (0.5). The critical implication of the July 2026 change is that any local employee currently earning S$1,600 to S$1,799 will drop from 1.0 to 0.5 headcount, reducing the total LQS count and therefore the number of foreign workers the company is permitted to employ.

THE S PASS QUOTA IS CALCULATED AS A PERCENTAGE OF THE TOTAL WORKFORCE, using the MOM formula: S Pass quota = floor(S Pass DRC percentage x (total workforce + 1)). The S Pass Sub-Dependency Ratio Ceiling (Sub-DRC) is 10% for the services sector and 15% for all other sectors (manufacturing, construction, marine, process). Total workforce includes LQS-counted local employees plus all current S Pass and Work Permit holders. Note that Employment Pass (EP) holders are excluded from the total workforce count for quota calculation purposes. Example: a services company with 20 LQS headcount and 5 Work Permit holders has total workforce = 25. S Pass quota = floor(10% x (25 + 1)) = floor(2.6) = 2 S Pass slots. When the LQS count drops due to the July 2026 change, the total workforce shrinks and the S Pass quota drops proportionally.

THE DEPENDENCY RATIO CEILING (DRC) DETERMINES THE MAXIMUM NUMBER OF S PASS AND WORK PERMIT HOLDERS a company can hire, expressed as a ratio to LQS-counted local employees. The formula is: Max migrant workers = floor(LQS count x DRC ratio). The DRC ratios by sector are: Services sector: 35% of total workforce can be foreigners, which translates to a ratio multiplier of approximately 0.538 (35/65). Manufacturing and Process sectors: 60% DRC, ratio multiplier of 1.5 (60/40). Marine Shipyard sector: 75% DRC, ratio multiplier of 3.0 (75/25). Construction sector: approximately 83% DRC, ratio multiplier of approximately 5.0 (83/17). The MOM WPOL (Work Permit Online) system automatically calculates this based on your CPF contribution data, updated every Saturday. Use this calculator to estimate your quota before the July 2026 LQS change takes effect.

FOR FOREIGN WORKER QUOTA CALCULATION, LOCAL EMPLOYEES WHO COUNT TOWARD LQS HEADCOUNT INCLUDE: Singapore Citizens employed under a contract of service, including the company director if on payroll. Singapore Permanent Residents employed under a contract of service. Dependant Pass holders who work for the company under a Letter of Consent (LOC). EXCLUDED FROM LQS COUNT: Employees who receive CPF contributions from three or more employers simultaneously (to prevent quota inflation). Business owners of sole proprietorships and partnerships who are not on payroll. Employment Pass holders (they are foreign workers and excluded from the local headcount calculation entirely). Work Permit holders. S Pass holders. The salary used is the fixed monthly salary, which includes basic wage and fixed allowances. Variable components such as overtime pay, bonuses, commissions, productivity payments, and employer CPF contributions are excluded from the LQS salary calculation.

IF YOUR COMPANY EXCEEDS ITS REVISED QUOTA AFTER THE JULY 2026 LQS INCREASE, several consequences may occur: (1) S Pass or Work Permit renewal applications will be refused by MOM if the renewal would keep you above the new quota limit. (2) MOM may direct cancellation of excess work passes if you are found to be significantly over-quota. (3) New work pass applications will be rejected. (4) For Letter of Consent (LOC) arrangements where a Dependant Pass holder runs a Singapore business, MOM may refuse LOC renewal if the local employee headcount conditions are not met under the new LQS. The practical fix: audit all local employee salaries now. Identify those earning S$1,600 to S$1,799 and raise their salaries to at least S$1,800 before 1 July 2026. Submit updated employment contracts and ensure CPF contributions at the new salary are reported before the change takes effect. MOM updates quotas weekly on Saturday based on CPF contribution data.

FROM 1 JANUARY 2026, THE S PASS LEVY IS A FLAT RATE OF S$650 PER MONTH PER S PASS HOLDER, applicable across all sectors. This replaces the former tiered levy structure that differentiated between Tier 1 and Tier 2 S Pass holders based on the proportion of S Pass workers in the workforce. The harmonization to a flat S$650 rate simplifies compliance for employers. The levy is paid by the employer, not the employee, and cannot be deducted from the S Pass holder salary. Levy payment is mandatory and must be paid via GIRO or other MOM-approved payment methods by the 14th of each month. Non-payment or late payment of levy results in penalties and may affect future work pass applications. For a company with 5 S Pass holders, the monthly levy cost is 5 x S$650 = S$3,250, or S$39,000 per year. This levy is a fixed operating cost that employers must factor into the total cost of hiring foreign mid-skilled workers.

THE PROGRESSIVE WAGE MODEL (PWM) APPLIES TO SPECIFIC INDUSTRIES AND OCCUPATIONS and sets sector-specific minimum wage requirements that may be HIGHER than the LQS. Sectors covered by PWM include: Cleaning, Security, Landscape, Retail, Food and Beverage, Waste Management, Administrative Support occupations, and Driver occupations across all sectors. For workers in PWM-covered sectors or occupations, the employer must pay the higher of: (a) the LQS of S$1,800 per month (from July 2026), or (b) the applicable PWM minimum wage for that specific occupation and tier. If your staff are in a PWM sector, compliance with the LQS alone is insufficient. For example, the 2026 PWM for food services requires different minimum wages for kitchen helpers, service crew, and assistant supervisors. Paying exactly S$1,800 (the LQS) may still result in PWM non-compliance if the occupation-specific PWM rate is higher. Employers operating in PWM sectors should cross-reference both the LQS and the relevant PWM schedule.

THE PROGRESSIVE WAGE CREDIT SCHEME (PWCS) IS A GOVERNMENT CO-FUNDING MECHANISM that helps Singapore employers offset the cost of raising local worker wages to meet PWM and LQS thresholds. The PWCS provides co-funding at up to 30% of qualifying wage increases for 2026. The scheme is administered by the CPF Board and pays out quarterly via direct bank transfer to eligible employers. ELIGIBILITY: Employers who raise the wages of Singapore Citizen and PR employees to meet PWM and LQS requirements. Co-funding applies to the wage increase amount, not the total wage. The 30% co-funding rate means that if you raise a danger zone employee from S$1,700 to S$1,800 (a S$100/month increase), the PWCS reimburses S$30 per month to the employer. For an employer with 10 such employees, the PWCS returns S$300 per month or S$3,600 per year. Employers should model both the gross payroll impact and the net impact after PWCS co-funding when calculating the true cost of LQS compliance.

MOM UPDATES THE FOREIGN WORKER QUOTA IN WPOL (WORK PERMIT ONLINE) EVERY SATURDAY, effective from 3 December 2022. The quota is calculated based on the average number of LQS-qualifying local employees over the three preceding months of CPF contribution data. This three-month rolling average means that changes in your workforce headcount take time to flow through to your quota. For example: if you hire 5 new local employees at S$1,800 in May 2026 and pay their first CPF contributions in June 2026, those employees will start affecting your quota in August 2026 (after 3 months of CPF data is available). The reverse also applies: if you lose LQS-qualifying employees, the quota reduction takes about 3 months to fully register. This delay means employers should make payroll adjustments WELL BEFORE 1 July 2026 to ensure the new LQS count is reflected in the WPOL system before S Pass or Work Permit renewal dates arrive in Q3 2026.

THE SALARY USED FOR LQS ASSESSMENT IS THE FIXED MONTHLY SALARY, defined by MOM as: basic wage plus fixed allowances. INCLUDED IN LQS SALARY: Basic monthly wage. Fixed transport allowance (if contractual and paid every month). Fixed housing allowance (if contractual and paid every month). EXCLUDED FROM LQS SALARY: Variable components: overtime pay, commissions, bonuses, performance incentives, and productivity payments. Irregular payments: annual bonuses, quarterly allowances, shift differentials. Non-cash benefits: company car, medical benefits, meal subsidies, insurance. Reimbursements: expense claims, travel reimbursements. Employer CPF contributions. The practical implication: an employee with a basic wage of S$1,500 plus a variable monthly transport reimbursement of S$400 does not meet the S$1,800 LQS. Only the fixed S$1,500 base counts. To meet LQS, the fixed monthly salary must be at least S$1,800. Converting variable to fixed allowances is one way to bring employees above the threshold without increasing the full-time base wage.

YES, A COMPANY DIRECTOR WHO IS A SINGAPORE CITIZEN OR PR CAN BE COUNTED AS A LOCAL EMPLOYEE for LQS quota purposes, provided they are on the company payroll under a contract of service and receive CPF contributions at or above the LQS threshold. A director who is paid S$1,800 or more per month, with the company making CPF employer contributions on that salary, counts as one full LQS headcount. This is a legitimate and commonly used practice for SME founders and business owners who pay themselves a fixed director fee via payroll. However, directors of sole proprietorships and partnerships (as opposed to private limited companies) are NOT counted as employees for LQS purposes. Only directors of companies (Pte Ltd, Ltd) on formal payroll qualify. Additionally, the director must not receive CPF contributions from three or more employers simultaneously, which would exclude them from LQS counting.

THESE ARE THREE DISTINCT SALARY THRESHOLDS IN THE SINGAPORE FOREIGN WORKER FRAMEWORK, often confused: (1) LOCAL QUALIFYING SALARY (LQS) from July 2026: S$1,800/month. This is the minimum a LOCAL Singaporean or PR must earn for the employer to count them as 1.0 headcount towards the foreign worker quota. It does not apply to foreign workers. (2) S PASS QUALIFYING SALARY from January 2026: S$3,300/month for most sectors (S$3,800 for financial services). This is the minimum the FOREIGN S PASS HOLDER must earn. It rises with age. (3) EMPLOYMENT PASS (EP) QUALIFYING SALARY from January 2025: S$5,600/month for most sectors (S$6,200 for financial services). Also age-adjusted and subject to the COMPASS framework. Summary: LQS applies to LOCAL employees; S Pass and EP qualifying salaries apply to FOREIGN pass holders. All three thresholds are increasing. Employers must track all three simultaneously when managing a mixed local-foreign workforce.

DEPENDANT PASS (DP) HOLDERS WHO OPERATE SINGAPORE-INCORPORATED BUSINESSES under a Letter of Consent (LOC) are affected by the LQS increase through the company quota calculation. If a DP business owner has hired local Singapore Citizen or PR employees at salaries between S$1,600 and S$1,799, those employees will drop from 1.0 to 0.5 LQS headcount from 1 July 2026. This could reduce the total LQS count below the minimum needed to hold any S Pass or Work Permit, potentially invalidating the quota basis for the LOC arrangement. MOM expects the business to be a genuine, active commercial operation when assessing LOC renewals. If the business relied on S$1,600+ local workers for its quota to hold foreign staff, and those workers are now only counted at 0.5, the business may fail the quota check at the next LOC renewal. DP business owners should audit local employee salaries well before their next LOC renewal date and raise salaries to S$1,800 if the quota impact is material.

FROM 1 JULY 2026, THE PART-TIME LQS HOURLY RATE INCREASES FROM S$9.00 TO S$10.50 PER HOUR. A part-time local employee is counted towards the LQS quota based on their hourly rate and hours worked. The counting rules for part-time employees are: Part-time employees earning at least S$10.50 per hour from July 2026 are counted on a pro-rated basis relative to full-time hours. The monthly LQS equivalent for part-time workers is calculated by MOM based on actual wages and hours. Part-time employees earning below the S$10.50 threshold are counted at zero for quota purposes. Example: a part-time worker earning S$12 per hour and working 25 hours per week earns approximately S$1,200 per month. This is below the S$1,800 full-time LQS but above the S$900 half-count threshold, so they count as 0.5 headcount. Employers with significant part-time workforces should model the specific hours and rates for each employee using the MOM guidelines for part-time LQS calculation.

THE MOM OFFICIAL QUOTA CALCULATOR IN WPOL (WORK PERMIT ONLINE) requires CorpPass employer login and shows your current quota based on actual CPF contribution data. This LQS Checker differs in six key ways: (1) No CorpPass required — model your quota instantly using headcount inputs without logging in. (2) Before vs after comparison — see exactly how the July 2026 LQS increase from S$1,600 to S$1,800 changes your S Pass and migrant worker quota. (3) Danger zone identification — enter the number of employees earning S$1,600–S$1,799 to see the specific quota impact of the change. (4) Cost to comply — calculate the exact monthly payroll cost (including employer CPF on the raise) to bring danger zone employees to S$1,800. (5) S Pass levy cost — shows the annual S$650/month flat levy cost for current S Pass holders. (6) PDF compliance report — generates a shareable document for HR, management, or external advisors. Use both tools: this calculator for planning and impact modelling, and the MOM WPOL system for official quota verification.