The Local Qualifying Salary (LQS) determines the number of local employees who can be used to calculate a company’s S Pass and Work Permit quota entitlement. It is the minimum salary that is to be paid to a staff to qualify as full-time employment. Currently, the LQS is SGD$1,400. This means that a company will have to pay a staff at least SGD$1,400 for that staff to qualify as 1 headcount when calculating the company’s S Pass and Work Permit quota entitlement. If the staff is paid less than SGD1,400 but at least SGD$700, that individual is counted as half a headcount.

In summary:

A Singaporean or Permanent Resident employee under a contract of service 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 LQS is to ensure that workers are meaningfully employed rather than companies paying workers a token sum to add to their headcount for the purpose of increasing their S Pass and Work Permit quota entitlement.

For example, the current S Pass sub- Dependency Ratio Ceiling (DRC) is 10%. If a company has 9 Singaporean or Singapore Permanent Resident employees earning at least SGD$1,400 a month, they can hire 1 S Pass employee.

If your company requires assistance with employment matters, you can visit: https://singaporeemploymentagency.com/

 

When in doubt, seek legal advice or consult an experienced ACRA Filing Agent.

Yours Sincerely,
The editorial team at Singapore Secretary Services

For more useful articles and videos, visit the Singapore Secretary Services resource page.

 

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