Passing COMPASS: a points playbook for the Employment Pass

Singapore made the gate explicit

For years the Employment Pass was a salary check plus ministry discretion. Since September 2023 the discretion has a public scoreboard: COMPASS (Complementarity Assessment Framework), a points system every new EP application must pass alongside the qualifying salary. Renewals joined the regime a year later. The change matters because your approval now depends measurably on both you and your employer, and because you can read your own odds off a table before anyone files anything.

The two hurdles

Hurdle one: the qualifying salary. A fixed monthly minimum that scales with age (rising through your 40s to roughly one and a half times the base) and runs higher for financial services. The published floor has stepped up over the years and applies before COMPASS even looks at you.

Hurdle two: 40 COMPASS points, scored across four foundational criteria worth 0, 10 or 20 points each:

• C1, Salary: how your fixed pay compares with local PMET benchmarks for your sector and age. At or above the 90th percentile scores 20; below the 65th scores 0.
• C2, Qualifications: 20 points for a degree from a "top-tier" institution on the ministry's list, 10 for other accredited degrees, 0 without one.
• C3, Diversity: whether your nationality is under- or over-represented among the firm's PMETs. A nationality above about a third of the firm's professional headcount scores 0.
• C4, Local share: how the employer's proportion of local PMETs compares with sector peers.

Then two bonus criteria: C5 adds 20 points if your job sits on the Shortage Occupation List, and C6 adds 10 where the employer participates in strategic economic programmes.

The arithmetic insight: a "standard" profile (10 points on each foundational criterion) passes exactly at 40. Every criterion where you or your employer score zero must be bought back somewhere else.

What this means for you, the applicant

Half the scoreboard is not about you at all. A strong candidate can fail COMPASS at a firm with poor localisation numbers, while a middling candidate sails through at a well-balanced employer. Practical consequences:

• Ask employers how they score. Serious Singapore HR teams know their C3 and C4 positions cold and will tell you, because a doomed application wastes their quota of goodwill too.
• Your nationality's concentration at that firm matters. If your countrymen already fill a third of the desks, expect C3 to read zero and demand compensating strength in salary or qualifications.
• Get qualifications verified early. C2 runs on accredited, verified credentials; an unverifiable degree scores zero regardless of quality.
• The shortage list is the great equaliser. Twenty C5 points cover a weak C3 and then some. Check whether your occupation is on it before negotiating anything.

Exemptions and the routes around

COMPASS does not apply to very high earners (a fixed monthly salary above the published exemption level, which has sat in the low-to-mid SGD 20,000s), to short assignments under a month, or to intra-corporate overseas transfers meeting specific conditions.

Adjacent passes are their own answer for particular profiles: the ONE Pass for top talent earning roughly SGD 30,000 monthly, with five-year terms and multi-employer freedom; Tech.Pass for proven tech leaders and founders; the S Pass for mid-skilled roles under quota and levy rules; and the EntrePass for founders with backing. If you are eyeing permanent residence eventually, note that Singapore treats PR as a separate, opaque and genuinely selective process; the EP is a work authorisation, not a settlement track.

Strategy in practice

• Benchmark your offer against the salary tables for your age and sector before you negotiate; the qualifying bar at 45 is very different from the bar at 28.
• If you score C1 at 20 (top-decile pay) and hold a recognised degree, you pass almost anywhere. If either is shaky, employer choice becomes your main variable.
• Borderline case? Target firms with strong localisation records or strategic-programme status, whose C4 and C6 points carry marginal candidates.

Next steps

Model your odds in the Migration Wizard and read the Singapore profile for costs, salaries and what daily life actually prices at. The Ministry of Manpower publishes the authoritative salary tables, the shortage list and a self-assessment tool; run it with your real numbers before anyone files, and treat every figure in this guide as a pointer to that source rather than a substitute for it.