# Employing staff in Singapore without a local entity URL: https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/employ-staff-singapore-without-local-entity Title: Can you use an Employer of Record in Singapore? | Skillsforce Description: MOM's own FAQ says no, an Employer of Record cannot sponsor a work pass for staff of an overseas company. Here are the two routes that are actually lawful. Updated 18 August 2026. First published 18 August 2026. Author: Skillsforce (People-operations team) Category: hr-operations A foreign company with no Singapore entity still has real options for getting someone working here, but an Employer of Record is not the shortcut it is marketed as. MOM's own guidance draws the line precisely: who counts as the employer, and what only a Singapore-based employer may do. Here is what is actually lawful, and where Skillsforce does and does not sit in it. ## Can a foreign company use an Employer of Record to employ staff in Singapore? No, not for anyone who needs a work pass. MOM states plainly that work passes are for foreigners working for Singapore-based companies, and that an Employer of Record sponsoring one for staff of an overseas employer would be committing an offence. The lawful routes are registering a representative office or incorporating locally. ## Key points - MOM's own FAQ states plainly that work passes are for foreigners working for Singapore-based companies, and that an Employer of Record sponsoring one for staff of an overseas employer would be committing an offence. - That FAQ answers one narrow question. It does not ban every arrangement marketed as EOR, and MOM has published it only as a dated FAQ answer, not a press release, advisory or new law. - MOM names exactly two lawful routes for a company with no Singapore presence: registering a representative office through Enterprise Singapore, or incorporating locally through ACRA. A representative office cannot trade, invoice or sign commercial contracts. - A contract's label does not decide who the employer is. MOM applies its own test: control over recruitment and dismissal, ownership of the tools and workplace, and who carries the economic risk. - Only the direct, Singapore-based employer can sponsor a work pass. That is why Manpower Outsourcing needs the client to already hold a Singapore entity, not the other way round. - Skillsforce is not an Employer of Record. Where a client has an entity, Skillsforce signs contracts, pays CPF and issues payslips as Manpower Outsourcing; where a client has none yet, the support is recruiting and shortlisting, never employment. A foreign company that wants someone working in Singapore, but has no Singapore entity yet, usually gets two very different answers to the same question. An Employer of Record's marketing answers it fast: use us, skip the entity, have the person working next week. Singapore's Ministry of Manpower answers it in writing, on its own website, and the two answers do not agree. Skillsforce is not an Employer of Record and does not offer EOR services. This article explains how such arrangements are treated in Singapore. Where we describe our own service, it is Manpower Outsourcing: for clients with a Singapore entity, Skillsforce signs the employment contracts, pays CPF and issues payslips, while the client directs the day-to-day work. What follows is MOM's own position on who may employ someone working here, read narrowly and accurately rather than dramatised the way a lot of vendor content dramatises it, plus the two routes MOM itself names for a company that has no Singapore presence at all. ## What an Employer of Record is meant to solve The pitch behind an Employer of Record is straightforward. A company wants a person working in a country where it has no legal entity. Registering one takes weeks, and for a single hire is often not worth doing. An EOR offers to stand in: it becomes the person's employer of record in that country, runs their payroll and statutory contributions, and lets the client company direct their work without ever incorporating. For a fully remote hire who never needs government permission to work, someone based in their own country working for a foreign client from home, this raises fewer questions in Singapore, because nobody is applying to MOM for anything. The pitch gets more complicated the moment the person actually needs to be physically based in Singapore and needs a work pass to do it. That is the exact scenario MOM's own guidance addresses, and addresses by name. ## What MOM's FAQ actually says MOM publishes a specific, dated FAQ that answers this directly. The question it poses is close to word for word what a foreign company actually wants to know: can an Employer of Record in Singapore apply for work passes for foreigners to be based in Singapore while working for overseas companies. MOM's answer: "No. Work passes are for foreigners to work for Singapore-based companies." It goes further: an Employer of Record that applies for a work pass in that scenario "would be committing an offence." That is MOM's own wording, not a paraphrase and not a vendor's summary of a rule. What kind of document it is matters, because a lot of secondary sources are careless about it. It is a published FAQ answer on mom.gov.sg, last updated 9 July 2024. It is not a press release, a ministerial advisory, or a new law passed that year. Several law-firm and vendor pages describe it as "MOM's 2024 policy" or say MOM "announced" it, language that implies a formal announcement sitting behind it. No such announcement appears in MOM's newsroom or its parliamentary records. The FAQ page appears to be the primary document, not a summary of a larger one. One adjacent option is worth naming, since it gets confused with the routes below. A foreigner who needs to be physically present for business, meetings, negotiations, an office visit, but not to actually work here, may be able to use a Short-Term Visit Pass instead of a work pass. MOM allows up to 90 days a year on that pass for business activities that do not amount to working. It is not a way to be based in Singapore doing the job on an ongoing basis; it is a visitor status for business trips, and treating it as a substitute for genuine employment runs into much the same problem as an Employer of Record does. ## What the rule actually covers, and what it does not Read narrowly, because the FAQ is narrow. It answers one specific scenario: a foreigner who needs a work pass, working for a company based overseas, with an Employer of Record standing in as the applicant. It says nothing, one way or the other, about Singapore Citizens or Permanent Residents, who do not need a work pass in the first place, so the FAQ's logic simply does not reach them. It is not a blanket statement that every arrangement anyone markets as "EOR" is unlawful in Singapore. It bans one specific thing: an Employer of Record sponsoring a work pass for someone who actually works for an unrelated overseas company. No prosecution specific to this position has been publicly reported either. That does not make the rule optional. MOM states the conduct "would be committing an offence" in its own words, and a regulator's published position does not need a court case behind it to be the rule a company plans around. It does mean the accurate description is MOM's stated position rather than a settled body of enforcement cases. ## Why the label on a contract doesn't settle who the employer is A related question follows naturally: if the label "Employer of Record" does not create a lawful work-pass sponsor, what does decide who the real employer is? MOM has its own test, and it does not turn on what a contract calls itself. MOM groups the relevant factors under three headings, control, ownership of the factors of production, and economic considerations, and [how those three play out across the three routes](/insights/eor-vs-manpower-outsourcing-vs-own-entity-singapore) is where the practical difference shows up. MOM is explicit that a contract's own label, "independent contractor" being the common one, is not determinative on its own, and that whether the engagement is full-time or part-time is not itself relevant either. A contract of service may be covered by the Employment Act; a contract for service is not. Calling an arrangement "EOR" does not change which side of that line it actually sits on. For a client that already holds a Singapore entity, getting that assessment right and keeping the paperwork aligned with the practice is part of what Manpower Outsourcing covers. ## The two lawful routes when there's no Singapore entity So what does work, for a company that genuinely has no Singapore presence yet? MOM names exactly two routes in the same FAQ: - **Register a representative office**, through Enterprise Singapore. It is built for market research, feasibility work and liaison ahead of a possible permanent set-up. It cannot conduct commercial, profit-generating activity: no trading, no invoicing, no signing commercial contracts. - **Incorporate locally**, through ACRA. A registered Singapore entity, a subsidiary or a branch, can trade, hire without that restriction, and, once it holds a CPF Submission Number, run payroll properly. Neither route is something an Employer of Record, or Skillsforce, can stand in for. Both are steps a company takes itself, with its own filing agent and its own regulator. What changes once one of them exists is what happens next: a Singapore entity can decide whether to run its own payroll and HR admin, or hand that to a partner while directing the work day to day. [Manpower Outsourcing](/services/contract-management) is the answer to that second, later question, not the first one. For the fuller comparison between a representative office, a full entity and Manpower Outsourcing, see [representative office vs entity vs Manpower Outsourcing](/insights/representative-office-vs-entity-vs-manpower-outsourcing-singapore). ## Who can actually sponsor a work pass Work pass applications, whether for an Employment Pass, an S Pass or a Work Permit, can each be made by the employer directly, or by an appointed employment agent acting on the employer's behalf. Being the party that submits the paperwork is not the same as being the employer. An employment agency needs its own licence to place job seekers, regardless of whether the placement is in Singapore or outside it, and it acts as an agent, not a substitute employer. Its role is administrative: filing the application, not becoming the person the applicant actually works for. That distinction is the whole of MOM's Employer of Record position, stated one more way. An Employer of Record filing a work pass application is acting as agent for a relationship that, under MOM's own test above, belongs to someone else: the overseas company the person actually works for. Filing the form does not transfer the employment. ## Where Skillsforce sits, and does not sit, in this Skillsforce's Manpower Outsourcing service is scoped to fit inside this picture, not around it. Where a client already has a Singapore entity, Skillsforce signs the employment contracts, pays CPF and issues payslips, while the client directs the day-to-day work. That arrangement is possible precisely because the client's entity is the employer relationship it sits on top of: a genuinely Singapore-based, registered company, with Skillsforce running the administration of it. Where a client is a start-up with no Singapore entity yet, the honest offer is narrower: support before incorporation, meaning recruiting, screening and shortlisting candidates, and preparing the people-operations groundwork so an offer is ready the moment the entity exists. That is recruitment support. It is not employment, and it does not sponsor anyone's work pass, because MOM's own rule leaves no lawful version of either without an entity in the chain. [Hiring staff before incorporation](/insights/hire-staff-before-incorporation-singapore) covers that pre-incorporation window in more detail, including what a recruitment process can and cannot do before the entity is registered, and [Manpower Outsourcing before incorporation](/services/contract-management/before-incorporation) sets out how that early support is scoped. ## Doing this yourself, or not None of this is a reason to give up on hiring in Singapore before the entity exists; it is a reason to sequence it correctly. Reserve the name, brief a recruitment partner, and start building a shortlist while incorporation or a representative office registration runs in parallel, so the entity's first week arrives with people already lined up rather than a search not yet started. What does not move, whichever path gets you there, is that a work pass needs a genuine Singapore-based employer standing behind it, and no arrangement marketed as an Employer of Record changes that. You can run that sequencing yourself: a filing agent for the entity, a recruiter for the shortlist, a shared calendar to keep the two in step. Or Skillsforce can run the Manpower Outsourcing side once your entity is in place, and the recruitment side while it clears. Either way, the entity comes first. ## Frequently asked questions ### Can an Employer of Record sponsor a work pass for someone working for my overseas company? No. MOM's own published FAQ states: "No. Work passes are for foreigners to work for Singapore-based companies." It adds that an Employer of Record applying for a pass in that scenario "would be committing an offence." The FAQ has stood, last updated, since 9 July 2024. ### Is this an official MOM rule, or just something vendors say? It is MOM's own wording, published as a dated FAQ answer on mom.gov.sg, not a vendor's interpretation of one. What it is not is a press release, ministerial advisory or new statute: MOM's newsroom carries no formal announcement beyond this FAQ entry, and no prosecution specific to it has been publicly reported. Neither of those makes the position optional; MOM states the conduct would be an offence in its own words. ### What are the actual lawful options for a company with no Singapore entity? MOM names two: registering a representative office through Enterprise Singapore, or incorporating locally through ACRA. A representative office cannot trade, invoice or sign commercial contracts, so it is built for market research and liaison work ahead of a permanent set-up, not for running an ordinary payroll. ### Does a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident face the same restriction? MOM's FAQ addresses foreigners who need a work pass; it is silent on Citizens and Permanent Residents, who do not need one. That silence is not the same as MOM approving an Employer of Record arrangement for them. The FAQ's wording settles the work-pass case only, and should not be stretched to a case it does not address. ### How does MOM decide who the real employer is, whatever a contract calls itself? Under a set of factors grouped in three headings: control, meaning who decides on recruitment, dismissal and wages; ownership of the factors of production, meaning who provides the tools, equipment and workplace; and economic considerations, meaning who bears the risk of loss. A contract's own label, "independent contractor" being the common one, is not decisive on its own. ### Is Skillsforce an Employer of Record? No. Skillsforce is not an Employer of Record and does not offer EOR services. Its Manpower Outsourcing service applies only where a client already has a Singapore entity: Skillsforce signs the employment contracts, pays CPF and issues payslips, while the client directs the day-to-day work. ### What can Skillsforce do for a start-up that has no Singapore entity yet? Support before incorporation: recruiting, screening and shortlisting candidates so an offer is ready the moment the entity and its CPF Submission Number exist. That is recruitment support, not employment, and it does not sponsor a work pass on anyone's behalf. ## Sources - [Ministry of Manpower: FAQ, work passes and Singapore-based companies](https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/work-pass-general/can-eor-in-sgp-apply-for-work-pass-for-foreigner-to-be-based-in-sgp-while-working-for-overseas-coys) (Page states last updated 9 July 2024; accessed 18 August 2026) - [Ministry of Manpower: Employment Pass, apply for a pass](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/apply-for-a-pass) (Page states last updated 15 June 2026; accessed 18 August 2026) - [Ministry of Manpower: What is a contract of service](https://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-practices/contract-of-service/what-is-a-contract-of-service) (Page states last updated 29 December 2025; accessed 18 August 2026) - [Ministry of Manpower: How do I know if I am engaged under a contract of service or contract for service](https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/contract-of-service/how-do-i-know-if-i-am-engaged-under-a-contract-of-service-or-contract-for-service) (Page states last updated 29 December 2025; accessed 18 August 2026) - [Ministry of Manpower: Eligibility and requirements for employment agencies](https://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-agencies/eligibility-and-requirements) (Page states last updated 2 July 2026; accessed 18 August 2026) ## Related - [Manpower Outsourcing](https://skillsforce.com.sg/services/contract-management) - [Manpower Outsourcing before incorporation](https://skillsforce.com.sg/services/contract-management/before-incorporation) - [Hiring staff before incorporation](https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/hire-staff-before-incorporation-singapore) - [Representative office, entity or Manpower Outsourcing](https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/representative-office-vs-entity-vs-manpower-outsourcing-singapore)