# How to check a recruitment agency's EA licence

URL: https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/how-to-check-recruitment-agency-ea-licence-singapore
Title: How to check a recruitment agency's EA licence in Singapore | Skillsforce
Description: How to verify a Singapore recruitment agency is MOM licensed: searching the EA Directory, reading a licence number, and your own exposure if you skip it.
Updated 11 August 2026. First published 11 August 2026. Author: Skillsforce (People-operations team)
Category: hiring-recruitment

A five-minute check before you sign, not an audit. Where to look, what a licence number actually tells you, and what a Singapore IP address has to do with any of it.

## How do I check if a recruitment agency in Singapore is licensed?

Search MOM's Employment Agencies Directory at service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory, by licence number if you have one, or by the agency's exact registered name. Confirm the status shows Valid and check the expiry date. If a specific consultant is handling you, ask for their EA Personnel registration card too.

## Key points

- Search MOM's Employment Agencies Directory (service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory) by licence number if you have one, since it is unique, or by the agency's exact registered name if you do not.
- A result shows a status: Valid, Suspended or Revoked, plus the validity period. Check the expiry date as well as the status; a licence can be valid today and lapse before a longer engagement ends.
- An EA licence number follows a two-digit year, a class letter, then a serial number. It is a helpful orientation, not the source of truth; the directory entry itself is.
- If a specific consultant is handling your engagement, ask for their EA Personnel registration card and check they are listed as active under that specific licence, not a former employer's.
- The EA Directory has not reliably returned results for searches from outside Singapore. If a search comes back empty for an agency you believe is licensed, try again from a Singapore-based connection before concluding otherwise.
- Engaging an unlicensed agency is an offence for the engaging employer too, not only the agency. We describe the exposure here qualitatively rather than quote an unconfirmed penalty figure.

Any company placing staff with you for a fee needs an Employment Agencies (EA) licence from MOM. Most do. A few do not, either because the licence lapsed, was suspended, or never existed, and checking takes less time than reading this paragraph took. Recruitment in Singapore is a regulated activity for exactly this reason: MOM licenses employment agencies under the Employment Agencies Act, our own [recruitment service](/services/recruitment) included, and checking a licence is the fastest way to know who you are actually dealing with.

This is a genuine how-to: five steps, then what a licence actually promises and what your own exposure is if you skip the check. Skillsforce's own EA licence number is [99C3289](/about#credentials), and we use our listing below as the worked example, precisely because you can check it yourself while you read, rather than take our word for it.

## Step 1: Get the licence number, if you can

Ask the agency for its EA licence number directly; most will give it without hesitation, or look for it on their letterhead, proposal or website footer. A licence number is more reliable to search than a company name, since it is unique in a way a trading name is not. If you cannot get one in advance, the agency's exact registered legal name works too, just be precise: a near-match search can return nothing, or return the wrong entity entirely, and neither result tells you what you actually wanted to know.

## Step 2: Search MOM's Employment Agencies Directory

Go to [service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory](https://service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory/). No login is required. Search by licence number if you have it, or by the agency's exact registered name if you do not.

## Step 3: Confirm the status is Valid, and check the dates

A result shows a status: Valid, Suspended, or Revoked, alongside the licence's validity period. Valid is the only status that means what you would assume it means. Check the expiry date too, not just the status; a licence can be genuinely valid today and lapse before your engagement ends, which matters for anything running longer than a few weeks.

## Step 4: Read the licence number, but don't rely on it alone

An EA licence number typically follows a two-digit year, a one-letter class, then a serial number, for example our own, 99C3289: issued in 1999, Comprehensive class, serial 3289, consistent with a firm founded in 1998. The letter matters for one specific reason: only the Comprehensive class permits an agency to place foreign domestic workers, so if that is part of what you need, check the class shown, not just the status.

Treat the number's shape as a helpful orientation, not the actual source of truth. The directory entry is. MOM's own record of status and dates settles the question, not what the digits appear to spell out.

## Step 5: If a specific consultant is handling you, check them too

A licensed agency can still have an individual consultant who has moved on, or who was never registered under that particular licence. Ask to see the consultant's EA Personnel registration card, and check their name and registration number are listed as currently active under the licence you just checked, not a previous employer's.

## A note for anyone checking from outside Singapore

The directory has a known quirk worth knowing before you conclude an agency is unlicensed: it has not reliably returned results for us when queried from outside Singapore, and other users report the same pattern. If a search comes back empty for an agency you believe is genuinely licensed, try again from a Singapore-based connection, or ask a Singapore-based colleague or partner to run the search, before concluding the licence does not exist. This matters more for the foreign companies this guide is written for than for a local hiring manager, who will not usually hit the problem. If you are setting up in Singapore for the first time and this is one item on a longer list, our guide to [the first 90 days of HR and payroll](/insights/foreign-company-first-90-days-singapore-hr-payroll) covers the wider entity and hiring sequence this sits inside.

## What the licence actually requires of an agency

A licence is not just a certificate on a wall. Every licensed EA must have at least one Key Appointment Holder registered with MOM under that specific licence, and that person, along with any ACRA-listed office-bearer of the agency, has to pass MOM's competency test for the role. MOM applies a fit-and-proper standard to directors, owners and Key Appointment Holders: no criminal record involving dishonesty, fraud or violence, no history of a previous licence being revoked, no prior disqualification as an EA operator. Changing who holds that role needs MOM's written approval in advance, not a notification after the fact.

Licensees also have to declare family affiliations, a parent, sibling, spouse, child or child-in-law, with anyone else holding a key position at another EA. It is a small detail, but it shows MOM watching for licences that quietly cluster around the same few people, not just checking a box once at the point of licensing.

None of this is decoration. It is the reason a valid, current licence is worth checking in the first place: MOM is not just recording that a company exists, it is vouching, on an ongoing basis, for who is allowed to run it. The conditions are set out in [MOM's own EA licence conditions](https://www.mom.gov.sg/-/media/mom/documents/employment-agencies/ea-licence-conditions.pdf), if you want the source document rather than our summary of it.

## What you risk by skipping the check

Engaging an agency that turns out to be unlicensed is not only the agency's problem. The Employment Agencies Act treats it as an offence to engage the services of an unlicensed employment agency, for the company doing the engaging as well as the company operating without a licence. We are not going to quote a specific fine figure here: the number most commonly repeated for the engaging employer traces back to a MOM press release that no longer resolves, and we would rather tell you that plainly than repeat a figure we cannot stand behind.

What is better documented is the gap between the two sides of that offence. Operating an unlicensed agency is treated far more seriously than merely engaging one, which tells you something about where MOM's actual enforcement weight sits, and it is exactly why the five-minute check above is worth doing before you sign, not after a placement has already started.

None of this is difficult, and none of it should take longer than the search itself. A licence number, a status of Valid, an expiry date that has not passed, and, where it matters, a consultant's own registration checked against the same licence. If you would rather understand what a licensed agency should be charging you before that conversation starts, our recruitment page covers [how recruitment fees work in Singapore](/services/recruitment).

## Frequently asked questions

### Where do I check if a recruitment agency in Singapore is MOM licensed?

MOM's Employment Agencies Directory at service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory. No login is required. Search by the agency's EA licence number if you have it, which is the more reliable method, or by its exact registered legal name.

### What does an EA licence status of Valid, Suspended or Revoked mean?

Valid is the only status that means what it sounds like. Suspended and Revoked both mean the agency should not currently be placing staff with you, regardless of what its own marketing says. Check the expiry date too, since a currently valid licence can still lapse during a longer engagement.

### How do I read an EA licence number like 99C3289?

The pattern is a two-digit year, a class letter, then a serial number. Skillsforce's own licence, 99C3289, reads as issued in 1999, Comprehensive class, serial 3289. Treat this as a helpful orientation only; the directory's own record of status and dates is what actually matters.

### Why does the EA licence class matter?

Only the Comprehensive class permits an agency to place foreign domestic workers. If that is part of what you need from an agency, check the class shown in the directory, not just whether a licence exists.

### What happens if I engage a recruitment agency that turns out to be unlicensed?

The Employment Agencies Act treats engaging an unlicensed agency as an offence for the engaging company, not only for the agency itself. We are not going to quote a specific fine figure here, since the number most commonly repeated traces back to a MOM release that no longer resolves online.

### Why does the EA Directory sometimes show no results when I search from outside Singapore?

The directory has not reliably returned results for us, or for other users, when queried from outside Singapore. If a search comes back empty for an agency you believe is genuinely licensed, try again from a Singapore-based connection, or ask a Singapore-based colleague to check, before concluding it is unlicensed.

## Sources

- [MOM: Employment Agencies Directory](https://service2.mom.gov.sg/eadirectory/) (Accessed 06 August 2026)
- [MOM: who needs an employment agency licence](https://www.mom.gov.sg/employment-agencies/eligibility-and-requirements/who-needs-to-get-a-licence) (Accessed 22 June 2026)
- [MOM: Employment Agencies licence conditions (PDF)](https://www.mom.gov.sg/-/media/mom/documents/employment-agencies/ea-licence-conditions.pdf) (Accessed 06 August 2026)

## Related

- [Recruitment & Executive Search](https://skillsforce.com.sg/services/recruitment)
- [Setting up HR and payroll in Singapore](https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/foreign-company-first-90-days-singapore-hr-payroll)
- [About Skillsforce](https://skillsforce.com.sg/about)