# Your first hires as a tech start-up in Singapore aren't special

URL: https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/tech-startup-first-hires-singapore
Title: Making your first hires as a tech start-up in Singapore | Skillsforce
Description: What applies to a tech start-up's first Singapore hires: Employment Pass, CPF, Key Employment Terms and leave, and the pathways that do not.
Updated 18 August 2026. First published 18 August 2026. Author: Skillsforce (People-operations team)
Category: sector-insights

A founder searching for "start-up hiring rules in Singapore" is looking for something that does not exist. There is no separate track for technology companies: the same Employment Pass eligibility, CPF obligations and Key Employment Terms apply to a five-person seed-stage team as to any other Singapore employer. Here is what that ordinary set actually requires.

## What hiring rules apply to a tech start-up's first hires in Singapore?

A tech start-up hires under the same rules as any Singapore employer: Employment Pass eligibility for foreign hires, CPF from the first local employee, written Key Employment Terms within 14 days, and the standard statutory leave entitlements. EntrePass, Tech.Pass and ONE Pass are separate founder and top-talent pathways, not ordinary hiring routes.

## Key points

- There is no technology-specific hiring regime. A start-up's Employment Pass, CPF and Key Employment Terms obligations are the same as any Singapore employer's, with no separate salary floor, quota or levy.
- A start-up's search starts in the Singapore Citizen and Permanent Resident market, and selection there has to be merit-based under TAFEP's Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, which MOM's Fair Consideration Framework backs.
- EntrePass, Tech.Pass and ONE Pass are entry pathways for founders and established top talent, administered separately from ordinary hiring. They are not how a start-up brings on its engineering or product team.
- CPF is payable only for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents earning more than S$50 a month. Employment Pass and S Pass holders receive none.
- Most start-up hires sit well above the Employment Act's Part IV overtime and rest-day thresholds, or are excluded as managers and executives regardless of pay. That stops being true the moment a junior or intern role is paid near S$2,600 a month.
- Key Employment Terms are due in writing within 14 days of a new hire's first day, whatever the company's age or funding stage.

Search "hiring rules for tech start-ups in Singapore" and most results promise a start-up track: something lighter, faster, calibrated for a five-person seed round rather than an established company. It does not exist. MOM runs one Employment Pass framework, one CPF regime and one Employment Act, and a start-up sits inside all three exactly as any other Singapore employer does. That absence is the answer, not a gap in it, and the useful work starts once a founder stops looking for the exemption.

That matters practically, not just as a correction. A founder who spends the search budget looking for a start-up exemption ends up back at the same MOM and CPF Board pages everyone else uses, just later, and often after an offer has already gone out on terms the checks below would have caught.

## Why there is no start-up-specific regime

Some sectors do carry a genuinely distinct hiring regime: a sector regulator with its own vetting requirement, a higher salary floor, a mandatory course before a work pass is issued. Technology carries none of that. There is no technology-sector-specific hiring regulation: no distinct Employment Pass salary floor, Dependency Ratio Ceiling, levy or quota, and no sector-specific MOM enforcement track separate from general foreign-workforce policy. The general Workplace Safety and Health Act duty, taking reasonably practicable measures to protect employees, applies to a tech office the same as it would to any workplace; no distinct WSH regime, code of practice or additional safety-training obligation for technology employers exists. A start-up's statutory hiring obligations are the general ones: Employment Act compliance, CPF, IRAS, work-pass eligibility and, once headcount grows, the Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices administered by TAFEP. Stating that plainly is more useful than inventing a start-up rulebook to fill the gap.

## The Employment Pass, for your first foreign hire

Foreign hires go through Employment Pass eligibility like any other employer's do, on the general salary track rather than the elevated one financial services carries, and MOM publishes the qualifying salary in force on its own eligibility page. The prior question is usually the local one. Where a role can be filled from the Singapore Citizen and Permanent Resident market, that is the simpler route, and selection there has to be merit-based under TAFEP's Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices, which MOM's Fair Consideration Framework backs.

The Dependency Ratio Ceiling, the levy and the Work Permit sub-quotas apply across MOM's five sectors: Construction, Manufacturing, Marine Shipyard, Process and Services. A technology company sits in Services, the catch-all, rather than outside the system, but rarely feels the ceiling, because start-up hiring runs on the Employment Pass, which carries no levy or quota, or on local headcount. An S Pass hire is where it becomes real: it counts against the Services ceiling of 35% of total workforce, inside a 10% S Pass sub-quota, and carries the harmonised levy of S$650 a month.

## CPF and the Skills Development Levy, from your first local hire

CPF becomes payable the day a start-up's first employee is a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident earning more than S$50 a month, on any basis: full-time, part-time or contract. Employment Pass and S Pass holders receive none. The Skills Development Levy is different: it applies to every employee working in Singapore, foreign hires included, and CPF Board collects it alongside CPF contributions. Rates by age band and PR year are on our [CPF contribution rates page](/compliance/cpf-rates); our [Skills Development Levy guide](/insights/skills-development-levy-sdl-singapore-employers) has the exact levy figures. A founder building a first payroll run is usually better served checking one employee against the [CPF calculator](/free-tools/cpf-calculator) than memorising a table.

## Key Employment Terms and statutory leave

None of this waits for a company to feel established. Written Key Employment Terms are due within 14 days of a new hire's first day, for anyone engaged for 14 days or more, whatever the company's funding stage. An itemised payslip goes out with every payment from the first one. Annual, sick, hospitalisation and, where eligible, maternity or paternity leave phase in from three months of service, the same schedule for a two-person team as a two-hundred-person one. Maternity leave sits slightly apart from the rest of this list: it runs under the Child Development Co-Savings Act rather than the Employment Act, and eligibility gates on the child's citizenship rather than the employee's, which is easy to miss when everything else here is Employment Act driven. Our [first employee HR policies checklist](/insights/first-employee-singapore-hr-policies-checklist) sets out the full sequence and timing; the detail on payslip contents and the real MOM penalty for missing either obligation is in our [payslips and Key Employment Terms guide](/insights/itemised-payslips-kets-singapore-employers).

## Overtime and rest-day rules: usually not your problem, until they are

The Employment Act's Part IV hours, overtime and rest-day provisions apply only to workmen earning S$4,500 a month or less, and other employees earning S$2,600 a month or less, and never to managers or executives regardless of pay. Most start-up technical and product hires, engineers, designers, growth, sit above both thresholds or hold titles that exclude them from Part IV outright, so the 1.5 times overtime rate, the 72-hour monthly overtime cap and the weekly rest day genuinely do not apply to them as a matter of law. That stops being a safe assumption the moment a role is paid near or below those figures: an intern, a junior operations hire, a part-time support role. Check the actual salary against the actual threshold rather than assuming seniority covers it. Where Part IV does apply, the mechanics are ordinary ones: 1.5 times the hourly basic rate for overtime, and a rest day owed to an employee working at least five days a week, paid at one day's basic salary if the employee asked to work it and two days' basic salary if the employer did.

## EntrePass, Tech.Pass and ONE Pass are not hiring routes

Three separate passes get mentioned in the same breath as start-up hiring, and none of them answer the question of how to bring on staff. EntrePass, Tech.Pass and the ONE Pass are entry pathways for a founder or an individual with an exceptional profile, administered by MOM with the Economic Development Board. They sit next to the ordinary hiring question rather than answering it, and none of them is how a start-up builds a team.

## Where sector knowledge actually matters

Almost everything above transfers to a start-up unchanged from any other employer, because it is statutory. Recruitment is the one place sector knowledge genuinely counts, since a shortlist for an engineering lead or a first commercial hire needs someone who understands what the role competes against in the local market. The method there is a longer intake brief than a generic one, a first shortlist used as a calibration rather than a final answer, and a straight statement of what is already known about a client's market and what is being learned as the search runs. Technology start-ups is one of the seven sectors Skillsforce works most deeply in for exactly that reason. Seven is where we go deepest; it is not the limit of where we work.

## Doing this yourself, or not

Everything above is publicly documented, and a founder with the time can run it directly: check the salary against the qualifying floor, register for CPF, issue Key Employment Terms, and confirm the pass before an offer goes out. Where a start-up hands it over instead, what we secure in the first stretch is typically:

- The salary check runs before a shortlist goes out, so a candidate is not offered a role they cannot legally take.
- CPF and SDL registration and the first payroll run, correct from employee number one.
- Key Employment Terms and the itemised payslip, issued on time and in writing.
- Work Injury Compensation insurance arranged ahead of the start date, not the week of it.
- A shortlist calibrated to what is already known about the market, stated plainly rather than assumed.

Running that sequence is the job. Our [HR Solutions](/services/hr) and [payroll support for start-ups](/services/payroll/for-startups) cover it; our [sector page for tech start-ups](/sectors/tech-start-ups) is the next stop if what you need is a specific hire rather than the whole set-up.

## Frequently asked questions

### Is there a special hiring regime for technology start-ups in Singapore?

No. A technology start-up hires under the same framework as any Singapore employer: Employment Pass eligibility for foreign staff, CPF from the first local hire, and the standard Employment Act obligations. There is no technology-specific salary floor, Dependency Ratio Ceiling, levy or quota, and MOM runs no distinct enforcement track for the sector.

### Does a tech start-up pay CPF for its first employee?

Only if that employee is a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident earning more than S$50 a month, on any basis: full-time, part-time or contract. Employment Pass, S Pass and Work Permit holders receive no CPF. Contribution rates change by age band, PR year and on 1 January each year, so check the current table rather than a fixed figure.

### Do overtime and rest-day rules apply to a start-up's staff?

Only for employees paid at or below the Employment Act's Part IV thresholds: S$4,500 a month basic salary for workmen, S$2,600 a month for other employees, and never for managers or executives regardless of pay. Most start-up technical and product hires sit above those figures, so Part IV's 1.5 times overtime rate, 72-hour monthly overtime cap and weekly rest day do not apply to them as a matter of law. They do apply to lower-paid operational, support or junior roles paid within those thresholds.

### Does Skillsforce specialise in recruiting for technology start-ups?

Technology start-ups is one of the seven sectors Skillsforce works most deeply in. Seven is where we go deepest; it is not the limit of where we work. For recruitment specifically, the method is a longer intake brief, a first shortlist used to calibrate fit, and a plain statement of what is already known about a client's market. The statutory side, payroll, CPF, work passes, applies identically across sectors, which is what lets a small team take on an unfamiliar brief without handing it to a desk that does not cover it.

## Sources

- [MOM: Employment Pass eligibility](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/eligibility) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [MOM: S Pass levy and quota requirements](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/s-pass/quota-and-levy/levy-and-quota-requirements) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [MOM: Workplace Safety and Health Act, responsibilities of stakeholders](https://www.mom.gov.sg/workplace-safety-and-health/workplace-safety-and-health-act/responsibilities-of-stakeholders) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [MOM: Is there a salary limit for overtime pay entitlement?](https://www.mom.gov.sg/faq/hours-of-work-overtime-and-rest-days/is-there-a-salary-limit-for-overtime-pay-entitlement) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [CPF Board: Who should receive CPF contributions](https://www.cpf.gov.sg/employer/employer-obligations/who-should-receive-cpf-contributions) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [EDB: Tech.Pass](https://www.edb.gov.sg/en/incentives-and-programmes/incentives-and-facilitation-programmes/tech-pass.html) (Accessed 18 August 2026)
- [TAFEP: Tripartite Guidelines on Fair Employment Practices](https://www.tal.sg/tafep/getting-started/fair/tripartite-guidelines) (Accessed 21 August 2026)
- [MOM: Consider all candidates fairly](https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/employment-pass/consider-all-candidates-fairly) (Accessed 21 August 2026)

## Related

- [Tech start-ups sector page](https://skillsforce.com.sg/sectors/tech-start-ups)
- [HR Solutions](https://skillsforce.com.sg/services/hr)
- [First employee HR policies checklist](https://skillsforce.com.sg/insights/first-employee-singapore-hr-policies-checklist)
- [Payroll support for start-ups](https://skillsforce.com.sg/services/payroll/for-startups)