Progressive Wage Model 2026: Employer Checklist for SMEs

The Progressive Wage Model (PWM) is MOM’s wage-and-training structure for Singapore citizen and permanent resident employees in named sectors and job roles. If your firm employs Work Permit, S Pass or Employment Pass holders, MOM says it must meet the PWM requirements (a minimum gross wage for the job level, plus training) for covered local employees and pay every other local employee at least the Local Qualifying Salary (LQS), to renew existing work passes or apply for new ones.

The practical question for a small business is which of three rules covers each local employee: a sector PWM, the occupational progressive wages (OPW) for administrators and drivers, or the LQS, which MOM’s LQS page (updated 1 July 2026) puts at S$1,800 gross a month for full-time locals. Food services and administrator and driver floors stepped up on 1 July 2026 and retail on 1 September 2026. This guide leaves out the cleaning, security, landscape, lift and escalator and waste management schedules, linked from MOM’s PWM overview. General information, not legal advice.

Which rule applies to each of your local employees?

MOM describes each role by its responsibilities, and its retail page notes that companies may use different job titles for the same role, so start from what each person does. MOM also offers a PWM self-assessment tool. This order of checks is our suggestion, an inference from MOM’s wording rather than a MOM rule:

1. Sector PWM. MOM lists how each is regulated: licensing conditions by NEA (cleaning, waste management) or PRD (SPF) (security), Landscape Company Register requirements, and BCA contractor registration (lift and escalator). In-house cleaners, security officers and landscape maintenance employees, and covered retail and food services workers, come under the work-pass requirement instead.
2. Occupational progressive wages (OPW). Local employees in administrative or driving roles on a contract of service, employed by firms that employ foreign workers. MOM says managerial staff whose duties do not match the administrator job rungs are not covered.
3. LQS. Every other local employee in a firm that hires foreign workers.

MOM’s retail and food services pages apply their requirements to local employees of firms that hire foreign workers, regardless of the firm’s industry classification (SSIC). The food services page adds that the employee must work in a premise with a Singapore Food Agency Food Retail or Food Processing (Central Kitchen) licence. A firm with no foreign employees should confirm with MOM which requirements, if any, apply.

The LQS also sets how many local workers count towards your Work Permit and S Pass quota: one at S$1,800 a month or more, half at S$900 to below S$1,800. Our S Pass quota guide shows how the count is used.

What counts towards the gross wage?

MOM’s retail, food services and OPW pages use the same definition. For full-time work of 35–44 hours a week, the total monthly gross wage is the sum of:

• basic wage
• allowances such as travel, food and housing
• productivity incentive payments

It does not include bonuses (including the Annual Wage Supplement), stock options, reimbursement of special expenses, payments-in-kind or employer CPF contributions. The retail and food services pages say part-time requirements are pro-rated on a 44-hours basis, and all three list hourly floors for part-timers.

For a full-time employee covered by Part 4 of the Employment Act who works more than 44 hours a week, MOM requires an overtime rate of at least 1.5 times the basic rate of pay and a monthly gross wage of at least the PWM requirement for overtime hours (a separate table linked from each page). Our overtime pay guide explains Part 4 coverage, and our overtime pay calculator does the sum.

Retail has one extra rule. Because sales fluctuate, the Tripartite Cluster for Retail Industry (TCR) agreed to three-month averaging: you meet the rule in a month if either that month’s gross wage meets that month’s requirement, or the past three months’ average gross wage meets the average of the past three months’ requirements. MOM points to Annex D of the TCR’s report for worked examples.

What are the wage floors from 1 July and 1 September 2026?

These are full-time monthly gross wages (35–44 hours a week, excluding overtime) from MOM’s pages as read on 17 October 2026, unchanged since 3 October. Part-time hourly floors are on the same pages.

Retail (MOM retail page). Each line gives the floor for 1 September 2025 to 31 August 2026, then 1 September 2026 to 31 August 2027, then 1 September 2027 to 31 August 2028:

• Retail assistant or cashier: S$2,305; S$2,435; S$2,565.
• Senior cashier or senior retail assistant: S$2,535; S$2,680; S$2,820.
• Assistant retail supervisor: S$2,790; S$2,950; S$3,100.
• Retail managers and supervisors: left to market forces.

Food services, Category A (quick-service establishments) (MOM food services page), 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, then 1 July 2027 to 30 June 2028:

• Cook (QS): S$2,470; S$2,610.
• Kitchen assistant (QS) or food service counter attendant: S$2,295; S$2,435.
• Food or drink stall assistant: S$2,220; S$2,360.

Category B (full-service establishments, caterers and central kitchens) has its own tables, for example cook (FS) S$2,520 and kitchen assistant (FS) S$2,320 from 1 July 2026. MOM leaves senior cook and manager wages to market forces.

Administrators (MOM OPW page), 1 July 2026 to 30 June 2027, then 1 July 2027 to 30 June 2028:

• Administrative assistant: S$2,170; S$2,360.
• Administrative executive: S$2,760; S$2,940.
• Administrative supervisor: S$3,340; S$3,520.

Drivers, same page and periods, in the groups that apply from 1 July 2026 (bracketed figure is the 1 July 2027 step):

• Group A, Class 3 or below licence: Level 1 S$2,370 (S$2,550); Level 2 S$2,485 (S$2,665).
• Group B, Class 4 or above licence: Level 1 S$2,505 (S$2,690); Level 2 S$2,555 (S$2,790).

Worked example: do three roles clear the floors?

This is illustrative: the firm, staff and pay are invented, and the floors are those above (MOM pages as read on 17 October 2026). A fictional 20-person homeware shop employs three Work Permit holders in its stockroom. Three local employees work 35–44 hours a week with no overtime:

• Cashier: basic S$2,150, transport allowance S$150 and productivity incentive S$50, so S$2,350 gross. The retail floor from 1 September 2026 is S$2,435, a shortfall of S$85 a month. The same pay cleared the S$2,305 floor that applied until 31 August 2026 by S$45.
• Administrative assistant: S$2,000 gross. This clears the LQS of S$1,800, but the OPW floor from 1 July 2026 is S$2,170, a shortfall of S$170.
• Van driver (Class 3 licence), Group A Level 1: S$2,400 gross against a floor of S$2,370, which clears it by S$30. At the same pay the driver would be S$150 short of the S$2,550 floor from 1 July 2027.

Closing the first two gaps costs S$85 + S$170 = S$255 a month in gross wages, or S$3,060 over twelve months. Employer CPF comes on top and does not count towards the PWM gross wage. CPF’s page (updated 7 October 2026) gives an employer rate of 17% of wages for citizens and PRs (from the third year of PR status) aged 55 and below, so if both employees fit that description, 17% of S$255 is about S$43 more a month (see our CPF rates guide, or run a payslip through our CPF contribution calculator).

Our reading is that retail averaging could cushion the cashier’s first month or two, but once the past three months all carry the S$2,435 requirement (December 2026 at the latest) the average requirement is S$2,435 too. The lesson is in the second line: the administrative assistant passes the LQS test and fails the OPW test, so classification matters more than the arithmetic.

What training must you be able to show?

• Retail: one Workforce Skills Qualification (WSQ) module from the approved list, or a relevant institute of higher learning qualification. Employers with in-house approved training organisation status can use one in-house module with the “RET” prefix.
• Food services: two WSQ modules (or a relevant institute of higher learning qualification) for all roles except senior cook and manager, for whom training is encouraged but not mandatory.
• Administrators and drivers: at least one WSQ Statement of Attainment, or an in-house programme guided by training objectives, modality, key tasks and duration. MOM says employers are expected to show supporting documents and attendance records.
• New hires: each of these three pages gives six months from the date of employment to comply.

MOM’s what-is-PWM page says employers can tap on the Workfare Skills Support scheme to offset a significant portion of the training costs for Singaporean employees.

Is there help with the wage bill?

The Progressive Wage Credit Scheme (PWCS) co-funds wage increases for eligible resident employees. IRAS (page updated 12 October 2026) says the Government co-funds them from 2022 to 2028, at 30% for increases given in 2026 and 2027 and 20% for 2028. The conditions include:

• an average gross monthly wage increase of at least S$100 for 2022 to 2026 and at least S$200 for 2027 and 2028, though smaller increases that qualified in 2026 and continue into 2027 are still co-funded that year;
• support on gross monthly wages up to S$3,000, and only for employees whose average monthly wage is S$4,000 or lower;
• no payout for wages paid to business owners: sole proprietors, partners, or a person who is both shareholder and director of a company.

Employers do not apply: IRAS says it pays by the first quarter of the following year, so the 2026 payout falls in the first quarter of 2027. MOM’s what-is-PWM page (updated 24 November 2025) still says co-funding runs from 2022 to 2026, while IRAS’s later page says 2028; we rely on IRAS, which administers the payouts.

What to check this month, and what to diarise

1. Do you employ any Work Permit, S Pass or Employment Pass holders? If so, the checks below have work-pass consequences.
2. List each local employee with duties, weekly hours and gross wage by component.
3. Map each person to a sector PWM, OPW or the LQS, and write one line saying why. Use MOM’s self-assessment tool when duties are mixed.
4. Compare gross wage with the floor in force this month, counting only basic wage, allowances and productivity incentives.
5. Check training records, including the six-month clock for new hires.
6. Name who owns this check and when it is repeated; our guide to writing a process people use shows how.

Diarise these dates:

• From 2 November 2026: IRAS asks Corppass administrators to give grant staff its new “Schemes & Grants” authorisations, before refreshed services launch in late December 2026.
• 1 July 2027: the next step in MOM’s schedules for food services and for administrators and drivers.
• 1 September 2027: the next step in MOM’s retail schedule. Recheck the retail page first: it says the TCR will review the schedule in 2026.
• 2027 and 2028: PWCS needs an average gross monthly increase of at least S$200.
• LQS and pest management: MOM says the LQS is reviewed regularly, and the pages we read give no pest management schedule.
• Any change of role or hours: reclassify the employee. For wider HR housekeeping, see grievance handling under the Workplace Fairness Act, flexible work requests and our operations guides.

Common questions