Senior Employment Credit Ends 2027: What Replaces It

The Senior Employment Credit (SEC), the wage offset of up to 7% that IRAS pays automatically to employers of Singaporean workers aged 60 and above earning below S$4,000 a month, covers wages paid up to 31 December 2027 and then ends. On 26 October 2026 the Tripartite Workgroup on Senior Employment (TWG-SE) recommended a new Re-Employment Credit from 2028 in its place, among six changes that include a retirement age of 65 and a re-employment age of 70 from 1 January 2029. The Government has accepted all six and says further details will come in the first half of 2027.

Until those details appear, today's schemes carry on unchanged. Check your SEC payouts, decide on the Part-time Re-employment Grant before it closes, and note the 2029 dates.

What did the senior employment workgroup recommend?

The TWG-SE report (PDF) makes six recommendations:

1. Flexible roles and career guidance: a Flexi-Load Programme for part-time or fractional roles, and a career longevity programme office led by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency with NTUC and SNEF.
2. Retirement age 65 and re-employment age 70 on 1 January 2029.
3. Higher recommended EAP amounts, last updated in 2022.
4. More Earned Income Relief for seniors working beyond those ages. This is the employee's personal tax relief; IRAS's Earned Income Relief page puts it today at up to S$8,000 a year from age 60.
5. A Re-Employment Credit from 2028 in place of the SEC.
6. An enhanced Workfare Income Supplement and an updated Progressive Wage Credit Scheme for lower-wage seniors.

When does the Senior Employment Credit end, and what replaces it?

Per IRAS, for wages paid from 1 January 2024 to 31 December 2027, employers get up to 7% of the wages of Singapore citizen employees aged 60 and above earning below S$4,000 a month, if CPF was paid on time. There is no application: IRAS writes to eligible employers and pays by GIRO or PayNow Corporate, in September for January to June wages and the following March for July to December wages. By that rule, December 2027 wages would be paid in March 2028 (our reading). Wages of business owners and shareholder-directors do not count.

The 2026 and 2027 rates, per employee per month:

• Aged 60 to 64: 2% of wages up to S$3,000; S$240 minus 6% of wages from above S$3,000 to below S$4,000.
• Aged 65 to 68: 4% up to S$3,000; S$480 minus 12% of wages above that.
• Aged 69 and above: 7% up to S$3,000; S$840 minus 21% of wages above that.

The report says the Re-Employment Credit should support employers who hire seniors above the statutory retirement age, with a higher wage ceiling, and could focus on older age groups, where employment barriers may be greater. No rates, bands or ceiling are published. The CPF Transition Offset, half of each year's rise in employer CPF rates for staff aged above 55 to 70, also runs to 2027, and the report says nothing about what follows it.

What happens to the Part-time Re-employment Grant?

MOM's PTRG page (updated 18 December 2025) pays S$2,500 per resident senior worker aged 60 and above, capped at S$125,000 (50 workers). The company needs at least one such worker at application and claim, and must:

• offer part-time re-employment to eligible seniors who ask for it;
• adopt the Tripartite Standard on Age-Friendly Workplace Practices;
• put flexible work arrangements and structured career planning into its formal HR policy;
• send one senior manager and one HR practitioner to a funded SNEF workshop.

SNEF takes applications, and a company that has had the PTRG before cannot apply again. MOM extended it to 31 December 2027 and reopened applications on 18 December 2025.

The successor is built differently. The Flexi-Load Programme will cover seniors aged 50 and above and will require employers to show they created additional flexi-load roles, where the PTRG funds changes to HR policy. A firm that would qualify for the PTRG cannot assume the successor will fit it. Our guide to flexible work arrangement requests covers the process such a policy must follow.

Retirement age 65 in 2029: which employees does it affect?

Today MOM's re-employment page (updated 3 July 2026) requires employers to offer re-employment to eligible employees who turn 64, up to 69. Only as a last resort, when no suitable job can be found, may an employer offer a one-off EAP instead: 3.5 months' salary (minimum S$6,250, maximum S$14,750), or 2 months (S$4,000 to S$8,500) after at least 30 months of re-employment since 64, pro-rated by hours for part-timers. Our retirement age guide covers consultation timings and the current rules.

The report fixes the date but not the birth-date cut-offs. Our reading, not MOM's: employees who turn 64 on or after 1 January 2029, born in 1965 or later, are the likeliest to have a retirement age of 65 instead. Whether staff already re-employed get a year more, to 70, is not yet set out. When the ages last rose, the Tripartite Guidelines on re-employment (PDF) added transitional EAP tables for employees born from 1 July 1958 to 30 June 1963; similar rules for 2029 are possible, but none are published yet.

The report also notes that the Workplace Fairness Act will strengthen protections against age discrimination when it comes into force in end-2027; see our Workplace Fairness Act guide.

A worked example for a small firm (illustrative)

A fictional 18-person printing firm in Ubi employs three Singapore citizens aged 60 and above. Assume each stays in the same SEC age band for the year and CPF is paid on time.

• Mdm Rosnah, 62, born March 1964, packer, S$2,600 a month: 2% is S$52.
• Mr Tan, 66, machine operator, S$3,400: S$480 minus S$408 (12% of S$3,400) is S$72.
• Mr Gopal, 69, part-time driver, S$1,800: 7% is S$126. He has reached today's re-employment age of 69; the report wants the new credit to give more support to workers beyond that age.

On our arithmetic that is S$250 a month, S$3,000 a year: about S$1,500 each September and March. It stops with December 2027 wages; do not budget a replacement until rates are out.

If the firm has never had the PTRG and meets its four conditions, MOM's per-worker figure suggests up to S$7,500 for these three.

Mdm Rosnah turns 64 in March 2028, before the change, so on current rules she reaches the retirement age of 64 then and, if eligible, must be offered re-employment. If no suitable job existed, today's recommended EAP would be 3.5 times S$2,600, or S$9,100. The recommended amounts are due to rise, so recheck before 2028.

What should employers do now?

1. Check SEC payouts. IRAS gives a per-employee breakdown on request; appeals are due within 2 months of the payout month (by 31 May for March).
2. List staff aged 60 and above with date of birth, citizenship or PR status and monthly wage.
3. Decide on the PTRG well before the end of 2027; its conditions are policy work.
4. Mark retirement dates for staff born in 1965 or later as provisional.
5. Plan for the 2027 CPF rates with our CPF contribution rates 2027 page and CPF contribution calculator.
6. Diarise the first half of 2027 to reopen MOM's and IRAS's pages for the new rates.

More staff guides are under operations.

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