Settling in scores 90, family rights 40. State school for a newcomer's child is paid: 1,035 Singapore dollars a month for primary and 2,190 for secondary, and a place is not guaranteed.
Singapore is transparent and fast but entirely selective: it lets in the people it considers useful. Everything is online, decisions take days or weeks, there are no language or integration exams, and there is no residence registration beyond reporting a change of address online within 14 days. Yet the state publishes no refusal statistics for work passes or permanent residence. And passing does not depend on the candidate alone: two of the four core COMPASS criteria score the employer, namely the mix of nationalities on staff and the share of local employees.
Status rests on the job. When you are dismissed, the employer must cancel the pass within a week, and you get a 30-day visit pass that does not allow work. Changing employer means starting over: 14 days of job advertising, a new application, points recalculated for the new firm. The salary threshold rise on 1 January 2026 applied to renewals, and the next one on 1 January 2027 will also hit people already living there. In 2025, according to the Home Affairs Ministry's answer in parliament, about 2,500 work pass holders were deported; of 17 appeals, none succeeded.
Families feel squeezed. Since 1 May 2021 a spouse on a Dependant's Pass can work only with a work pass of their own under the general rules: the same threshold, quotas and checks. Only pass holders earning at least S$6,000 a month can bring family. State school is paid, with entry via the AEIS exam and only to remaining places.
Foreigners are best kept out of politics: a foreigner's involvement can be a reason for the police to refuse a permit for an assembly with a political aim. In one documented case a worker's pass was not renewed after 19 years in the country because of a Facebook post about migrants' conditions. Foreigners buying homes pay a 60% stamp duty. A bank account with an Employment Pass opens quickly, often online, but some customers face enhanced sanctions checks.
The index score ignores nationality. This is what changes for citizens of specific countries.
No visa needed to enter; the length of stay is set by the officer at entry. To live and work, the same Employment Pass as everyone else.
A visa is needed to enter (ICA list). After that, the same Employment Pass route as for everyone.
A visa is needed to enter (ICA list). The Manpower Ministry sets no nationality restrictions on the Employment Pass. Banks are harder: after MAS sanctions measures in March 2022 some banks do not take clients from Russia, and refusals are documented.
A visa is needed to enter (ICA list). The Manpower Ministry sets no nationality restrictions on the Employment Pass.
The place interval 37-53 shows where the country lands when the data is nudged and the index is recalculated. One place of difference in the table means nothing; a difference of a league means something.
The thin mark on each bar is the average across 97 countries
The strongest category here is Settling in: 90 out of 100, against a 97-state average of 69.5. The weakest is Family rights: 40 against 72.2. Above the world average: 3 out of 7.
All 97 states are calculated for one applicant: 35 years old, income of $2,500 and $3,856 a month before tax, passport not counted, the most accessible route that is actually in use.
Your passport, your income and your family do not change the table. They change which of its lines apply to you. A different income makes entry read differently, a family makes the family category read differently, and your passport makes everything read differently.
MOM promises a decision or an update within 10 working days; about three weeks in practice, and up to six weeks for a foreign company not registered in Singapore. With the mandatory 14 days of job advertising, the whole process takes 5-6 weeks or more.
Practically no. You cannot apply for an Employment Pass yourself, EntrePass needs venture money, patents or an incubator, and there is no digital nomad visa.
S$105 to apply and S$225 on issue, S$330 in all. Over five years with one renewal, S$660 per applicant, not counting family passes.
Yes, together with your job: the employer cancels the pass within a week of dismissal, followed by 30 days on a visit pass with no right to work. Raised salary thresholds also apply at renewal.
There is no minimum period before applying for permanent residence, but the decision is discretionary and practitioners estimate 4-8 years. Citizenship two years after permanent residence; dual citizenship is not allowed.
Evenly and in a businesslike way: fast online procedures, low taxes, no language exams. But status depends entirely on the job, families are squeezed, and paid schools and unpublished refusal data make it expensive and unpredictable for an average family.
97 states, 26 indicators, seven categories, 2,522 scores. Every score has a source and a source class: primary means the texts of laws and government portals; reliable secondary means reports by international organisations, tax reviews by audit firms and specialist legal publications; weak means community posts and single secondary sources. The classes add up to a confidence level for the country, and a country with low confidence gets neither a score nor a place.
Every indicator is scored against a fixed ruler, not against its neighbours. Adding new countries therefore does not move the old ones, and a change in a score means a change in policy and nothing else.
A high place does not mean a good country. It means one thing: the state machine treats newcomers predictably and by the rules. Living there may be expensive, dull or hot; that is not our question.
Checked 01/10/2026. Facts come from the country's index card and official websites.
We make mistakes and we will go on making them: policy changes faster than any database. Our answer is not a pose of infallibility but a visible trail of corrections. Every correction is published: what it was, what it became, the source and the reason for the error. The corrections log opens with the second issue, together with the first block of changes.