Overtime pay in Singapore

Are you entitled to overtime pay at all?

MOM puts the test in two lines. You can claim overtime if you are a non-workman earning a monthly basic salary of $2,600 or less, or a workman earning a monthly basic salary of $4,500 or less. Both figures are inclusive, so a basic salary of exactly $2,600 is inside and $2,600.01 is outside.

Basic salary is narrower than what reaches your bank account. MOM excludes overtime, bonus, annual wage supplement, productivity incentive payments, reimbursement for special expenses and all allowances. Someone on a $2,500 basic with a $300 transport allowance is inside the gate, not outside it, and checking the wrong number is the most common way people talk themselves out of a claim.

Part 4 does not cover managers and executives, whatever they earn. MOM describes them as employees with executive and supervisory functions: decisions on recruitment, discipline, termination, performance assessment and reward, formulating strategy, and running the business. It also counts professionals with tertiary education and specialised knowledge on similar terms, naming advocates and solicitors, chartered accountants, and practising doctors and dentists.

A workman is someone whose work involves mainly manual labour. MOM lists who that covers: manual work including artisans and apprentices, operating or maintaining commercial vehicles carrying passengers, supervising manual workers while also doing manual work more than half the time, and the jobs named in the First Schedule of the Employment Act, which are cleaner, construction worker, labourer, machine operator and assembler, metal and machinery worker, train, bus, lorry and van driver, train and bus inspector, and a workman employed at piece rates at an employer’s premises.

MOM runs a self-assessment tool for Part 4 coverage, linked from its own page below. If your job sits near the workman line, or you are not sure whether your role counts as executive, that tool is the answer and this page is not.

How the rate is worked out

Overtime pay is the hourly basic rate of pay multiplied by 1.5, multiplied by the number of hours worked overtime. The 1.5 is a floor rather than a fixed figure: MOM says at least 1.5 times the hourly basic rate of pay, so a contract can pay more and some do.

The hourly basic rate itself depends on how you are paid.

Read the monthly divisor closely, because it is fixed. 52 x 44 is 2,288 hours, the statutory 44-hour week across a year, and it does not move if your contract says 40 hours. A monthly-rated employee contracted to fewer than 44 hours a week therefore has an hourly basic rate lower than their own working week implies. That is the formula MOM publishes, and the one MOM’s own calculator uses.

The $13.60 ceiling, and how little it actually does

MOM states it plainly: the overtime rate payable for non-workmen is capped at the salary level of $2,600, or an hourly rate of $13.60. No equivalent cap is stated for workmen.

Two things about that figure are worth knowing before you use it. First, it is not what the formula returns. (12 x 2,600) / (52 x 44) is $13.6364, and MOM publishes $13.60 and uses $13.60 in its own worked example, so $13.60 is the operative number.

Second, the cap has very little to bite on. The formula reaches $13.60 at a monthly basic salary of about $2,593, and entitlement to overtime ends at $2,600, so the ceiling changes the answer only inside roughly seven dollars of salary. Its real function is to fix the highest statutory overtime rate a non-workman can be owed at $20.40 an hour.

The gap it leaves between the two categories is far larger than the cap itself. A workman on $4,500 has an hourly basic rate of $23.60 and an overtime hour worth $35.40, about 73% more than the most any non-workman can be owed for the same hour of the same work.

The hours behind the money

• Contractual hours are up to 9 hours a day or 44 hours a week if you work 5 days a week or fewer, and up to 8 hours a day or 44 hours a week if you work more than 5 days. Overtime is all work in excess of the normal hours of work, breaks excluded.
• You are not allowed to work more than 12 hours a day. MOM allows four exceptions: an accident or threat of accident, work essential to the life of the community, national defence or security, urgent work to be done to machinery or plant, and an interruption of work that was impossible to foresee.
• An employee can only work up to 72 overtime hours in a month. An employer who needs more than that, or more than 12 hours in a day up to a maximum of 14, has to apply to MOM for an overtime exemption.
• You are generally not required to work more than 6 consecutive hours without a break. Where the nature of the work requires continuous work for up to 8 hours, breaks of at least 45 minutes must be provided for meals. Rest and meal hours are not paid.

When it has to be paid, and what cannot be swapped for it

Within 14 days of the salary period

MOM: payment must be made within 14 days after the last day of the salary period. Overtime is not something that can be held over to the end of the quarter or folded into an annual bonus.

Time off is not a substitute inside Part 4

MOM’s answer is direct. If you are covered under Part 4, your employer cannot substitute overtime pay with time off, and overtime must be paid at the rate of at least 1.5 times the hourly basic rate of pay. If you are not covered under Part 4, the entitlement depends on what is in your employment contract, which is exactly where time off in lieu becomes a legitimate arrangement.

The employer has to have required the hours

MOM: overtime pay only applies if the employer requires the employee to work beyond normal working hours. MOM encourages you to seek your employer’s approval if you need to work overtime, precisely so that this does not turn into the dispute later.

Rest days and public holidays

These are the two cases where overtime pay is only half of what you are owed. MOM gives one formula for both: (hourly basic rate of pay x 1.5 x number of hours worked overtime) + (rest day or public holiday pay). The first half is ordinary overtime arithmetic. The second half is a separate entitlement, and it is usually the larger one.

Your employer must provide 1 rest day a week, a whole day from midnight to midnight, and it is not a paid day. It does not have to be a Sunday, the employer decides which day it is, and the maximum interval allowed between 2 rest days is 12 days. Your employer cannot compel you to work on a rest day, unless under exceptional circumstances. What you are paid for working one depends on how much of the day you worked and on who asked for it.

Public holidays are set out separately, and which of the three rows applies depends on what the holiday landed on in your own week.

The holiday falls on a working day and you work it

An extra day’s salary at the basic rate of pay, the gross rate of pay for that holiday, and overtime pay if you work beyond your normal hours of work.

The holiday falls on a non-working day, such as a Saturday on a 5-day week

Overtime pay for the extra hours worked on the Saturday, and one extra day’s salary at the gross rate of pay or another day off for the public holiday.

The holiday falls on your rest day

Payment for work done on a rest day, overtime pay if you work beyond your normal hours of work, and the next working day becomes a paid holiday instead.

One rule catches people out when the month is added up. Work on a rest day or public holiday is not counted in the 72-hour overtime limit, except for work done beyond the usual daily working hours on those days. Those extra hours are included in the limit.

Part-time employees

If you work less than 35 hours a week you are a part-time employee, covered by the Employment of Part-Time Employees Regulations, and overtime works on two tiers instead of one.

Hours that exceed your own daily working hours but are still less than a comparable full-time employee’s normal hours are paid at your hourly basic rate of pay, with no multiplier. Only the hours that exceed the full-time employee’s normal hours carry the 1.5.

If you are above the threshold

Most people who look for an overtime calculator turn out to be above the line, and the honest answer is that the Employment Act sets no overtime rate for you. That is not the same as being owed nothing. It moves the question from the statute to your contract, which is a weaker place to argue from but not an empty one.

• Read the contract and the staff handbook for an overtime clause, a time-off-in-lieu clause or a shift allowance. Where one exists, it binds your employer.
• A contract term more generous than the Act is enforceable. A term less generous than the Act is not, for anyone the Act does cover.
• Time off in lieu is a legitimate arrangement outside Part 4 and a prohibited substitute inside it. Which side of the threshold you are on decides whether it can be offered to you at all.
• If you believe you are covered and are not being paid, MOM handles salary-related claims and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management mediates them. Bring payslips and a record of the hours.

What MOM does not state, and what this page will not invent

• No rounding rule for the amount. MOM publishes the formulas but no instruction on rounding cents, so the figure above is rounded to the nearest cent at the last step only, never during the calculation.
• No reconciliation between $13.60 and the $13.6364 the formula returns at a $2,600 salary. Both appear on MOM pages. We use $13.60, because that is the figure MOM prints as the cap and the one in MOM’s own worked example.
• No dollar figure here for a day’s salary on a rest day. MOM’s table is written in days, and turning days into dollars needs the number of working days in that particular month. MOM’s rest day calculator does that, and this page does not.
• No cap for workmen. MOM states the capped rate for non-workmen only, so none is applied to workmen here.
• Nothing about roles that sit between workman and executive. MOM’s self-assessment tool is the authority on your own coverage, and it is linked from the MOM page above.

Where to go next

• This page: Whether overtime pay is owed to you at all, and what the hours are worth if it is.
• Annual leave calculator: The other Employment Act floor: how many days of paid annual leave you have earned, pro-rated by completed months.
• Notice period: If you are leaving: how long notice runs, what salary in lieu covers, and the exact last day of employment.
• Annual leave in Singapore: The background reading on leave, including what happens to the days you have not taken when employment ends.

Common questions

Sources

• MOM: hours of work, overtime and rest day (thresholds, the capped rate, the formulas, the 72-hour limit, rest day pay)
• MOM: calculate overtime pay for a monthly-rated employee (the official calculator)
• MOM: who the Employment Act covers, and who is covered under Part 4
• MOM: overtime for part-time employees
• MOM: public holidays, entitlement and pay
• MOM: calculate pay for work on a rest day
• MOM FAQ: is there a salary limit for overtime pay entitlement?
• MOM FAQ: can my employer give me time off instead of overtime pay?
• MOM FAQ: overtime worked without company approval

This page states what MOM publishes, with every rule linked back to its source. It is information, not legal or HR advice, and it cannot read your employment contract or your payslip. Where a contract is more generous than the Employment Act, the contract applies. For a salary dispute, MOM handles salary-related claims and the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management mediates them.