The Singapore Personalised Employment Pass Scheme (PEP)
If you want to live a successful life in Singapore and plan to relocate to this beautiful country, then you should apply for a personalised employment pass scheme (PEP). This pass is offered to highly qualified professionals and also to those who get high achievements, scholarships and much more. As we all know, Singapore is a safe country to travel and the second most globalised country in the world people prefer to live in. You can find great job opportunities offering incredible salaries, staff speculation etc. Getting a Singaporean visa on your own can be a complicated process. To make your life easier, you can contact our consultants for guidelines and help.
The concept of a PEP is to provide an employment pass without the interference of any sponsoring company. These passes are for highly qualified professionals planning to work and find a job in Singapore. The pass helps such people to enter Singapore and stay until six months. The applicant cannot remain unemployed for more than six months.
The Personalised Employment Pass vs Employment Pass
The similarities of employment pass and personalised employment pass are:
- Both allow a person to work and live in Singapore
- You can go in and out of Singapore without the need for an entry visa
- Long-Term Visit Passes and Dependents Passes would help to bring family members to Singapore
- You can stay for more than 12 months in Singapore
However, they still are different. The differences include:
- For an Employment Pass, you need a sponsor company; however, through the Personalised Employment Pass, you can enter Singapore and find a job.
- The PEP is for three years while the validity of EP is for 1-3 years.
- EP holders can become directors and shareholders of a Singaporean company while through a Personalised Employment Pass, you can only work in a company.
- You can’t switch a job through an employment pass. On the other hand, if you are a PEP holder, you don’t have to re-apply for any visa.
Features and Benefits of Personalised Employment Pass
People consider PEP a better option because, through this process, you don’t have to find a sponsor company only if you meet the other requirements. However, one difficult task is that you will have to find a well-paid job within six months to stay a PEP holder.
One great benefit of a PEP is that if you plan to switch a job, you won’t have to reapply for a visa. Finally, without any problem, you can stay in Singapore for six whole months even if you are unemployed.
Eligibility Criteria and Requirements for PEP
The eligibility criteria of PEP include:
- You must find a job which pays you at least $12,000 per month.
- Your annual income must be a minimum of $144,000.
- You must be a qualified foreign professional with the last salary of at least $18,000 per month.
Documents Required for Application
The required documents to fulfil the requirements of a Personalised Employment Pass are:
- Completed application form
- A photocopy of the applicant's passport
- Employment contract
- Bank statements
- Up-to-date tax statements and proofs
- Previous salary slips of at least three months
- Complete CV/resume
All documents must be submitted in English. If it is in any other language, you must get it translated through a professional and attach the original translated documents too.
How to Apply for PEP in Singapore
The application process of PEP may take around eight weeks to process. Right after that, an IPA will be issued by the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), and it would have to be collected within six months from Singapore. You are required to carry all the essential documents. The validity of the PEP is three years and you can also call your family until the validity of your pass. You don’t have to renew a personalised employment pass if you have an employment pass and you’re working. But in case your PEP gets cancelled then you won’t be allowed to re-apply for it.
What Do I Need to Maintain My Personalised Employment Pass
In order to maintain your PEP, you will have to keep the authorities updated regarding your employment and personal details. That can be done by Personalised Employment Pass Notification form and EPOL or Employment Pass Online Account. An EPOL account will also help you make a transaction with the government.
But make sure you keep your EPOL account updated by keeping the details up to date. You can make changes online if your job or residential address changes. You can also update your salary and job roles through the EPOL account.
Renewal of PEP
Be aware that after the expiry of your PEP, you cannot renew it. However, you can still continue to work in Singapore under the employment pass. You may also consider applying for permanent residency status.
Keep in mind that a PEP can anytime be cancelled if it gets cancelled once then you cannot re-apply for it. You can always seek help from our specialised visa consultants regarding the PEP process.
The authorities set quite high demands for the personalized visa and meeting them all is possible only if a seasoned visa assistant is involved. A lot of pitfalls hide in the documentation and the way a profile is represented. While assessing every candidate, the MOM relies on their personal merits, basically professional background and skills. Sometimes it can be challenging to substitute such subjective things as experience, and the profile looks pale against the background of other candidates. Anyway, the government usually points to the weak points of the application in the rejection letter. If you faced a rejection, you have 3 months for preparing a strong appeal. The point here is in listening to the MOM advice and addressing the issue the government pointed to. The authorities warn that it is useless to appeal if the issue cannot be addressed. Trying to wear down government’s resistance by storming it with irksome appeals will lead to rejection and can totally jeopardize your situation. That is why, if the rejection happened, it is crucial to analyze the reason deeply. If you aren’t sure you understand the issue or don’t know how to fix it, it’s better to ask a visa agency to investigate into the problem and find a winning solution. After the issue is fixed, the electronic appeal can be submitted and the document that reflects the change attached. There is no need to re-submit the whole package of documents if it wasn’t required by the govt. Sometimes the rejection happens even when the application is submitted by an agent (the government is prone to play safe if there is at least one insecurity in the profile), but agents are usually able to make in-depth analysis and address the issue faultlessly due to their abundant experience. We will find a key factor that will persuade the govt in advantages of your skills. What is more, if the hardly probable rejection still happens, we will refund you up to a half of our fee.
As the personalized visa is bound to its holder only and no employer is required, you can apply on your own using the electronic governmental service called EP Online. The suggested option is to entrust a visa consultant with your PEP case. This way, you will save your time (the visa is usually in processing during approximately 5 weeks; add to this long period of time any other accidental delay caused by an issue with documents) and nerves. The practice shows that applications containing exhaustive documentation and strong profiles have more chances to compete at the MOM than mediocre applications knocked together without awareness of the MOM trends and rules. Please take into account that PEP application has a longer list of documents than that of EP. Except papers that prove your skills and prominent work history, you are required to provide bank and tax statements and your salary slips which have to be no older than 6-month-old. Please, find out from our visa consultants which other documents you must prepare. Some of them must be just collected, but some have to be compiled from scratch. If you use our full PEP service, you just provide us with basic documents and honest information about your background and sit back. We will do the rest of the paperwork, prepare an outstanding application and handle the online submission on your behalf. You don’t have to deal with the authorities directly as we will put you in the picture and reach out to you when something additional will be needed.
PEP is given to the most talented and highest-paid pros and directors who managed to persuade the government that they were exceptionally beneficial for the country’s economy and that they were extremely likely to land a job in Singapore (i.e. their skills sold like hot cakes). Unless you are a popular personality in Singapore, you will require a good grip in building your profile up and paperwork to get the visa. It’s better to enlist a professional visa backup – an agent who knows the psychology of the application process and leverages that can make your employment profile sound outstanding. Moreover, the agent will help you to adjust your papers to the MOM standards and fully represent your case during the whole application procedure. Please, reach out to our consultants for a piece of valuable advice.
Unfortunately, an extension for the personalized visa isn’t provided by the government. Before the 3-year term expires, if you don’t feel like leaving the country, you can either switch over to any other suitable working pass (like P1) or pursue the Permanent Residence. Please take into account that in order to avoid breaks in your employment, these solutions must be implemented beforehand according to these visas’ processing time. The Employment Pass would be ready in 7 days (e-application) or 5 weeks (manual), and getting the Permanent Residence visa would take you up to 6 months. Your visa consultant will advise you on the high time to swap visas.