Founders who are also directors and shareholders of their own Singapore company face a work pass problem that a straightforward employee hire never runs into. Most guides on the Employment Pass (the “EP”), the Overseas Networks & Expertise Pass, referred to as (“ONE Pass”), and the Personalised Employment Pass (the “PEP”) are written for a company hiring someone else. A founder is trying to authorise themselves to work in the business they own, and two of these three passes are either partially or fully closed to that exact profile.
This guide works through which pass a startup founder can realistically use, where EntrePass fits into the decision, and why the PEP in particular is a dead end for most founders. We have already published a full deep dive on EntrePass eligibility and the COMPASS myths around it, so this piece focuses on how EntrePass sits alongside the EP, ONE Pass and PEP once you are also a shareholder-director, and on what happens when a founder later outgrows their starting pass.
None of these passes is a route to permanent residency in its own right, and all remain subject to periodic revision by the Ministry of Manpower (“MOM”). The figures below are current as at the time of writing.
Why the founder’s situation is different
The PEP explicitly excludes anyone who is “a sole proprietor, partner or where a director is also a shareholder in an ACRA-registered company.” That single rule rules out the PEP for the overwhelming majority of founders, full stop, regardless of how much they earn. If you are a director and hold shares in your own company, and most founders hold both roles by definition, the PEP is not available to you.
The EP is technically available to a founder-director, but MOM scrutinises these applications closely because the “employer” and the “employee” are effectively the same person making the sponsorship decision. A founder applying for their own EP still needs to clear COMPASS and the qualifying salary bar like any other candidate, and the company needs a genuine operating track record and local hiring profile to support the application; a brand-new shell company with no local employees and no revenue is a difficult COMPASS case.
EntrePass exists specifically to solve this problem for very early-stage founders, and it is worth reading in full via our dedicated guide, since it has its own innovation and funding criteria rather than a fixed salary test.
Where the EP fits for a founder
Once the business is trading and has a genuine payroll, an EP for the founder becomes more realistic. The qualifying salary for most sectors currently starts at S$5,600 a month, rising progressively with age to S$10,700 at age 45 and above, with financial services set higher at S$6,200 rising to S$11,800. From 1 January 2027, these floors move up to S$6,000 (S$6,600 for financial services) at the youngest band, and S$11,500 (S$12,700 for financial services) at age 45 and above. Meeting the salary bar only clears Stage 1; the founder’s application then needs 40 points under COMPASS, covering salary benchmarking, qualifications, workforce diversity and support for local employment, unless exempt on account of a fixed monthly salary of S$22,500 or more.
This is where many founder EP applications actually fail, not on salary, but on the firm-level COMPASS criteria, because a very small team with no local PMET hires scores poorly on the diversity and local employment criteria. We have separately covered how MOM treats directors who are also work pass holders, which is directly relevant here since the founder is filling both roles at once.
Where the ONE Pass fits for a founder
The ONE Pass requires a fixed monthly salary of at least S$30,000, sustained for the 12 consecutive months before application, or a prospective offer of that amount from an established Singapore-based company, or an outstanding-achievement route through sports, arts and culture, or academia and research. A founder who has already built and sold, or is currently running, a business with genuine scale can often meet this bar through past salary history rather than trying to justify it from a brand-new venture.
The ONE Pass is the only one of the three passes with no restriction on starting or running a business, sitting on multiple boards, or working for more than one organisation at once, which makes it structurally the best fit for a founder once the salary threshold is within reach. It is renewable every five years, provided the holder maintains that average salary or is running a Singapore-based company employing at least five locals, each earning at least the prevailing EP qualifying salary.
Why the PEP does not work for founders
It bears repeating because it trips up so many founders who have heard of the PEP as the “flexible” pass: the PEP is not available to anyone who is a director and shareholder of an ACRA-registered company, which is the standard structure for almost every Singapore startup founder. The PEP is designed for a high-earning employee who wants mobility between employers, not for someone running their own venture, and PEP holders are separately barred from starting a business or conducting entrepreneurial activity at all while on the pass.
A founder who has previously held a PEP as an employee, before starting their own company, would need to give it up, or would find it cancelled, once they take up the shareholder-director role in their own venture.
Comparison table: founder suitability
| Feature | Employment Pass (EP) | ONE Pass | Personalised Employment Pass (PEP) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Available to a shareholder-director? | Yes, subject to COMPASS and a genuine operating company | Yes, no restriction on running a business | No, explicitly excluded |
| Minimum fixed monthly salary | S$5,600 to S$10,700 by age (non-financial); higher for financial services; rising from 1 Jan 2027 | S$30,000, or outstanding achievement route | S$22,500 at application (not relevant to founders) |
| COMPASS required | Yes, and firm-level criteria are the common failure point for small founder teams | No | No |
| Validity | Up to 2 years first issuance, up to 3 years on renewal | 5 years, renewable | 3 years, not renewable |
| Best suited for | A founder whose company already has real revenue, payroll and local hires | A founder with S$30,000-level salary history, or a scaled business, who wants full flexibility | Not applicable to shareholder-directors |
A practical decision path
For a founder at the pre-revenue or very early stage, EntrePass is usually the first port of call, since it is built around innovation and funding criteria rather than a fixed salary test; our dedicated guide covers the current eligibility rules and the COMPASS myths that trip up applicants.
For a founder whose company has scaled to genuine trading revenue and a small local team, an EP becomes realistic, provided the founder is honest about whether the company’s workforce profile will actually clear the COMPASS bar before applying, rather than finding out after a rejection.
For a founder who has already built salary history at S$30,000 a month or more, whether in the current venture or a prior role, or who qualifies through the outstanding-achievement route, the ONE Pass is generally the strongest long-term option, since it removes the ongoing COMPASS burden and the employer-tie altogether. The PEP should simply be taken off the table the moment a founder holds both director and shareholder status in a Singapore company.
Conclusion
A generic comparison of the EP, ONE Pass and PEP misses the one fact that matters most to a startup founder: the PEP is structurally unavailable to shareholder-directors, which removes one of the three options before salary is even considered. That leaves EntrePass for the earliest stage, the EP once the company has real operating substance to support a COMPASS pass, and the ONE Pass once the founder’s own salary history or business scale clears the S$30,000 bar. Choosing based on where the business actually is, rather than which pass sounds most senior, avoids a wasted application and a rejected COMPASS score.
If you are a founder trying to work out which pass fits your own company’s stage and structure, Raffles Corporate Services can assess your position against current MOM thresholds before you apply.
The Editorial Team, Raffles Corporate Services