Side job on your S'pore work pass? It is illegal, and the fine hits S$20,000

A side job in Singapore is illegal for almost every Filipino on a work pass, and the fine reaches S$20,000.

Work pass holders can only work for the employer named on their pass card, the Ministry of Manpower says.

Any paid work for another person or business is an offence under the Employment of Foreign Manpower Act.

The rule

Your Work Permit, S Pass or Employment Pass ties you to one employer.

Weekend cleaning, part-time selling, driving for cash: take money for any of it and the rule counts it.

A tourist, a short-term visitor or a student cannot take paid work either, unless they hold a pass that allows it.

The penalty

A foreign worker caught working without a valid pass faces a fine of up to S$20,000, jail of up to two years, or both, MOM says.

MOM also bars that worker from working in Singapore again.

The person who hires someone without a valid pass faces a fine of up to S$30,000 and up to 12 months in jail.

A real case

A court fined a 53-year-old Filipina domestic worker S$13,000 for cleaning two other households on the side, in a case MOM reported last year.

She had a valid contract with one family but no pass to work for the others.

The court counted only the months she worked, not the full stretch of the arrangement.

It fined the Singaporean who hired her S$7,000, and a second person S$4,000.

The embassy

The Philippine Embassy in Singapore has reminded kababayan that moonlighting is an offence, with penalties and a possible ban on top.

Extra income looks small next to losing your pass and your right to work here.

Legal ways to earn more

If you want a different job, there are proper routes, and helpers can transfer to a new employer without flying home first.

Students on a Student's Pass have their own 16-hour work limit and an approved school list to check.

Grab and foodpanda riders fall under the separate Platform Workers Act.

Selling food from home has its own licence rules to clear before you earn a peso.

Check your pass conditions on the myMOM portal, or ask MOM before you take on anything outside your named employer.

Top photo of Singapore's Central Business District by Basile Morin, via Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0).