COMPASS C4 in 2026: How Local Hires Move Your EP Score

Your EP applications keep landing on 40 points, or just under. The line dragging them down is COMPASS C4. If your firm has 25 or more PMETs, C4 is scored on your local PMET share against your sector. It's the one COMPASS criterion you control rather than your candidate, and it moves only through local hires.

That's the short answer. The longer one matters more, because C4 moves slowly, it counts only locals paid at least S$3,300 a month, and no one outside MOM can tell you exactly how many hires lift you a band. This guide walks through the rule, the arithmetic and the timing, then where a CCP-supported local hire fits, and where it doesn't.

Updated 24 September 2026. Every COMPASS rule below was read from MOM's own pages on that date.

Key takeaways

• An EP application needs 40 COMPASS points to pass, per MOM's EP eligibility page. A firm with fewer than 25 PMETs gets 10 points on C4 by default.
• From 25 PMETs, C4 pays 20 points at your sector's 50th percentile of local PMET share, 10 points from the 20th, and 0 below it. Reach 70% locals among your PMETs and C4 can't fall below 10, whatever your sector, per the same MOM page.
• A Singapore Citizen or PR counts as a local PMET for C4 only from S$3,300 a month in CPF wages, per MOM's PMET-count FAQ.
• Your COMPASS profile updates on the 6th of each month on a three-month average, so a new hire takes around four months to count in full, on our reading of MOM's worked example.
• CCP can part-fund a genuine local conversion hire's salary while they train. It never changes a COMPASS score or an EP decision. MOM decides those.

What is MOM COMPASS C4, in one paragraph?

COMPASS is the points test MOM runs on most Employment Pass applications, on top of the EP qualifying salary. MOM's eligibility page sets the pass mark at 40 points. C4, "Support for local employment", is the criterion that looks at your firm rather than your candidate. In MOM's words, it "recognises organisations that create opportunities for the local workforce and build complementary teams comprising both local and foreign professionals."

Which means this: two candidates with identical CVs can earn different COMPASS points for EP applications on C4 depending on who else you employ. Your candidate can't fix it. You can.

How COMPASS C4 is scored, and the 25-PMET line

C4 splits firms into two groups. If you employ fewer than 25 PMETs, every application scores 10 points on C4 by default, and nothing in this article changes that. If you employ 25 or more, your points depend on your local PMET share ranked against other firms in your sector.

Source: MOM, page last updated 28 April 2026.

Why does a zero hurt so much? MOM's own Example A-1 describes a marketing consultancy scoring 10 on each of the four foundational criteria and passing at exactly 40. MOM adds that "most applications will fall into this category." Drop that firm's C4 to 0 and the same candidate totals 30, on our arithmetic. They'd now need 20 points somewhere else to pass.

Who counts as a local PMET for COMPASS C4?

This is the line that decides whether a hire helps you at all. Per MOM's PMET-count FAQ, last updated 1 September 2026, the test has two parts. The person is a Singapore Citizen or PR on your CPF books, and the wages you declare to CPF for them come to S$3,300 or more a month.

Three details catch employers out:

• Job title doesn't count. Pay does. A "manager" on S$3,000 isn't a PMET for COMPASS C4. An analyst on S$3,400 is, because the MOM line is pay, not title.
• PRs count as locals for C4. The same FAQ says PRs are foreigners by nationality under C3 (Diversity) but locals under C4.
• The line moves with the S Pass. MOM ties the PMET salary line to whatever the S Pass minimum happens to be. The S Pass minimum is S$3,300 today and rises to S$3,600 for new applications from 1 January 2027, per MOM's S Pass eligibility page. The FAQ doesn't say when the C4 line follows, so check it before you set a 2027 salary.

Here's the part we have to be straight about. Our own eligibility check starts at S$3,000 a month. A CCP hire paid between S$3,000 and S$3,299 can still be a sound hire, but on MOM's published rule they don't enter the C4 count. If C4 is your reason for hiring, pay at or above the PMET line.

How local PMET share is calculated

The formula is simple. MOM's local PMET share FAQ puts it this way: "take the number of local PMET employees and divide it by the total number of PMET employees." Locals are Singapore Citizens and PRs paid CPF contributions.

Your share is then ranked against other firms in your sector, as the same FAQ explains. At the 20th percentile, your share beats 20% of firms in your sector. At the 50th, it beats half of them. You can see your own percentile, and your sector classification, in the Workforce Insights tool on the myMOM Portal.

Notice what this means for every hire you make. A local PMET hire raises the top and the bottom of the fraction. A foreign PMET hire raises only the bottom. Hire three foreign PMETs and one local in the same quarter, and your share can fall even though you did hire a local.

The 70% floor most guides skip

MOM doesn't publish where your sector's 20th or 50th percentile sits. So no one outside MOM can promise you that five hires, or ten, will lift you a band. Anyone who does is guessing.

There's one number MOM does publish on its EP eligibility page. If your local PMET share is at least 70%, "your application will score at least 10 points", regardless of where you stand in your sector. MOM pegs that 70% to the 20th percentile of firms economy-wide, so firms in sectors with high local shares aren't penalised.

That makes the 70% floor the only COMPASS C4 target you can plan against with certainty. Below it, you're reading a percentile off Workforce Insights and hoping the sector doesn't move. At or above it, MOM's published rule gives you at least 10 points.

What does it take to move COMPASS C4? A worked example

Take an illustrative firm, not yours: 40 PMETs, of whom 24 are local. On MOM's formula, that's a 60% local PMET share. Suppose Workforce Insights shows it below the 20th percentile for its sector, so C4 scores 0.

Our arithmetic on MOM's formula, assuming no foreign PMET joins or leaves in the meantime.

Fourteen local PMET hires to be sure of 10 points. That's the honest scale of it. A smaller number might do the job if it lifts you past your sector's 20th percentile, but you'll only know from Workforce Insights after the hires show. Replacing a departing foreign PMET with a local moves you faster, because the bottom of the fraction stays still while the top rises.

Which means C4 is rarely a reason to hire on its own. It's a reason to fill the local roles you already need with people paid above the PMET line, and to do it before your next batch of EP renewals.

Why does a new hire take months to show?

Why the lag? Per MOM's profile-update FAQ, MOM refreshes your COMPASS profile once a month, on the 6th, and smooths it by averaging three months of data rather than reading one month alone. Take MOM's own illustration. The 6 May refresh draws on the first three months of the year. April is left out because April's CPF is collected in May.

Apply that pattern to one hire who starts on 1 October:

Our reading of MOM's worked example, assuming CPF is paid on time each month.

So a hire made in October shows fully in February. If an important EP renewal falls in November, hiring in October won't help it. Plan C4 a season ahead, not a week ahead.

COMPASS framework EP renewal: does C4 decide it?

Yes, and this is why COMPASS C4 has become an employer problem rather than a recruiter's footnote. MOM's EP renewal page makes COMPASS a condition for renewing any EP whose expiry date falls on or after 1 September 2024. A renewal can still be refused.

Think about what that means for a firm scoring 0 on C4. Every foreign professional already on your team is re-tested at renewal against the same 40-point bar, with your firm's C4 score attached. A C4 problem isn't only about the next hire. It's about the people you've already got.

There's one exemption worth knowing. Per MOM's eligibility page, candidates on a fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500 are exempt from COMPASS altogether, as are overseas intra-corporate transferees and roles filled for one month or less.

COMPASS C3 and C4: do they pull in different directions?

Sometimes, and it's worth knowing before you put a COMPASS C3 C4 comparison in front of your HR team. C3 (Diversity) looks at how much of your PMET workforce shares your candidate's nationality. C4 looks at how much of it is local. A PR hire counts as a foreigner of their nationality under C3 and as a local under C4, per MOM's PMET-count FAQ.

For most firms that's good news: a PR paid above the PMET line lifts C4. But if many of your PMETs share one nationality, a PR of that nationality can pull your C3 score down. Check both numbers in Workforce Insights before you assume a hire only helps.

Where does CCP fit, and where doesn't it?

Here's the connection nobody on the COMPASS results page makes. If you're going to hire local PMETs anyway, some of them can be mid-career switchers, and a switcher hired into a genuinely new role can carry salary support under the Career Conversion Programme while they train.

The rules come from SWDA's CCP factsheet. The person must be a Singapore Citizen or PR, at least 21, and at least two years past graduation or NS. For a new hire, the role "should be substantially different" from what they did before. You must offer a permanent contract, or one of at least a year, at market-rate pay.

Now the limits, stated plainly:

• CCP doesn't touch COMPASS. SWDA's documents never mention it. What moves C4 is the local PMET on your payroll, however you pay them.
• CCP doesn't fund any local hire. Only a real conversion. An experienced accountant hired as an accountant isn't one.
• CCP support is temporary. A CCP typically runs three to six months, per SWDA's CCP FAQs. The hire keeps counting for C4 after support ends, as long as their pay stays above the line.
• A converted local isn't a like-for-like swap for a foreign specialist. They're learning the role. Hire them where the learning curve is survivable.

On our reading of MOM's rules, a CCP hire is simply a local employee you contribute CPF for. Nothing MOM publishes excludes a salary-supported hire from the C4 count, and nothing mentions one either. Confirm it in Workforce Insights once the lag has passed.

What CCP pays while the hire converts

SWDA's factsheet sets two bands. Hires under 40 attract up to 70% of their monthly pay, with support stopping at S$5,000 a month. For a hire aged 40 or above, or long-term unemployed, it's up to 90%, capped at S$7,500 a month. Our article on the grant for hiring older workers covers the higher band in detail.

Our arithmetic on SWDA's published rates. Not a quotation: the programme partner sets the actual amount and period.

A S$4,000 salary also sits comfortably above the S$3,300 PMET line, so the same person helps C4 and carries support. That overlap is the whole point of this article.

Mind the order, though. SWDA's FAQs give a Place-and-Train application three months from the hire's first day to win approval. In our experience approval takes 12 to 15 weeks, and support starts only after the letter. Our piece on the CCP application deadline explains why that timing costs employers real money.

Your options if COMPASS C4 is at zero

You have more than one lever, and CCP is only one of them. Weigh them honestly.

If your blocker is the S Pass sub-quota rather than COMPASS, the local-hire lever works differently. Our guide on how to increase S Pass quota covers that arithmetic.

A word on that last row. One widely read guide tells employers that pay above the 65th percentile earns the top salary score. MOM's table says otherwise: the 65th to below the 90th percentile scores 10, and only the 90th percentile and above scores the maximum 20. Check the source before you price an offer around a guide.

Who should stop here

This route isn't for everyone, and it's kinder to say so now.

• You have fewer than 25 PMETs. C4 already gives you 10 points by default. Local hiring won't raise it.
• The local roles you'd fill pay under S$3,300. They won't count for COMPASS C4, per MOM's PMET-count FAQ, whatever else they do.
• Your EP renewal is due within the next three months. No hire made today shows in full in time.
• You want CCP for staff you already employ. We handle new hires only, not the redeployment of staff you already employ. Job Redesign Reskilling and Attach-and-Train are different modes, and we don't file them.
• The candidate would do the same job they did before. That isn't a conversion, unless a two-year employment gap applies. Our list of why CCP applications get rejected covers the other failure points.

What to do this month, in order

1. Read your numbers. Log in to the myMOM Portal and open Workforce Insights. Note your PMET count, local PMET share, sector and C4 band.
2. List your EP renewals for the next 12 months. Anything expiring in the next quarter is outside what new hiring can reach.
3. Work out your gap to 70%. Use the formula above. It's the one C4 line MOM publishes as a number.
4. Map the local PMET roles you'd fill anyway and set their pay at or above the S$3,300 PMET line, checking the 2027 S Pass change first.
5. Screen which of those hires could be genuine conversions. Different role, SC or PR, contract of a year or more. There's no master list of eligible roles; our note on CCP growth job roles explains the test that applies instead.
6. Start CCP before the start date, not after, so the three-month approval window doesn't close on you.
7. Re-check Workforce Insights on the 6th of each month until the new hires show in full.

Check the hire before you plan around it

If you're filling local PMET roles to lift your C4 score, find out first whether any of them can carry CCP support. The eligibility check takes about a minute and screens the company, the person and the role. It doesn't settle the "substantially different" test, because SWDA decides that.

Passing it opens the options on our pricing page, where Option B totals SGD 4,600. A paid consultation turns your case into a quotation, so you see the cost before anything is filed.

Frequently asked questions

What is COMPASS C4?

C4 is "Support for local employment", one of four foundational COMPASS criteria for Employment Pass applications. It scores your firm, not your candidate. Firms with fewer than 25 PMETs get 10 points by default. Larger firms score 0, 10 or 20 based on their local PMET share against their sector.

What is the difference between COMPASS C3 and C4?

C3 (Diversity) measures how much of your PMET workforce shares your candidate's nationality. C4 measures how much of it is local. MOM's PMET-count FAQ treats a PR by nationality for C3 and as a local for C4, so a single hire can push the two scores in opposite directions.

How many COMPASS points does an EP need?

Forty. MOM's EP eligibility page sets the pass mark at 40 COMPASS points for EP applications, on top of the EP qualifying salary. Candidates on a fixed monthly salary of at least S$22,500, overseas intra-corporate transferees and roles of one month or less are exempt from COMPASS.

Does COMPASS apply to EP renewals?

Yes. MOM's renewal page says EPs expiring from 1 September 2024 need to pass COMPASS to be renewed, and a renewal can still be refused. Your firm's C4 score is applied at renewal, so a low score affects the professionals you already employ.

Who counts as a local PMET for C4?

Any Singapore Citizen or PR on your CPF books whose declared monthly wages reach S$3,300, per MOM's FAQ. Job title doesn't matter. MOM aligns this line to the S Pass minimum qualifying salary, which rises for new S Pass applications from January 2027.

How long before a new local hire improves my C4 score?

Around four months to count in full, on our reading of MOM's example. The profile updates on the 6th of each month using a three-month average, and a month's CPF shows only after it's collected the following month. A hire starting 1 October counts fully from 6 February.

Does a CCP hire count toward C4?

On MOM's published rules, yes, if they're a Singapore Citizen or PR you pay CPF for at S$3,300 or more a month. MOM doesn't mention salary-supported hires either way. CCP itself never changes a COMPASS score; confirm the count in Workforce Insights after the lag.

About this article. Every COMPASS rule and figure here comes from MOM's EP eligibility page (last updated 28 April 2026), its EP renewal page, its S Pass eligibility page and three COMPASS FAQs, all read on 24 September 2026. Every CCP figure comes from SWDA's CCP factsheet and CCP FAQs.

What is deliberately absent: MOM doesn't publish sector percentile cut-offs. So we make no prediction about how many hires move any firm a band. We use only the 70% floor on its eligibility page.

MOM doesn't say when the C4 salary line follows the 2027 S Pass change. Nor does it mention CCP hires. Both points are our reading. The 60%-to-70% table (built on MOM's share formula), the timing table, the Example A-1 total of 30 and the S$4,000 support table are our own arithmetic on stated assumptions.

MOM sets work-pass rules and COMPASS criteria. SWDA and its Programme Partners set CCP rules.

Both change, and both are judged case by case. Confirm your position with MOM, SWDA or a qualified adviser before you commit to a hire. MOM decides every EP application and SWDA every CCP application; nothing here implies any influence over either, and nothing here is legal advice. If you're lifting your COMPASS C4 score through local hires, the eligibility check is the place to start.