If your employer is not paying your salary in Singapore, the law is firmly on your side: the Employment Act 1968 requires salary to be paid within 7 days after the end of each salary period, and there is a purpose-built claims route through TADM and the Employment Claims Tribunal that costs S$10 to start. The catch is the deadlines, which are shorter than most people expect.
I’m Roy. I’m an Associate Director at A.W. Law LLC and I act in employment disputes on both sides of the table. Unpaid salary is the most common employment problem that walks through our door, and the pattern is almost always the same: months of polite chasing, then a scramble when the deadline is nearly gone.
What the Employment Act actually requires
The Employment Act 1968 covers almost every employee working in Singapore, local or foreign, with narrow exceptions such as seafarers, domestic workers, and public servants. Under it:
- Salary must be paid within 7 days after the end of the salary period. A salary period cannot exceed one month.
- Overtime pay must be paid within 14 days after the end of the salary period.
- On termination, your final salary is due on your last day of work, or within 3 working days if you resigned without notice.
Late payment isn’t just a broken promise. It’s an offence the Ministry of Manpower can prosecute, and persistent non-payment entitles you to treat the contract as breached and leave without serving notice.
Step 1: put the demand in writing
Before any tribunal gets involved, send a dated written demand: the months owed, the amounts, and a payment deadline. Email is fine. Two reasons. First, a surprising number of employers pay once the request stops being verbal. Second, the paper trail is your evidence later. Keep your payslips, employment contract, and bank statements together from this point.
If the sums are large or the employer is a company that’s clearly winding down, it’s worth ten minutes with a lawyer here, because the right route may be a formal letter of demand or a civil claim rather than the tribunal track.
Step 2: file at TADM before the deadline
Salary claims don’t go straight to a tribunal. They start at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM), where mediation is compulsory. The deadlines are strict:
| Your situation | Deadline to file at TADM |
|---|---|
| Still employed | Within 1 year of the dispute arising |
| No longer employed | Within 6 months of your last day of work |
The filing fee is S$10 or S$20 depending on the claim amount. Most salary disputes settle at TADM mediation, and a mediated settlement is recorded and enforceable. If mediation fails, TADM issues a claim referral certificate, which is your ticket to the tribunal.
Step 3: the Employment Claims Tribunal
With the certificate, you file at the Employment Claims Tribunal (ECT) under the Employment Claims Act 2016. The ECT can hear salary-related claims up to S$20,000, or S$30,000 where a union filed on your behalf. Like the Small Claims Tribunal, the ECT is designed for self-represented parties, and lawyers are not allowed to appear. Our full walkthrough of the process is in the Employment Claims Tribunal guide.
If your claim is bigger than the limit, or it’s tangled up with other issues (unpaid commissions under a complex scheme, shares, directors’ loans), the civil courts are the alternative, and there we can act for you.
Don’t forget the CPF
Unpaid CPF contributions are a separate problem with a separate route. Employers must pay CPF by the 14th of the following month. If your CPF app shows missing months, report it to the CPF Board directly; the Board recovers arrears with interest and prosecutes repeat offenders, at no cost to you.
Treat missing CPF as an early-warning light. In my experience, employers stop paying CPF quietly before they stop paying salary loudly. If the CPF is late, start assembling your salary evidence now.
If the company is going under
When an employer is insolvent, speed matters more than anything. Employees rank as preferential creditors for unpaid salary (up to statutory caps) in a liquidation, but preference only helps if assets remain. File at TADM early, keep every payslip, and if you learn a winding-up application has been filed, get advice quickly. Our post on what happens if you ignore a debt explains the enforcement world from the creditor’s side, which is the seat you’re now in.
What to do next
Three things, today: put the demand in writing, screenshot your CPF contribution history, and diarise your TADM deadline (1 year if employed, 6 months from your last day if not). The tribunal route is cheap and built for you to run yourself.
If the claim is over the ECT limit, the employer is insolvent, or the dispute involves more than salary, the first ten minutes with us are free. Book an Employment Dispute Discovery Session and we’ll map the route honestly, in English, Malay, or Tamil.
