Punch
Get started
All posts

Singapore Overtime Rules: Part IV of the Employment Act, the 44-Hour Week, and the 72-Hour Cap (2026)

11 min read

Singapore Overtime Rules: Part IV of the Employment Act, the 44-Hour Week, and the 72-Hour Cap (2026)

The short answer: Singapore pays overtime by statute, but only to the employees Part IV of the Employment Act covers: workmen earning a basic salary of $4,500 a month or less, and non-workmen earning $2,600 or less. For them, the normal week is 44 hours, every hour past contractual hours is paid at 1.5 times the hourly basic rate, and the month is capped at 72 overtime hours. For everyone else, overtime is whatever the contract says. Every one of those rules is checked against the same thing: the hours each person worked, including breaks. Punch records that the moment someone punches in.

Owners who know the Australian award system or the UK's contract-only approach will find Singapore different from both. The law sets a real rate, but only for part of the workforce. The records requirement covers all of it. Here is how it works for a small crew.

Who Part IV Covers

The Employment Act covers almost every employee in Singapore under a contract of service, local or foreign, full-time or part-time, paid by the hour, day, month, or piece. Seafarers, domestic workers, and civil servants are the exceptions.

Part IV is narrower. It is the part of the Act that sets rest days, hours of work, and overtime, and MOM's hours of work and overtime page draws the line in two places:

  • Workmen with a monthly basic salary of $4,500 or less.
  • Non-workmen with a monthly basic salary of $2,600 or less.

Basic salary excludes overtime, bonuses, the annual wage supplement, productivity incentives, reimbursements, and every allowance. A $4,300 basic with a $400 transport allowance is still inside the line.

A workman, per MOM's coverage page, is someone whose work is mainly manual labour. The Act's First Schedule names the jobs: cleaner, construction worker, labourer, machine operator, metal and machinery worker, lorry or van driver. A supervisor who does manual work for more than half their time is a workman too. That describes most of a cleaning company, a renovation crew, a landscaping team, or a logistics yard.

Managers and executives are outside Part IV at any salary. Their overtime, if any, comes from the contract.

The 44-Hour Week and What Counts as Overtime

Part IV sets contractual hours by the shape of the week:

  • 5 days or fewer a week: up to 9 hours a day or 44 hours a week.
  • More than 5 days a week: up to 8 hours a day or 44 hours a week.
  • Other arrangements: up to 48 hours a week, capped at 88 hours in any continuous 2-week period, or an average of 44 hours over a continuous 3-week period. Shifts of up to 12 hours a day are allowed on the 3-week average.

Overtime is any work beyond those contractual hours, excluding breaks. That last clause matters. A 10-hour day with a one-hour lunch is 9 hours of work. Whether it carries overtime depends on the contractual day, and the answer is different for a 5-day crew and a 5.5-day crew. You cannot settle it from a start and finish time alone. You need the break recorded.

Breaks have their own rule. Employees should not work more than 6 consecutive hours without one, and continuous work of up to 8 hours requires a meal break of at least 45 minutes.

The 1.5x Rate and the Hourly Basic Rate Formula

Overtime is paid at at least 1.5 times the hourly basic rate of pay, and it must be paid within 14 days after the last day of the salary period. For a monthly-rated employee, MOM sets the hourly basic rate with one formula:

(12 × monthly basic salary) ÷ (52 × 44)

Take a construction worker on a $2,200 basic. The hourly basic rate is 12 × 2,200 ÷ 2,288, which is $11.54. The overtime rate is $17.31. A 5.5-day crew on 8-hour days that runs a 9-hour Tuesday owes one overtime hour at $17.31. Ten overtime hours across the month owe $173.10.

There is one cap. For a non-workman, the hourly basic rate used for overtime is capped at the $2,600 salary level, which works out to $13.60 an hour, so the statutory overtime rate tops out at $20.40. A non-workman on a $2,400 basic uses their own rate: 12 × 2,400 ÷ 2,288 is $12.59, and overtime is $18.88.

Two things that are not in the formula are worth saying out loud. Singapore has no national minimum wage, so there is no floor beneath the basic salary other than the Progressive Wage Model rules that apply to specific sectors. And the 44 in the denominator is fixed by MOM. It does not change because your crew works 40 or 48.

The 72-Hour Monthly Cap and the 12-Hour Day

Part IV limits how much overtime you can ask for, not only what you pay for it.

72 hours a month. A covered employee should not work more than 72 overtime hours in a month unless you hold an exemption from MOM. Rest day and public holiday work is excluded from this count, except for hours beyond the usual daily hours on those days.

12 hours a day. No covered employee may work more than 12 hours in a day. The exceptions are narrow: an accident or threat of one, work essential to community life or national security, urgent work on machinery or plant, or an unforeseeable interruption of work. Working up to 14 hours a day requires an overtime exemption from MOM.

Both limits are hours-based, and both roll up from daily punches. A crew doing two 10-hour days a week on 8-hour contracts is at 16 overtime hours a month and well inside the cap. The same crew doing 10-hour days six days a week is at 48 and climbing. One storm week of 12-hour days on top of that and the month is over 72. The owner who finds out at month end is already in breach. The owner who can see the monthly total on a Tuesday can plan around it.

Rest Days and Rest Day Pay

Every Part IV employee gets one unpaid rest day a week, running midnight to midnight. Shift workers may take a continuous 30-hour rest period instead. The maximum gap between rest days is 12 days, and you cannot require rest day work except in exceptional circumstances.

When someone does work a rest day, the pay depends on who asked and how long they worked, per MOM's table:

| Hours worked on the rest day | At the employer's request | At the employee's request | |---|---|---| | Up to half the normal daily hours | 1 day's salary | Half a day's salary | | More than half, up to normal daily hours | 2 days' salary | 1 day's salary | | Beyond normal daily hours | 2 days' salary plus overtime pay | 1 day's salary plus overtime pay |

Four cells, and three of them turn on an exact duration against the contractual day. A four-hour Sunday on an 8-hour contract is one day's salary. A four-and-a-half-hour Sunday is two. The difference is thirty minutes on a record.

Public holidays work the same way for the overtime count: hours beyond normal daily hours on one of Singapore's 11 paid public holidays count toward the 72.

The Records MOM Requires

Since 1 April 2016, every employer must keep detailed records for every employee the Employment Act covers. MOM's employment records page sets the retention period at the latest two years for current employees, and the last two years of employment, kept for one year after they leave, for former employees.

The employee record must include working hours, including the duration of meal and tea breaks. The salary record must include overtime hours worked, overtime pay, and the start and end dates of the overtime payment period where they differ from the salary period. For hourly, daily, or piece-rated workers it must also show the basic rate and the total hours, days, or pieces worked.

Itemised payslips carry the same overtime items and are due with payment, or within three working days of it.

Read those requirements together and the standard is clear: not a monthly total, but a record of when each person started, stopped, and broke for lunch, kept for two years, that produces the overtime lines on the payslip. A group chat and a whiteboard do not meet it.

How Punch Handles Singapore Hours

Punch is built for the record each of these rules depends on.

A Singapore preset. Choose Singapore at signup and Punch applies its Singapore Employment preset with Singapore dollars throughout. Because most roles have no statutory premium, the preset imposes no rate of its own. For a Part IV crew, switch to Custom in Org Settings and enter 44 hours a week at 1.5x. Every hour past the line is split out automatically, at the rate you set, for the pay period you run.

Breaks on the record. Your team punches in, punches out for lunch, punches back in, and punches out from their phone. The duration of meal breaks MOM asks for, and the "excluding breaks" test for overtime, are already on the record for every day.

The monthly view for the 72-hour cap. Reports roll up per person by week, by pay period, or for the month. The owner checking the cap on the 20th sees the overtime total for the month so far, not after payroll closes.

A job-site geofence, not a camera. Punch-in can be limited to a geofence around the worksite, so a punch from the kopitiam down the road does not count. There is no photo at punch and no facial recognition. Your crew's privacy stays intact.

Approvals before pay day. Managers approve hours one by one or bulk approve a whole pay period, then export to QuickBooks Online, Square, or a QuickBooks or Excel CSV for your payroll provider. Overtime hours and overtime pay land on the payslip inside the 14-day window because the hours were settled first.

Two years, kept. Approved pay periods stay in Punch, per person, with every punch behind them. When MOM asks for the last two years, the record is a report, not a reconstruction.

No signal, no gap. Punches made in a basement carpark or on a site with no coverage sync when the phone reconnects. A shared iPad in kiosk mode, with a PIN for each worker, covers a workshop or yard.

Frequently Asked Questions

Who is entitled to overtime pay in Singapore?

Employees covered by Part IV of the Employment Act: workmen earning a basic salary of $4,500 a month or less, and non-workmen earning $2,600 a month or less. Managers and executives are not covered. Everyone else's overtime depends on their contract.

How is overtime calculated in Singapore?

At least 1.5 times the hourly basic rate of pay. For a monthly-rated employee, the hourly basic rate is 12 × monthly basic salary ÷ (52 × 44). For non-workmen, the rate is capped at the $2,600 salary level, which is $13.60 an hour.

What is the maximum overtime in Singapore?

72 overtime hours a month for covered employees, unless the employer holds an exemption from MOM. No covered employee may work more than 12 hours a day outside the Act's narrow exceptions.

When must overtime be paid in Singapore?

Within 14 days after the last day of the salary period.

How long must Singapore employers keep time records?

The latest two years for current employees. For former employees, the last two years of records, kept for one year after they leave. The record must include working hours with the duration of meal and tea breaks, overtime hours, and overtime pay.

Keep a Singapore Record That Holds Up

Singapore overtime is a set of lines: the $4,500 and $2,600 salary thresholds, the 44-hour week, the 1.5x formula, the 72-hour month, the 12-hour day, and a rest day table that turns on half a shift. Each line is checked against the same punches, and MOM expects those punches to be kept for two years with the breaks inside them.

Punch records every punch in, punch out, and lunch, applies the overtime line you set, rolls up the month, and exports approved hours straight to payroll. Pricing is flat per workspace, with no per-user line item, and every plan includes every feature. The 14-day free trial starts on signup, no credit card required.

Start tracking Singapore hours correctly with Punch →

More from the blog