If your company is still tracking attendance on spreadsheets, paper registers, or basic card swipe systems, you may already be non-compliant with Singapore’s Employment Act, and not know it.
The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) has clear requirements for how employers track working hours, overtime, rest days, and leave. Get it wrong, and you risk fines, audit failures, and disputes at the Employment Claims Tribunals that are difficult to defend without proper records.
This guide breaks down exactly what MOM requires, which employees it applies to, and what a compliant attendance tracking system looks like in practice.
What the Employment Act Says About Attendance Records
Singapore’s Employment Act is the primary legislation governing employment terms for all employees working under a contract of service, local or foreign, full-time, part-time, or contract.
Employers operating in Singapore must maintain employment records for at least two years for current employees, and at least one year after an employee leaves.
These records must include, at a minimum:
- Daily working hours for each employee
- Overtime hours worked
- Rest days taken
- Leave dates (annual leave, sick leave, public holidays)
- Salary payment records
This is not optional documentation. MOM inspectors can request these records during audits, and employers who cannot produce them face penalties.
Which Employees Does This Apply To?
This is where many employers get confused.
The Employment Act covers all employees, local or foreign, who work under a contract of service, regardless of nationality, whether they work full-time, part-time, or temporarily.
However, the working hours and overtime provisions (Part 4 of the Act) have specific salary thresholds:
- Workmen (manual labour roles): covered if the monthly salary is S$4,500 or below
- Other employees (clerical, operational, technical): covered if monthly salary is S$2,600 or below
Managers and executives earning more than S$4,500 per month receive only partial coverage, including salary payment, unfair dismissal, maternity leave, and public holidays, but are not covered for working hours and overtime pay entitlements.
Practical implication: Most rank-and-file employees in construction, manufacturing, F&B, retail, and healthcare fall within the working hours provisions. Their attendance records must be precise. Disputes over overtime are among the most common employment claims filed at the Tripartite Alliance for Dispute Management (TADM).
Working Hours and Overtime, Exactly What You Must Track
For employees covered under Part 4 of the Employment Act, the rules are specific:
Standard hours: Up to 8 hours per day, or 44 hours per week.
Overtime: Any work beyond these thresholds. Overtime must be paid at a minimum of 1.5 times the employee’s hourly basic rate of pay.
Maximum overtime: Employees cannot be required to work more than 72 hours of overtime per month.
Rest days: Employees are entitled to at least one rest day per week. Work on rest days is paid at additional rates depending on whether it was requested by the employer or volunteered by the employee.
Public holidays: Singapore observes 11 gazetted public holidays. Employees working on a public holiday are entitled to an extra day off or additional pay.
To calculate all of this correctly, you need accurate to-the-minute records of when each employee clocked in and clocked out, every single day. A spreadsheet filled in retrospectively at the end of the week is not a reliable record, and it will not hold up in a dispute.
The Flexible Work Arrangements Update (December 2024)
The Tripartite Guidelines on Flexible Work Arrangement Requests came into effect on 1 December 2024, making it a requirement for employers to fairly and properly consider flexible work arrangement requests from employees.
This is directly relevant to attendance tracking. If your employees are working from home, from client sites, or on flexible hours, you still need to track their actual working hours accurately. “They’re working from home so I trust them” is not a compliant position.
A digital attendance system with GPS-verified mobile punch handles this; employees clock in from wherever they are, and the timestamp is accurate and auditable.
Platform Workers, New Rules From 2025
The Platform Workers Act commenced in phases starting from October 2025 and fully came into effect on 1 January 2025, providing stronger protection for platform workers, individuals who provide services through platform operators.
If your business uses platform workers (delivery, logistics, ride-hail, cleaning services via apps), you now have additional record-keeping obligations for this group. This is a category many Singapore businesses have historically kept minimal records for.
The Three Most Common Compliance Failures
Based on how employment disputes unfold at TADM, these are the attendance record problems that get employers into trouble most often:
1. No Overtime Records
An employee claims they worked 80 hours of overtime last month. The employer says it was 40. Neither side has timestamped records. Without a system that automatically logs exact clock-in and clock-out times, the employer is in a weak position even if their recollection is accurate.
2. Leave Records That Don’t Match Payroll
An employee is marked as present on days they took unpaid leave, or their annual leave balance doesn’t reconcile with their payroll deductions. This creates liability for underpaid leave encashment when employment ends.
3. Records Kept for the Wrong Duration
Employers must keep employment records for the most recent two years for current employees, and for at least one year after the employee leaves.
Deleting records, losing spreadsheets, or having data stored on a former HR manager’s laptop creates audit risk. Records need to be retained, searchable, and exportable on demand.
What a Compliant Attendance System Looks Like
MOM does not mandate a specific type of attendance system. Paper registers are technically legal. But they create the compliance problems described above because they rely on manual entry, are easy to alter, and are hard to retain and audit.
A compliant attendance system needs to do four things:
1. Record exact timestamps, not just dates, but the precise time each employee started and finished work, including breaks.
2. Track overtime automatically, calculate hours against the employee’s contracted shift, flag when they cross 8 hours or 44 hours per week, and apply the correct overtime rate.
3. Maintain leave records, link approved leave to payroll deductions and annual leave balances automatically.
4. Store records securely for the required duration. Cloud-based systems with automatic backup are more reliable than local files or paper.
A biometric attendance system like Tipsoi meets all four requirements. Employees clock in with a face scan or fingerprint; the timestamp is automatic, accurate, and cannot be manually adjusted after the fact. Overtime is calculated based on your configured shift rules. Leave approvals sync to payroll. And all records are stored in the cloud with a full audit trail, accessible and exportable whenever needed.
PDPA Considerations for Biometric Attendance Data
If you use a biometric attendance system, Singapore’s Personal Data Protection Act (PDPA) applies to how you collect and store employee biometric data.
Key points:
Consent: Employees must be informed that biometric data is being collected and for what purpose. This is typically covered in employment contracts or onboarding documentation.
Data minimisation: A compliant biometric system stores encrypted mathematical templates derived from biometric scans, not the raw images or scans themselves. This is how Tipsoi handles it. The template cannot be reverse-engineered into the original biometric.
Retention limits: Biometric data should be deleted when it is no longer needed, typically when employment ends. Automated purging policies in your attendance system handle this.
Security: Biometric data must be protected against unauthorised access. Cloud-based systems with encryption, access controls, and audit logs meet this requirement.
CPF and Attendance Records
Central Provident Fund contributions are calculated based on ordinary wages. Accurate attendance records directly affect CPF accuracy.
Employers and employees contribute 17% and 20% respectively of ordinary monthly wages, up to an income ceiling of SGD 6,000.
If overtime is calculated incorrectly because attendance records are inaccurate, CPF contributions may also be wrong. This compounds the compliance exposure from a single source of error, your attendance data.
Practical Steps to Get Compliant Today
Step 1: Audit your current records. Pull the attendance records for any employee who has raised a concern or left in the last 12 months. Can you produce accurate daily logs with timestamps? If not, identify the gap.
Step 2: Define your shift rules in writing. Document the working hours, overtime thresholds, break times, and public holiday rules for each employee category. This becomes the configuration for your attendance system.
Step 3: Move to a system that automates timestamp capture. Manual records are inherently unreliable for compliance purposes. A biometric or app-based system with automatic timestamp logging removes the human error layer.
Step 4: Link attendance to payroll directly. Over time, leave and attendance data should flow into payroll calculations automatically, not via manual re-entry. Each re-entry step is a potential error.
Step 5: Set up record retention. Ensure your system retains records for the required period: two years for current employees, one year post-departure, and that records are backed up and exportable.
The Bottom Line for Singapore Employers
MOM’s attendance record requirements are not complex, but they require a system that captures data accurately and retains it reliably. The Employment Act has been in place for decades, but disputes over overtime and working hours remain among the most common employment claims in Singapore precisely because many businesses still rely on manual processes that cannot hold up under scrutiny.
A biometric attendance system eliminates the manual layer entirely. Every clock-in and clock-out is timestamped automatically. Overtime calculates itself. Leave is tracked in the same system as attendance. And when MOM asks for records, you can produce them in minutes.
See how Tipsoi’s biometric attendance system keeps Singapore employers compliant →
Frequently Asked Questions
Is biometric attendance tracking legal in Singapore?
Yes. Biometric attendance systems are legal in Singapore provided you comply with the PDPA , which requires employee consent, secure data storage, and appropriate retention limits. Tipsoi stores encrypted templates, not raw biometric images, and supports configurable data purging policies.
How long must I keep attendance records in Singapore?
Employment records must be kept for at least two years for current employees, and for at least one year after an employee leaves. Records include working hours, overtime, leave, and salary details.
Does the Employment Act apply to foreign employees in Singapore?
Yes. The Employment Act covers all employees, local or foreign, working under a contract of service, regardless of nationality.
What happens if I cannot produce attendance records during a MOM audit?
Failure to maintain required employment records is an offence under the Employment Act and can result in fines. In employment disputes at TADM or the Employment Claims Tribunals, the absence of records typically weakens the employer’s position in overtime or salary disputes.
Do I need to track attendance for work-from-home employees?
Yes. The working hours and overtime provisions of the Employment Act apply regardless of where the employee is working. GPS-verified mobile punch-in systems like Tipsoi allow remote employees to clock in from approved locations with accurate timestamps.