Three legal ways to staff a flat, and one illegal one

A transfer helper already in Singapore can be approved in about 5 to 10 days. A new fly-in helper is often 6 to 8 weeks plus the Settling-In Programme. Both need the levy, a S$5,000 bond and S$60,000 insurance. A legal part-time cleaner at S$264 to S$416 a month has none of those lines and can beat a live-in helper by S$8,000 to S$12,000 a year. A tourist or a borrowed Sunday helper is an EFMA penalty.

MOM Work Permit Online is the system. A transfer helper is already in Singapore and the approval, when the file is clean, is often 5 to 10 days. A new helper is overseas. Count 6 to 8 weeks for the permit, the flight and the Settling-In Programme, and count the Employers’ Orientation Programme on your side. Both arrangements make you the employer. The levy is S$60 only if you qualify for the concession. Otherwise it is S$300 a month. The security bond is S$5,000. Medical insurance is at least S$60,000. There is a six-monthly medical examination. There is a weekly rest day. Families who only compare salary are not comparing the product.

The yearly gap is why the part-time column exists. A live-in cost that lands near S$1,300 a month is about S$15,600 a year before placement. A weekly legal cleaner at S$264 to S$416 a month is about S$3,200 to S$5,000 a year. The difference, S$8,000 to S$12,000, is the gap for a household that needs hours, not a person living in the flat. If you need daily care for a parent or a young child, the live-in column can still be the right one, and you should use a licensed agency and the full MOM list. If you need a clean flat, the part-time column is the legal product. Homey Furnishing sells that product. We do not sell a work pass.

The illegal column is the one forwarded in chats: a helper on her rest day, a friend on a tourist pass, a permit borrowed from another household. The Employment of Foreign Manpower Act applies to the person who pays and the employer who allows the deployment. Injury in your flat is then an uninsured event on top of the penalty. Rest-day cover, if you do hire an FDW, is a booked cleaner, not your helper sent next door. Read the cost guide for the 24-month sheet, then decide which of the three legal columns you are actually in.

Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 202018148K), 27 Mandai Estate, #06-10 Innovation Place, Singapore 729931, carries the permit-exempt portion of this work. V On Construction Pte. Ltd. (ACRA UEN 201611708H), listed on the HDB Directory of Renovation Contractors, carries any scope that needs an HDB renovation permit. Those two invoices are not interchangeable. MOM levy, the S$5,000 bond, S$60,000 insurance, EOP, SIP, the six-monthly medical exam and the weekly rest day are employer duties. Employment agencies need an EAA licence. Illegal deployment is an EFMA matter. Part-time cleaning does not make you an FDW employer.

Spend ten minutes with a torch, your phone camera, and a tape before you buy a product or book a hack. Write down what you see. The safe checks below do not ask you to open a live wire, cut a pressurised pipe, or lean out of a window. Write hours per week, whether anyone qualifies you for the concessionary levy, and whether you have a room. If the hours are under eight a week and there is no care need, start with the part-time column.

Stop at the red-flag column. Stop if the offer is cash to someone else’s helper, a tourist pass, or a placement fee with no agency licence. The reason DIY fails is almost never a lack of effort. It is that the tool or chemical makes the next professional repair harder, or it hides a leak, a live conductor, or a deposit line until the damage is larger than Part-time S$264 to S$416 a month. A live-in year is several thousand more once levy and placement are counted..

This is the sequence a careful technician uses so you can tell a shortcut from a finished job. Tools stay in the van. Readings and photos go on the same worksheet as the price. The calculator and MOM’s own pages. A licensed agency if you choose an FDW. A calendar slot if you choose part-time. No passport should be handed to a cleaner as a deposit.

1. Step 1. Make the area safe and confirm the symptom still matches the photos. For Three legal ways to staff a flat, and one illegal one, that means Stop if the offer is cash to someone else’s helper, a tourist pass, or a placement fee with no agency licence.
2. Step 2. Measure before touching the finished surface. Write hours per week, whether anyone qualifies you for the concessionary levy, and whether you have a room. If the hours are under eight a week and there is no care need, start with the part-time column.
3. Step 3. Set protection and lay out the tools that belong to this material. The calculator and MOM’s own pages. A licensed agency if you choose an FDW. A calendar slot if you choose part-time. No passport should be handed to a cleaner as a deposit.
4. Step 4. Carry out the repair in the order the material allows. levy and insurance are omitted, or a rest day is covered by an illegal deployment is the failure this order is written to avoid.
5. Step 5. Test in place. You know which of the three columns you are in, the first-year cash figure, and who the employer is. For part-time, the employer of the cleaner is not you. For an FDW, it is.
6. Step 6. Clean, label the photographs against the invoice lines, and leave the statutory openings, weep holes, access panels and labels visible.

The order matters because levy and insurance are omitted, or a rest day is covered by an illegal deployment is what happens when a step is rushed. Handover is a measurement, not a handshake. You know which of the three columns you are in, the first-year cash figure, and who the employer is. For part-time, the employer of the cleaner is not you. For an FDW, it is. If the reading or the water test fails, the visit is not closed and a second line is priced before anyone leaves. Permit work, if the diagnosis has moved into hacking, waterproofing, or a new layout, stops here and is repriced through V On Construction Pte. Ltd. UEN 201611708H.

These are planning bands so the columns can be compared. An agency fee sits on the FDW columns only. Prices below are 2026 Singapore bands for the described scope. They are not a coupon and they are not a guess after an unopened door. A second trade, such as a PUB licensed plumber or an EMA licensed electrician, is named when the law requires it rather than buried inside the labour line. Compare rows by what they include. The planning-life column belongs to that row only.

2026 SGD scope bands

Brand, material and lifespan

Use the cost calculator for the dollars and this page for the process. They answer different questions.

Three worked jobs show how the same symptom is priced differently in a new BTO, an older resale flat, and a private condo or landed house. The totals are the lines a household actually paid, not a national average. Permit-exempt invoices are issued by Homey Furnishing Pte. Ltd. UEN 202018148K.

Case 1: couple in a 4-room BTO

No care concession. Four hours a week. Part-time at S$380 a month. A live-in quote would have been about S$10,000 more across a year before placement. They did not open WPOL.

Case 2: resale flat, elderly parent

They qualified for the S$60 levy and needed daily help. A transfer took eight days through a licensed agency. Bond, insurance and the levy were paid before the helper arrived. Homey covered the weekly rest day with a cleaner. The two contracts stayed separate.

Case 3: condo owners offered a Sunday helper

They refused. Two part-time visits replaced the offer. The yearly gap against a new fly-in helper, once SIP, placement and the S$300 levy were included, was inside the S$8,000 to S$12,000 band. Nobody’s work pass was borrowed.

Pick the column before you pay a fee. The calculator is the money. A licensed agency is the FDW. Homey is the part-time visit. Send the photos and the measurements from the ten-minute check. The reply prices the band on this page against what the photos actually show.

• 24-month cost sheet
• Cost calculator
• Book part-time cleaning