One of the more consequential pieces of Singapore’s 2026 Employment Pass update is also one of the easiest to miss for anyone weighing a work visa for Singapore role: a revised Shortage Occupation List that adds healthcare roles while removing several previously eligible technology positions. A 2026 breakdown of the COMPASS framework’s C5 bonus criterion explains why that swap matters more than it might first appear.
The Shortage Occupation List identifies roles MOM considers in high demand but short on qualified local professionals. Landing on the list is worth up to 20 bonus points under COMPASS, on top of the four foundational criteria that determine the baseline 40-point threshold. For select technology roles specifically, SOL eligibility can also extend an Employment Pass’s validity to five years, well beyond the standard two or three.
Who Fell Off the List, and Who Was Added
Several technology-related roles were removed in the 2026 revision, including Cyber Risk Specialist, Cybersecurity Operations Specialist, and Product Manager (Digital). Healthcare roles were added in their place. For companies that had built hiring plans around the bonus points and extended validity those tech roles used to unlock, the removal is a real, not cosmetic, change to how competitive a given application now looks.
The guide is direct about the consequence: candidates whose applications previously cleared COMPASS comfortably by leaning on SOL bonus points may now sit closer to the 40-point threshold, since foundational criteria alone have to carry more of the weight the SOL bonus used to provide.
Why Renewals Deserve Earlier Attention Than New Hires
The updated criteria apply to new applications from 1 January 2026 and, separately, to renewals from 1 July 2026. That second date is where the guide’s advice gets most specific: employers should not wait until a renewal deadline to assess whether an existing EP holder’s role still qualifies under the revised SOL, because a role that cleared easily under the old list may need to lean on other criteria entirely under the new one.
Companies with hiring pipelines built around technology roles that lost SOL eligibility face a particular version of this problem. In some cases, SOL eligibility may now play a reduced role in offsetting weaker scores elsewhere, particularly for the specific technology functions where roles were removed, which means candidates in those functions may need stronger salary or qualification scores to compensate.
What Employers Should Actually Do With This
The practical guidance is to reassess current EP candidates and existing pass holders against both the updated salary benchmarks and the revised SOL before, not during, the application or renewal window. since the removed occupations may require restructuring the application around salary or qualification criteria that weren’t previously load-bearing.
The broader pattern in the 2026 SOL revision, healthcare additions paired with select technology removals, also signals where MOM currently sees the sharpest gap between local supply and demand. That’s a useful signal beyond just the immediate compliance question, for any company weighing where in Singapore’s labour market a foreign hire is likely to clear scrutiny most easily going forward.
