Key takeaways
- You must pay CPF for Singapore Citizen and PR employees earning total wages of more than $50 a month, whether they are full-time, part-time, temporary or paid by the hour.
- From 1 January 2026, the employer share for staff aged 55 and below is 17% of wages; the total with the employee’s share is 37%.
- Ordinary Wages are capped at $8,000 a month for CPF purposes.
- Contributions are due by the end of the month. CPF Board takes enforcement action if they are not paid by the 14th of the following month, and late payment interest is 1.5% a month.
- Rates for staff aged above 55 to 65 rise again on 1 January 2027.
CPF is the largest statutory cost on most F&B payrolls after wages themselves. It applies to the kitchen crew on a monthly salary and the student who works three evenings a week, and the percentage changes with the employee’s age. This guide sets out the employer rules as published by the CPF Board in September 2026, with worked examples for a typical restaurant or café team.
Who you must pay CPF for
The CPF Board says employers must pay CPF contributions for employees who are Singapore Citizens or Singapore Permanent Residents and who earn total wages of more than $50 a month. An employee is anyone employed in Singapore under a contract of service, and the Board lists the terms that count: full-time, part-time, temporary and contract, paid hourly, daily, monthly or piece-rated.
For F&B this means CPF is not only for your full-time cooks and managers. A Singaporean part-timer who clears tables on weekends is an employee for CPF purposes once their monthly wages pass $50.
Foreigners, including Work Permit and S Pass holders, are exempt from CPF. They bring different costs, chiefly the foreign worker levy, which our guide to hiring foreign workers in F&B covers. Some students who meet the Board’s exemption criteria are also exempt. Ask staff to tell you when they become a citizen or PR, because the applicable rate table changes.
Employer CPF contribution rates for 2026
The table below is the current rate table on the CPF Board website, which applies from 1 January 2026 to Singapore Citizens and to PRs from their third year of PR status, for monthly wages above $750.
| Employee’s age | Employer / company CPF contribution percentage (% of wage) | Employee (% of wage) | Total (% of wage) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 and below | 17 | 20 | 37 |
| Above 55 to 60 | 16 | 18 | 34 |
| Above 60 to 65 | 12.5 | 12.5 | 25 |
| Above 65 to 70 | 9 | 7.5 | 16.5 |
| Above 70 | 7.5 | 5 | 12.5 |
New rates apply from the first day of the month after the employee’s 55th, 60th, 65th or 70th birthday. PRs in their first and second years have graduated rates in separate tables. The employer and employee can jointly apply to contribute at full rates earlier. The full set is in the CPF contribution rate tables PDF.
So the “company contribution to CPF” is not a single number. For a team where most staff are under 55, plan on 17% of wages. For older staff the employer share steps down, which is one reason older workers can cost less in CPF terms, although the 2027 increases narrow that gap.
Wage bands: lower-paid and part-time staff
The 17% and 37% figures apply to monthly wages above $750. The rate table sets different rules for lower wage bands, which matter for part-timers:
- $50 or less: no CPF.
- Above $50 to $500: only the employer pays. For staff aged 55 and below, that is 17% of total wages, with no employee share.
- Above $500 to $750: the employee share phases in. For staff aged 55 and below, the total is 17% of total wages plus 0.6 times (total wages minus $500), and the employee’s share is the 0.6 times (total wages minus $500) part.
CPF is worked out on the total wages for the calendar month, not per shift. A part-timer’s CPF band therefore depends on how many hours you roster them in that month.
What counts as wages, and the $8,000 ceiling
The CPF Board’s page on what payments attract CPF lists what counts as wages: basic pay, overtime, bonuses, allowances such as meal and transport allowances, commission and cash incentives. Reimbursements for business expenses, termination benefits such as retrenchment benefit, and non-cash gifts are not wages.
Wages then split into two types:
- Ordinary Wages (OW) are paid for that month’s work and payable by the 14th of the following month, such as monthly salary. CPF on OW is capped by the OW ceiling of $8,000 a month. Above that, no further CPF is due on OW.
- Additional Wages (AW) are everything else, such as an annual performance bonus. The AW ceiling is $102,000 minus the total OW subject to CPF for the year, applied per employee, per employer, per calendar year.
For F&B, watch the items that are easy to miss: overtime on a busy festive month, incentive payments tied to sales, and allowances paid in cash. If a payment is wages, it must be included in the CPF declaration. Service charge shared with staff is worth checking with the CPF Board for your own arrangement; our guide to distributing tips and service charge covers the operational side.
Worked examples for an F&B team
These use the 2026 rates for Singapore Citizens. The CPF Board rounds the total contribution to the nearest dollar and drops the cents on the employee’s share; the employer’s share is the difference. Our payroll walk-through for deducting employee CPF covers the calculation step by step.
| Staff member | Monthly wages | Total CPF | Employee share (deducted) | Employer share |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Line cook, age 30 | $2,500 | $925 (37%) | $500 | $425 |
| Restaurant manager, age 40 | $9,000 OW | $2,960 (37% of $8,000) | $1,600 | $1,360 |
| Kitchen helper, age 62 | $2,000 | $500 (25%) | $250 | $250 |
| Weekend part-timer, age 22 | $600 | $162 | $60 | $102 |
| Occasional part-timer, age 19 | $400 | $68 | Nil | $68 |
For the $600 part-timer: 17% of $600 is $102, plus 0.6 times $100 is $60, so the total is $162 and the employee’s share is $60. For the $400 part-timer, only the employer’s 17% applies. You can check any case with the CPF Board’s online contribution calculator, and CPF EZPay computes contributions automatically when you submit.
On top of CPF, you also pay the Skills Development Levy for every employee working in Singapore, including foreign staff: 0.25% of monthly total wages, with a minimum of $2 for wages under $800 and a maximum of $11.25 for wages above $4,500. For the line cook above that is $6.25. SDL is paid together with CPF.
Paying CPF: deadlines, interest and penalties
According to the CPF Board’s enforcement page, the due date for CPF contributions is the last day of the calendar month. The Board takes enforcement action against employers who fail to pay by the 14th of the following month, or the next working day if the 14th falls on a weekend or public holiday.
The penalties are:
- Late payment interest: 1.5% a month, starting the day after the due date, with a minimum of $5. If January contributions are late, interest runs from 1 February.
- Composition amount: up to $1,000 per offence, available only after arrears and interest are paid.
- Prosecution: a court fine of $1,000 to $5,000 per offence and/or up to 6 months’ jail for a first conviction, and $2,000 to $10,000 and/or up to 12 months for later convictions.
You submit through CPF EZPay and can pay by Direct Debit or PayNow QR. With Direct Debit, the deduction happens after you confirm the submission; with PayNow QR, the code expires at 23:59 on the day of submission. Our step-by-step guide to submitting and paying CPF walks through the monthly routine. Direct Debit is the safer choice for a busy owner, as long as the account holds enough funds.
Late CPF has a second cost for F&B employers who hire foreign staff. MOM’s quota rules count your local employees using CPF data, and late or unpaid CPF can shrink your quota and push foreign workers into higher levy tiers.
Changes from 1 January 2027
The CPF Board has announced higher rates for senior employees on wages earned from 1 January 2027:
| Employee’s age | Employer from 2027 | Employee from 2027 | Total from 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Above 55 to 60 | 16.5% (+0.5) | 19% (+1) | 35.5% |
| Above 60 to 65 | 13% (+0.5) | 13% (+0.5) | 26% |
Rates for staff aged 55 and below, and above 65, are unchanged. If you employ older cooks, dishwashers or cashiers, update your payroll settings before the January 2027 run and budget for the extra 0.5% employer share. Our guide to CPF rates and re-employment for older workers covers the age bands in more detail. Our restaurant labour cost guide shows how to fold CPF into your labour cost percentage.
How POS and payroll data feed the monthly submission
The CPF submission itself happens in CPF EZPay or your payroll software. But the numbers behind it come from your operations: hours worked by part-timers, overtime, sales incentives and service charge shares. Errors usually creep in where those numbers are copied by hand.
- Roster and hours: part-timer wages drive their CPF band, so the hours in your roster must match what you pay. Our F&B staff roster guide covers planning shifts.
- Payroll software: most Singapore payroll tools apply the CPF tables and age bands for you. See our payroll software comparison for F&B.
- Sales data for incentives: if staff earn commission or incentives tied to sales, pull the figures from POS reports rather than estimates.
ChaChaCha, powered by AppsPOS, gives each staff member their own login with staff permissions, and its reports show sales by outlet and period, which helps when incentives or service charge shares are calculated from sales. Ask us to confirm what staff time and sales data ChaChaCha can export for your payroll provider. ChaChaCha also integrates with Xero for accounting. Talk to us about your set-up.
Checklist for new F&B employers
- Apply for a CPF Submission Number before your first payroll.
- Record each employee’s citizenship or PR status, PR start date and date of birth.
- Classify every payment as Ordinary or Additional Wages, and exclude genuine reimbursements.
- Submit and pay by the end of the month, and never later than the 14th of the following month.
- Include SDL for all staff, local and foreign.
- Recheck rates each January, starting with the 2027 senior rate changes.
If you are still building the team, our guides on hiring F&B staff and wage support schemes cover recruitment and the government co-funding that can offset part of your wage bill.
