intoview5 wrote: ↑Wed, 01 Dec 2021 10:50 pm
Can you share with me what process do you have to do upon entering Singapore with the IPA? Do you have to report to ICA building within a period of time and submit the IPA and replace it with a work ID? Thought i read it somewhere on the internet.
I will recap my experience from what I can still remember -- please note I may not remember exactly:
I don't know what travel lane you are using to enter Singapore and if your country is on the visa-required list of countries -- I have a British passport and I used the Vaccinated Travel Lane to fly from Amsterdam to Singapore. Assuming that you fulfil the requirements of the 'Safe Travel Lane'/'Vaccinated Travel Lane' etc. what happens at the immigration at Changi Airport is that you show your passport and boarding pass and they check against their systems (because they should have already received your electronic arrival card from you). I asked if they wanted to see my IPA letter, but they said something like they already had it (didn't hear them clearly). Then they let you go and you rush off to fetch your luggage and do the on-arrival PCR test and whatnot. You will soon receive the electronic Visit Pass by email, ie the electronic version of the passport stamp that tells you how long you can stay in Singapore on this entry. The idea is that you must get your EP or work pass issued within this time frame.
For issuance of the EP, your company has to submit a few documents on your behalf in the MoM portal. Note that you do not need to have a residential address in Singapore at this point, as the EP can be issued to the office address of the company as a temporary measure. Your company HR should ask you to send them your VTL approval (if applicable), your SG arrival card and the electronic Visit Pass that I mentioned above. They may also ask you for a SG mobile number to reach you on, but that is also not strictly necessary, as far as I could ascertain from the MoM website. It is enough that somebody is named as the contact person and their contact details provided. Anyway, you can get a prepaid SIM if you want.
Once these details are provided to MoM, then you will be sent a declaration form that you should review (because it will be already filled in) and sign and date if everything looks okay. Your education dates are set by default for the first day of the month, so don't worry about that. Your company HR will send on the signed declaration form and then you'll very soon receive notification that your EP has been issued. The notification letter will tell you to go to a website and make an appointment with the Employment Services department for 'card registration'. Be sure to print or save as pdf the confirmation of the appointment when you have booked it. You have to show up with your original travel document (by which I assume passport), the notification letter and the appointment confirmation, and any other docs that are mentioned in the notification letter. My appointment is next week.
Note that as soon as you receive the notification that your EP has been issued, you can start working legally. But you have to do the card registration within a certain number of days mentioned on the notification letter. Your physical EP card will be sent to the address that your company provided.
I hope this helps. I found that I had to do a bit of homework myself by viewing the MoM website and assisting my company's HR as they weren't sure about some things themselves.