A guide to course funding and training grants in Singapore
Employers and learners ask us how training funding works more than almost anything else, so we have put the answers in one place: which government schemes exist, who administers each one, who qualifies, and how they apply to a real course. What applies to you depends on who is paying and who is attending.
This page shares publicly available information about schemes run by the Skills and Workforce Development Agency, Enterprise Singapore and IRAS. It is general information, not advice. The rules are set by those agencies and can change, so each section links to the official source, which is the authority.
For an enrolment to count under the current credit, the course run has to finish on or before that date, not merely be booked. Unused balance does not carry forward. A redesigned credit with a fresh $10,000 starts on 1 December 2026.
Start with who is paying
The schemes are different for a learner paying out of pocket and a company sponsoring staff. Pick your side and the rest of this page follows from it.
Paying for yourself
You are enrolling on your own, not through an employer.
- Course fee subsidy comes off the fee before you are invoiced
- SkillsFuture Credit can be applied against what is left
- Nothing to claim back afterwards — the reduction happens up front
Sending your staff
Your company is paying and sponsoring the employee for the full cost.
- Course fee subsidy comes off the invoice
- Absentee Payroll pays you back for the hours your staff are away
- SFEC offsets most of what is left, until 30 November 2026
- The Enterprise Innovation Scheme gives a deduction at tax time
Course fee subsidy, Absentee Payroll, SFEC and EIS explained
These stack. The course fee subsidy applies first and lowers everything downstream, so the order matters when you work out a number.
Course fee subsidy
Applied by us before we invoice, so you never pay the full fee and never claim it back. The baseline for our courses is up to 50% for eligible Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents. Singapore Citizens aged 40 and above, and employees sponsored by SMEs, get up to 20 percentage points more, taking it to as much as 70%.
Applied at enrolment, nothing for you to file See our courses on the Course Directory for BusinessSkillsFuture Credit
Your personal credit balance, applied against the fee that remains after the subsidy. It belongs to you rather than to your employer, so it is only in play when you are paying for yourself. You apply it when you enrol through MySkillsFuture.
Yours to use, applied when you enrol Check your balance on MySkillsFutureAbsentee Payroll
$4.50 for every hour your employee actually attends, paid to the company after the course. It covers the manpower cost of having someone in a classroom instead of on site, and is capped at $100,000 per enterprise per calendar year. Where training runs outside working hours it goes towards the overtime you paid instead.
You declare it on SkillsFuture for Business; we submit enrolment and attendance How to claim Absentee Payroll, step by stepSkillsFuture Enterprise Credit
A $10,000 company credit that offsets up to 90% of what you actually pay out of pocket, on top of the subsidy. You do not apply for it; if your company qualified, your Corppass administrator was notified. The current credit expires on 30 November 2026.
For local and foreign employees alike Check your balance and claim on SkillsFuture for BusinessEnterprise Innovation Scheme
A 400% tax deduction on the first $400,000 of qualifying training spend each year, available for YA2024 to YA2028. Unlike the others there is no portal and no application: your tax agent claims it in the corporate tax return for the year the spend fell in, and it reduces taxable income rather than paying you anything. Companies with little or no taxable income can convert up to $100,000 of qualifying spend into a cash payout at 20% instead, capped at $20,000 a year, applied for after the return is filed.
Keep our invoice; that is the evidence your tax agent needs The scheme in full, on the IRAS siteWho qualifies for SkillsFuture funding
This is the part that catches people out, and it matters most on our safety and lifting courses, where a large share of learners are work pass holders.
Subsidy and Absentee Payroll apply
- Singapore Citizens, Permanent Residents and LTVP+ holders
- Employees your company makes CPF contributions for
- Training that appears on the SkillsFuture Course Directory
- For Absentee Payroll, an employee you fully sponsor who stays employed and salaried through the course
They do not apply
- Work Permit, S Pass and Employment Pass holders
- Anyone your company does not contribute CPF for
- Courses not listed on the Course Directory
- Hours the employee did not attend — the claim follows attendance, not the timetable
The practical shortcut is the CPF test: if you contribute CPF for the employee, the subsidy and Absentee Payroll are likely in play. If you do not, expect to be invoiced the full published fee. None of this affects eligibility to attend or to be certified — a Work Permit holder can sit any of our courses, it is only these two schemes that do not follow.
Lower-waged employees may qualify for enhanced Absentee Payroll under the Workfare Skills Support scheme, which pays a share of actual hourly basic salary at a higher ceiling than $4.50 and sits outside the $100,000 cap. Tell us if you think your crew qualifies and we will check it against the current criteria.
SFEC is the exception. It is not restricted to Citizens and Permanent Residents, so you can still use it to offset the full fee you pay for a Work Permit, S Pass or Employment Pass holder. The difference is who files: for Citizens, Permanent Residents and LTVP+ holders the claim is handled for you, while for other foreign employees you submit it yourself on SkillsFuture for Business after the course ends.
Worked examples: how the schemes apply to a course
Three of our courses, with each scheme applied in order for one employee, so you can see how the pieces fit together. The third shows what changes when the learner is a work pass holder. The figures are illustrations based on published fees and baseline rates, not a quote.
Only the course fee subsidy is applied on our invoice. SFEC and Absentee Payroll are paid to you by the agency after the course, and the EIS deduction lands when you file your tax return. On the Agentic AI example below, five employees means an invoice from us of $4,000 which you pay in full — not $400. The $400 is where you end up months later, once the reimbursements have run.
WSQ Operate Forklift, with Class 3 licence
| Line | Per employee | Five employees |
|---|---|---|
| Published course fee | $320.00 | $1,600.00 |
| Less course fee subsidy, applied by us before invoicing | −$160.00 | −$800.00 |
| Nett fee you pay THT Academy | $160.00 | $800.00 |
| SFEC reimbursed to you by the agency | −$144.00 | −$720.00 |
| Your cost once SFEC is reimbursed | $16.00 | $80.00 |
| Absentee Payroll paid to you, 22 hrs attended at $4.50 | −$99.00 | −$495.00 |
| Tax saved under EIS, 400% deduction at 17% | −$10.88 | −$54.40 |
| Net position after everything comes back | −$93.88 | −$469.40 |
Swipe the table sideways to see all columns.
Automate Complex Tasks with Agentic AI
| Line | Per employee | Five employees |
|---|---|---|
| Published course fee | $1,600.00 | $8,000.00 |
| Less course fee subsidy, applied by us before invoicing | −$800.00 | −$4,000.00 |
| Nett fee you pay THT Academy | $800.00 | $4,000.00 |
| SFEC reimbursed to you by the agency | −$720.00 | −$3,600.00 |
| Your cost once SFEC is reimbursed | $80.00 | $400.00 |
| Absentee Payroll paid to you, 15 hrs attended at $4.50 | −$67.50 | −$337.50 |
| Tax saved under EIS, 400% deduction at 17% | −$54.40 | −$272.00 |
| Net position after everything comes back | −$41.90 | −$209.50 |
Swipe the table sideways to see all columns.
Apply WSH in Construction Sites (CSOC)
| Line | Citizen or PR | Work Permit holder |
|---|---|---|
| Published course fee | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| Less course fee subsidy, applied by us before invoicing | −$50.00 | — |
| Nett fee you pay THT Academy | $50.00 | $100.00 |
| SFEC reimbursed to you by the agency | −$45.00 | −$90.00 |
| Your cost once SFEC is reimbursed | $5.00 | $10.00 |
| Absentee Payroll paid to you, 18 hrs attended at $4.50 | −$81.00 | — |
| Tax saved under EIS, 400% deduction at 17% | −$3.40 | not shown |
| Net position after everything comes back | −$79.40 | $10.00 |
Swipe the table sideways to see all columns.
The right-hand column shows the position for a Work Permit holder. Neither the subsidy nor Absentee Payroll follows a Work Permit holder, so the invoice is the full $100 — but SFEC is not restricted by nationality, and applying it brings the real cost down to around $10. You file that claim yourself after the course. We have left the EIS line out of that column because whether the deduction is available on training for a foreign employee is a question for your tax agent, not one we should answer for you.
Budget for the nett fee, not the net position. The gap between the two is a cashflow question: you settle our invoice on our normal terms, then wait on the agency for SFEC and Absentee Payroll and on your tax filing for the EIS deduction. If any of those fall through — no SFEC balance left, a learner who does not attend, a loss-making year — the nett fee is what you have paid and it does not come back.
All three take the baseline course fee subsidy for an eligible Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident where it applies. If your business meets the SME criteria you may qualify for Enhanced Training Support instead, which lifts the subsidy further and lowers every line below it. Fees exclude GST. Whether GST is charged on the full fee or on the nett fee after subsidy depends on the funding tier the course sits in, so we will show it on your quote; either way it is recoverable as input tax if you are GST-registered.
These are best cases and they depend on four things holding at once: an unused SFEC balance, every learner eligible for the subsidy, full attendance with the Absentee Payroll claim filed in time, and enough taxable profit for the deduction to be worth 17%. Change any one and the number moves. Absentee Payroll is paid on hours actually attended and is capped at $100,000 per enterprise per calendar year across all training. The Enterprise Innovation Scheme deduction applies only to courses on the scheme’s own eligible list and is computed on expenditure net of any government grant or subsidy. The current SFEC requires the run to finish on or before 30 November 2026. CSOC is shown at the standard 18-hour duration for the competency unit; we will confirm the registered hours for your run.
Published fees are as listed on our course pages and subsidy rates are as published on the SkillsFuture Course Directory; both are subject to change. Ask us and we will confirm the current figures for the run you want. Some of our courses are not on the Course Directory, including the Wheel Loader Safety Course, Overhead Crane Operation and the Basic Traffic Control Course — those carry no subsidy or Absentee Payroll, and still meet the regulatory requirement they are designed for.
Go deeper
Questions about your situation
If you are not sure how a scheme applies to your company or your staff, ask us. We can check eligibility and the current figures for a specific course and run. WhatsApp is usually fastest.
Training grant questions employers ask
Can I use SkillsFuture Credit if my company is paying?
No. The credit belongs to the individual and is meant for training you fund yourself. If your employer is sponsoring you, the company route applies instead — subsidy, Absentee Payroll, SFEC and the tax deduction.
Do I have to apply for the course fee subsidy?
No. We apply it at enrolment and invoice you the nett amount. There is no form and nothing comes back to you afterwards.
My workers are on Work Permits. What can I claim?
Not the course fee subsidy and not Absentee Payroll, since both depend on CPF contributions — you are invoiced the published fee. SFEC still applies though, and can offset up to 90% of that fee, so the out-of-pocket figure is a lot smaller than the sticker price. You file that claim yourself after the course rather than having it processed for you. Certification is unaffected either way.
How long does Absentee Payroll take to come back?
The agency emails you to complete the declaration once our attendance submission clears its checks. You do that on SkillsFuture for Business using Corppass, and payment comes back by PayNow Corporate against your UEN. The full timing, the claim window and the common failure points are on the Absentee Payroll page.
How do we actually claim the EIS deduction?
You do not claim it separately and there is no portal for it. Give your tax agent our invoice along with the rest of the year’s training spend, and they include it in the corporate tax return for the relevant Year of Assessment. The deduction is computed on what you spent net of any government grant or subsidy, so it sits on top of the subsidy and SFEC rather than duplicating them. Two things are worth checking before you count on it: the course has to be on the scheme’s own eligible list, which is narrower than the Course Directory, and the deduction is only worth anything if you have taxable profit that year. If you do not, ask your tax agent about the cash payout option instead.
We have never used our SFEC. Is it too late?
Not yet, but the run has to finish on or before 30 November 2026. Anything scheduled to end after that falls outside the current credit. Your company’s remaining balance is shown on SkillsFuture for Business.
Does the course have to run during working hours?
Not necessarily. Absentee Payroll is designed for training that takes someone away from work, but where a course runs outside working hours the funding goes towards the overtime you paid instead. What it is always calculated on is the hours the employee actually attended. The course fee subsidy is unaffected by when the course runs.
