Singapore Aligns ONE Pass, Tax and Capital in Its Push to Attract Global Fund Managers

Singapore is moving to align its immigration, tax and investment policies under a singular, co-ordinated strategy to attract and retain global fund managers. The planned package combines a sector-specific pathway into the city-state’s most flexible work pass, a targeted tax exemption on qualifying profit-related returns and state-backed investment capital earmarked for hedge funds willing to deepen their local operations.

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) announced the new measures, which specifically target the most friction-free and mobile components of an international financial hub: the senior professionals who control capital allocation, the performance-linked income that rewards them and the broader ecosystem of firms and service providers that inevitably cluster around both. The government expects to finalise the operational details by Budget 2027.

Redefining What Counts as Pay

At the core of this institutional alignment is the proposed Investment Management Track under the Overseas Networks & Expertise (ONE) Pass. Jointly designed by MAS and the Ministry of Manpower (MOM), the pathway is tailored for global leaders and senior investment professionals who can drive significant long-term growth in Singapore’s asset-management industry.

While the government has sketched out the broad parameters, it has yet to publish detailed qualifying criteria or open the new track for formal applications. Officials have emphasised that this is a targeted, bespoke pathway rather than a generally available work pass or an across-the-board easing of immigration restrictions for financial sector employees.

The specialised track builds directly on the existing ONE Pass framework launched in January 2023. As a highly coveted, personalised five-year work pass, the ONE Pass untethers holders from a single corporate sponsor, giving top-tier talent the flexibility to run multiple ventures, advise various boards or build new businesses within the city-state.

Under the ONE Pass’s primary salary pathway, candidates must typically demonstrate a fixed monthly salary of at least S$30,000 from a single employer over the preceding 12 consecutive months. To meet the stringent “established company” benchmark, the applicant’s employer must have a market capitalisation of at least US$500 Mn or annual revenue of at least US$200 Mn.

Prospective arrivals must secure equivalent salary guarantees of at least S$30,000 a month from a Singapore-based entity meeting those identical corporate size tests.

While ancillary income streams are currently reviewed only on a discretionary, case-by-case basis, separate non-salary pathways remain carved out for exceptional achievements across sports, the arts, academia and scientific research.

The elite immigration tier has seen steady momentum amid shifting regional talent flows. According to Ministry of Manpower data, Singapore had about 8,500 ONE Pass holders at the end of 2025, up from around 6,300 a year earlier.

For the investment management industry, however, a fixed base salary remains an incomplete proxy for evaluating corporate seniority and true economic contribution. MAS acknowledged that returns inextricably linked to investment performance and fund outcomes form a significant and recurring component of compensation for specialists providing these high-end fund-management services. The proposed track will therefore recalibrate the regulatory assessment to recognise these variable pools explicitly.

This structural adjustment should not be conflated with an outright abolition or lowering of the headline S$30,000 monthly threshold. Both MAS and MOM have remained silent on whether that financial baseline will shift, what proportion of performance-linked returns will be eligible, the time horizon over which this income must be sustained or how a candidate’s “significant contribution” will be verified.

Until these mechanics are codified, the reform is best framed as a qualitative shift in how qualifying compensation is defined and audited, rather than a confirmed reduction in the entry requirements.

Tax Relief and Capital for Hedge Funds

The immigration pivot is paired with a targeted fiscal measure aimed directly at the same remuneration architecture. In a co-ordinated move, MAS and the Ministry of Finance plan to exempt qualifying profit-related returns derived from providing fund-management services to eligible investment vehicles.

The tax exemption will apply only to the share of investment upside managers and investment professionals receive when delivering returns to their limited partners. It will explicitly exclude ordinary base salary, standard performance bonuses and other traditional forms of employee compensation.

The fiscal carve-out is slated to take effect from the Year of Assessment 2027, with the operational framework to be set out in Budget 2027.

MAS also noted that qualifying underlying funds are already tightly bound by strict economic-substance mandates, including mandatory local headcount thresholds. Consequently, the upcoming framework is designed not as a broad tax holiday for financial executives but as a mechanism that tethers preferential tax treatment to substantive, localised service delivery for institutional funds.

The third strategic lever in the state’s deployment is a dedicated Hedge Fund Investment Programme, under which the MAS will directly deploy capital with managers committed to establishing or expanding their presence in Singapore. By explicitly naming prime brokerages and ancillary service providers in its policy brief, the central bank signals that its ultimate objective extends beyond a manager’s mere legal incorporation to the systemic growth of the surrounding hedge fund ecosystem.

However, the government has withheld crucial operational metrics. It has not disclosed programme size, selection criteria or investment terms. These granular parameters will be essential for the market to judge whether the scheme can become a meaningful source of foundational capital for international managers and precisely how deep local operations must run to unlock it.

A S$6.7 Tn Hub With Uneven Growth

Singapore’s institutional financial layer is sharpening, driven by undeniable structural strength. According to MAS’s 2025 asset management survey, total assets under management (AUM) rose 10.1% to S$6.7 Tn at the end of 2025, while net inflows surged 29% to S$376 Bn. The total number of licensed fund management companies reached 1,320, a net addition of 22 entities over the year.

Yet the same data shows why the physical location of top-tier decision-makers remains so critical. Approximately 76% of total AUM originated outside Singapore, while a staggering 88% was invested overseas.

The figures underscore that the city-state operates principally as a conduit hub, a sophisticated base from which global and regional capital is allocated, rather than the ultimate source or destination of the underlying wealth. Consequently, the mandates, managers and specialised service firms that power this activity remain comparatively mobile and inherently prone to jurisdictional arbitrage.

This mobility highlights why the internal composition of Singapore’s asset base matters, and why growth across these segments was far from evenly distributed in 2025. Traditional AUM grew 9%, while the alternatives category, comprising private equity and venture capital, hedge funds, real estate and REITs, expanded just 0.4%, with hedge funds and REITs leading that gain.

Within the private equity and venture capital segments, the entry of several new managers more than offset the downsizing of one large manager, while real estate AUM declined amid compressed valuations and weaker investor sentiment.

While that aggregate alternatives figure is not a direct metric for hedge funds alone, it clearly illustrates that record-breaking, industry-wide AUM has failed to translate into uniform expansion across more complex, alternative investment strategies.

The Bargain Behind the Talent Push

The domestic employment case is consequently a structural anchor of the policy package, rather than a mere rhetorical footnote. Asset management accounts for approximately 15% of Singapore’s total financial sector output and 13% of its employment. The industry sustains close to 25,000 professional positions, around 80% of which are held by locals, spanning portfolio management, institutional investment research, client servicing and risk architecture.

The government’s underlying policy bargain rests on the premise that welcoming a highly curated inflow of senior global professionals will help anchor a much broader, permanent infrastructure of localised functions and jobs.

Existing local headcount requirements provide that framework with a measurable, audited link to domestic economic activity.

But MAS has stopped short of stating that the proposed tax exemption will require additional hiring. The final legislative rules will reveal whether asset management firms must actively create net-new capability and decision-making seats or if they can qualify simply by maintaining their baseline operations.

Hong Kong Raises the Stakes

The defensive manoeuvring comes as Hong Kong executes its aggressive policy pivot. In June, the Hong Kong government gazetted a Bill specifically designed to enhance its preferential tax regimes for privately offered funds, family-owned investment holding vehicles managed by single family offices and carried interest.

Among other structural changes, the proposed legislation broadens the statutory definitions of funds and qualifying investments. It also introduces aggressive enhancements to its own tax-free carried-interest regime, directly challenging Singapore’s market share.

The Hong Kong government later clarified that eligible carried interest must be strictly determined under a fund’s primary operating or investment-management agreement. To qualify for the proposed concessions, returns received by fund managers or qualifying employees must be entirely non-discretionary and strictly tethered to underlying investment performance.

Furthermore, authorities noted that proprietary-trading operations fall entirely outside the statutory definition of a fund, meaning remuneration distributed by those balance-sheet businesses will remain ineligible for the tax breaks. If passed, these measures are slated to apply retrospectively from Hong Kong’s 2025-26 Year of Assessment.

Meanwhile, Hong Kong’s official Asset and Wealth Management Activities Survey found that sector AUM surged 20% to a record HK$42.2 Tn in 2025, driven by net inflows that jumped 193% to HK$2.1 Tn. While these metrics capture Hong Kong’s broader asset and wealth-management footprint and are not directly comparable with Singapore’s differently defined AUM parameters, they still show that the competing financial hub entered this policy contest with significant commercial momentum.

This shifting terrain prompted direct industry intervention. In a formal position letter to the MAS, the Alternative Investment Management Association (AIMA) warned that Hong Kong’s evolving framework could materially strengthen the territory’s appeal to institutional fund managers, urging Singapore to respond in a timely, strategic way.

This warning provides critical context for the pace of Singapore’s latest package, even though the MAS has not explicitly credited the industry lobby with prompting its timeline. What remains clear from the architecture of the measures themselves is that the city-state is refusing to rely on immigration tweaks in isolation. It is systematically aligning talent mobility, corporate tax treatment and direct access to state-backed investment capital.

Chee Hong Tat, Singapore’s minister for national development and MAS deputy chairman, rejected a zero-sum framing when questioned on the rivalry with Hong Kong. He remarked that both financial centres still have room to expand, while acknowledging that Singapore must dynamically assess shifts in global conditions as it recalibrates its policy playbooks. He noted that fiscal concessions represent only one component of a much larger calculus.

That distinction is vital for international observers. A fund manager’s choice of jurisdiction is rarely predicated on tax, immigration or capital access in a vacuum. It is heavily influenced by regulatory predictability, regional market access, digital infrastructure, local hiring depth and the feasibility of running a highly substantive investment operation on the ground. Singapore’s three-pronged package deliberately attempts to align those historically separate operational variables.

What Budget 2027 Must Still Answer

The market must now wait until Budget 2027 to resolve the remaining execution-level questions: namely, which exact cohorts will qualify for the new ONE Pass track, how performance-linked income streams will be audited, which specific funds and professionals will receive the tax exemption, the total volume of capital the MAS will deploy and the baseline physical footprint participating hedge funds must establish locally.

Until those details are codified into law, the announcement remains a statement of strategic policy intent, not an open operational gateway. Its true significance lies in what Singapore has identified as the real unit of global competition: not headline, passive AUM figures alone, but the permanent location of people, capital-allocation decisions and the specialised support ecosystems that make a financial hub genuinely productive.