Hairdresser wages in Singapore: what the official data shows and what a stylist really costs

Search "hairdresser salary Singapore" and the first page is crowd-sourced guesswork: one salary site says the average hair stylist earns a few thousand a year, another says close to forty thousand, and none of them tells you where the number came from. If you own a hair salon and you are about to make someone an offer, that is useless. This guide does the thing those pages do not: it reads the Ministry of Manpower's actual Occupational Wage Survey tables, explains what the figures do and do not mean, and then works through what a stylist really costs you once employer CPF sits on top of the payslip.

Every figure below was checked in October 2026 on an official Singapore source, with the survey year and the exact definition stated each time. One note of transparency first: this blog is published by ViteUneCoupe, a free online booking system for hair salons with 0% commission. Wages are the biggest line in most salon budgets, and they only pay for themselves when the column is booked; we come back to that link at the end, briefly, because this is an information article first.

No minimum wage, but two floors you must know

Singapore has no general statutory minimum wage. For most sectors with low-wage workers the government uses the Progressive Wage Model instead, a set of mandatory sector wage ladders, but hairdressing is not a PWM sector: the covered list runs cleaning, security, landscape, lift and escalator, retail, food services and waste management, plus occupational wages for administrators and drivers (mom.gov.sg, Progressive Wage Model, checked in October 2026). Pay for a local stylist is therefore set by the market and the contract, not by statute.

One floor does appear the moment your salon employs any foreign worker on a Work Permit, S Pass or Employment Pass: the Local Qualifying Salary. For your firm to qualify for work passes, and for each local employee to count fully towards your foreign worker quota, every local employee must earn at least S$1,800 a month gross full-time, or S$10.50 an hour gross part-time; a local earning between S$900 and S$1,799 counts as only half a local worker for quota purposes (mom.gov.sg, Local Qualifying Salary, checked in October 2026). If your team is entirely local and you never sponsor a pass, the LQS does not bind you; the day you want to hire a foreign stylist, it binds your whole local payroll.

What hairdressers actually earn: the MOM wage tables

The only primary source for occupational pay in Singapore is MOM's annual Occupational Wage Survey, published as downloadable tables on stats.mom.gov.sg. The occupation "hair stylist/hairdresser" (SSOC 51411) appears in every edition. Here is the full recent series for full-time resident employees, taken directly from MOM's table 1 Excel files for each year (checked in October 2026):

For June 2024, MOM's dataset on data.gov.sg also publishes the spread: the 25th percentile gross wage was S$2,915, the median S$3,756 and the 75th percentile S$4,773 a month. That percentile spread is the closest thing to a sourced junior-versus-senior range that exists; no official table breaks hairdresser pay down by seniority, so any "junior stylists earn X, senior stylists earn Y" figure you read elsewhere is an estimate, not data.

Definitions matter here, and MOM's survey methodology is precise. Gross wage is basic pay plus overtime, commissions, allowances and other regular cash payments, before the employee's own CPF deduction; it excludes employer CPF contributions and bonuses. Basic wage excludes commissions entirely, and commission-based employees are left out of the basic wage tabulation altogether. For a trade where commission is a large slice of take-home pay, the gross column is the one to read.

For context, the same survey tracks "wellness centre manager", the SSOC code that covers managers of hair and beauty businesses: median basic S$4,000 and median gross S$6,000 in June 2025, per the same MOM table.

Why the median swings so wildly, and how to actually use it

A median that goes S$1,595, then S$2,770, then S$3,756, then S$1,600 in four years is not describing a labour market that doubled and then halved. It is describing a small sample. Three features of the survey explain it:

• Only establishments with at least 25 employees are surveyed. The 2025 survey covered 5,230 private establishments (methodology, stats.mom.gov.sg). Most Singapore hair salons are far smaller than 25 staff, so the hairdressers in the sample work mainly for the larger chains, and which chains land in the sample shifts the median.
• Commission-heavy pay amplifies the noise. A stylist's June gross depends on that month's takings, so the same people produce different numbers in different years.
• MOM itself tells you not to read year-on-year moves literally. The methodology notes state that wage changes from a sample survey "are prone to fluctuations and hence should always be interpreted with caution", and recommend looking at longer periods.

So treat the tables as what they are: the only honest reference points in existence, not a price list. For budgeting, the practical reading in October 2026 is that full-time employed hair stylists in the surveyed (larger) salons have recently clustered somewhere between roughly S$1,600 and S$3,800 gross a month at the median depending on the survey year, with the top quarter above S$4,700 in the strongest year measured (June 2024). Where your offer should sit inside that band depends on your neighbourhood, your price list and the book of regulars the stylist brings. A heartland HDB-shopfront salon and an Orchard salon are hiring in different markets, and no table resolves that for you.

Also remember what the tables exclude: self-employed stylists, part-timers and the owner's own drawings are all outside the survey, and those describe a large share of the people actually cutting hair in Singapore.

What a stylist really costs: CPF on top of gross

For every Singapore citizen or permanent resident you employ, employer CPF contributions sit on top of the gross wage. From 1 January 2026 the employer share is 17% for employees aged 55 and below (the employee contributes a further 20% out of their own wage), then 16% for above 55 to 60, 12.5% for above 60 to 65, 9% for above 65 to 70 and 7.5% above 70 (cpf.gov.sg, CPF contribution rates, checked in October 2026). Contributions are computed on ordinary wages up to the monthly ceiling, which is S$8,000 from 1 January 2026 (cpf.gov.sg, ordinary wage ceiling); no stylist payslip in a typical salon comes near that ceiling, so in practice the full package attracts CPF.

Two points owners regularly get wrong:

• CPF is due on commission, not just on base. Commissions and allowances are wages, so the 17% applies to the whole monthly package, and a strong commission month raises your CPF bill with it.
• Foreign employees get no CPF, but they are not cheaper by 17%. Work Permit and S Pass holders attract levies and quota constraints instead, and the LQS floor applies to your local staff. The arithmetic of employing a foreign stylist is covered in our guide to hiring a hairdresser in Singapore, along with the written key employment terms and itemised payslips MOM expects from day one.

Beyond CPF, the real cost of a hire includes paid annual leave, paid public holidays and sick leave under the Employment Act, plus products, training and the senior floor time spent mentoring: none of it appears on the payslip, all of it follows every hire.

Pay structures that work in a Singapore salon

Singapore salons run on a handful of models, and the survey's own definitions mirror them:

• Base plus commission on services is the standard shape for a stylist: a guaranteed monthly base, plus a percentage of the stylist's service takings, often with a separate rate on retail product sales. There is no standard percentage in Singapore, whatever a forum thread claims; the right split depends on your prices, rent and chair utilisation. Write down exactly what revenue counts (GST-inclusive or not, redos, discounted packages) and show the candidate a worked good month and a worked quiet month before anything is signed.
• Flat salary is simpler and common for juniors and assistants: predictable for both sides, and the whole amount is basic wage.
• Commission-only deals exist in the market because no minimum wage forbids them for local employees, but think hard before offering one: a quiet month produces a payslip that embarrasses everyone, if you employ any foreign worker the S$1,800 LQS turns a thin month into a quota and work-pass problem, and good stylists in a seller's market simply decline. A fair base with honest commission recruits better.

Whatever the structure, put it in the key employment terms in writing. Verbal commission schemes are the most common pay dispute in salons, and "how salary is calculated" is exactly what the KETs exist to pin down.

A worked budget, clearly hypothetical

An entirely hypothetical example to show the shape of the arithmetic, not a market rate. Suppose you offer a stylist aged under 55, a Singapore citizen, a base of S$2,200 a month plus commission that averages S$1,100 a month across the year:

• Gross wage: about S$3,300 a month, which happens to sit inside the recent MOM median band for the occupation.
• Employer CPF at 17%: about S$561 a month on top.
• Total payroll cost: roughly S$3,860 a month, or about S$46,300 a year, before bonuses (which also attract CPF), leave cover, products and training.

The number to hold against that is not the gross wage but the S$46,300, and it is owed whether the stylist's Tuesday column is booked solid or half empty. If your average service ticket is S$60, that cost alone is around 64 services a month before the chair contributes a cent to rent or profit. Run that arithmetic with your own prices before you set the package.

Pay is one half of the equation, full columns are the other

The same payslip produces completely different economics at 60% and 90% occupancy, and occupancy is a booking problem. That is the only part where we can honestly help, so here is the honest version. ViteUneCoupe's free plan gives each stylist their own services, hours and calendar, with unlimited online bookings and 0% commission, permanently, so a fuller column never comes with a per-booking tax; the calendar also shows plainly who generated which appointments, which is useful ground truth for a commission review. The Standard plan, from 29 € excluding tax per month with no commitment, adds confirmation, reminder and thank-you emails and calendar sync; note that it is billed in euros, not SGD, so the card payment moves slightly with the exchange rate, and that ViteUneCoupe sends email reminders only, no SMS, in any plan. It is not payroll software either: wages, CPF submissions and IR8A forms stay with your accountant or payroll tool. For how it compares with the rest of the market, see our guide to hair salon booking software in Singapore.

Frequently asked questions

What is the average hairdresser salary in Singapore?

There is no single reliable average. The primary source, MOM's Occupational Wage Survey, puts the median gross monthly wage of full-time resident hair stylists at S$3,756 in June 2024 and S$1,600 in June 2025 (stats.mom.gov.sg, checked in October 2026). The swing reflects a small sample drawn only from establishments with 25 or more employees, so treat the figures as reference points, not a price list.

Is there a minimum wage for hairdressers in Singapore?

No. Singapore has no general minimum wage, and hairdressing is not covered by the Progressive Wage Model. The one statutory floor is indirect: if your salon employs any foreign worker, each local employee must earn at least the Local Qualifying Salary of S$1,800 a month gross (S$10.50 an hour for part-timers) to count fully for quota purposes, per mom.gov.sg.

How much CPF do I pay on top of a stylist's wage?

For a Singapore citizen or PR aged 55 or below, the employer contribution is 17% of wages from 1 January 2026, on ordinary wages up to S$8,000 a month, and it applies to commission and allowances, not just base pay. Lower employer rates apply to older age bands. Foreign employees get no CPF but attract levies instead.

What commission percentage is normal in Singapore salons?

No official or industry-wide figure exists, and we will not invent one. Base plus commission on services is the common structure, sometimes with a separate retail commission. Set your split from your own numbers: price list, rent and realistic chair occupancy, then write the exact scheme into the key employment terms with a worked example of a good month and a quiet month.

Do MOM's wage tables include self-employed stylists?

No. The Occupational Wage Survey covers full-time resident employees with CPF contributions in private establishments of 25 or more staff. Self-employed stylists, part-timers, apprentices and salon owners' own earnings are all outside the tables, which is one more reason to treat the published medians as a guide rather than a market rate.