How do long service awards work in Singapore?

A long service award is what a company gives an employee for staying, usually at every five years: 5, 10, 15, 20 and 25. The Employment Act doesn’t require one, but two rules shape it, one from the Central Provident Fund (CPF) Board and one from the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS). Below: the usual milestones, those two rules, what to give at each milestone, and what to engrave.

How many years? The usual milestones

Most programmes mark every five years of service. Some companies add a smaller three-year mark, or start at ten. Whatever you choose, write the milestones and what each one gets into the staff handbook, so nobody has to ask.

• Let the award grow with the years. A desk piece at 5, something heavier at 10, and a piece made for the person at 20 or 25.
• Present them together. One ceremony a year, at a dinner and dance or a town hall, is easier to run than an award on every anniversary, and the room makes it mean more.

One thing it isn’t: the national Long Service Medal (Pingat Bakti Setia). The President confers that for at least 25 years in the public service, statutory boards, education and some government-owned companies. A company award is separate from it.

Is it taxable? The CPF and IRAS rules

Two rules decide whether an award costs the employee anything, and both turn on whether you give cash or a thing.

• CPF. A non-cash award attracts no CPF at all, because CPF is only due on wages paid in money (CPF Board). On a cash award it’s normally payable. It isn’t payable on a long service award given after at least five years of service, and for each further five years, up to the employee’s ordinary wages for the month it’s paid. Only the first such award in each five-year period counts (CPF Board).
• Tax. Cash and vouchers are taxable. A non-cash award, such as a plaque, a crystal or a watch, isn’t taxable if it’s worth S$200 or less, under an IRAS administrative concession. Above S$200, the whole value is taxable, not just the part over the limit, and the employer declares the cost. Engraving your logo on it doesn’t change that (IRAS).

So a non-cash award worth S$200 or less is the simplest to run: no CPF and no tax for the employee. The five-year cycle only matters if you pay cash. A bigger milestone can still get a bigger piece, as long as everyone knows it becomes taxable income at that point.

These are the rules as published on 08/10/2026. Check your own case with your payroll provider.

5 and 10 years: an engraved award

For the first milestones, a ready award engraved with the person’s name and years does the job, and each of these three comes in under S$200, GST included.

• Layered acrylic award: navy and clear acrylic on a solid oak base, about 22 cm tall. The one for a full-colour logo.
• Crystal peak: faceted optical crystal, about 27 cm tall and heavy in the hand. The classic for one person’s recognition.
• Crystal shield: a bevelled crystal shield on a clear crystal base.

Each one is laser engraved (a frosted mark cut into the surface, so it can’t fade or peel) or UV printed (full-colour ink cured hard by ultraviolet light) in-house, after you approve a free digital proof. There’s no minimum, and they get cheaper automatically from the second piece: 5% off from 2, 10% from 5, 15% from 10, 20% from 25 and 25% from 50.

Their honest limits:

• Engraving is one tone. A multi-colour logo needs UV printing, or it comes back as a single frosted mark.
• The crystal awards are sourced to order, so allow 10 to 15 working days after the proof. The acrylic award takes about 5 to 7.

See the awards and what each costs

20 years and up: a piece made for them

At 20 or 25 years, a catalogue award can feel like a form letter. This is where we design a piece made for them from scratch, around the person, the company or the work they did: a sculpted piece, a model of a product they built, or their milestone number in its own form. It’s printed in-house, then finished by hand in paint or electroplating (a thin coat of real metal over the print).

Its honest limits:

• It’s quoted as a project. After a design round, painted or plated pieces take 8 to 15 working days once you approve the design, so start six weeks before the ceremony.
• A piece made from scratch can easily be worth more than S$200, and then its whole value counts as the employee’s taxable income under the rule above.

Plan a 20 or 25-year award with us

Retirement: the last one

Retirement is the long service award with no next milestone, and IRAS treats the two the same way. It’s the moment for something about the person rather than the company: their role, their habits, the thing everyone will remember them for. For more ideas, see our farewell gift guide.

• A piece about their job. When a Lion City Sailors goalkeeper retired, we built the club’s farewell trophy around a keeper’s glove, airbrushed metallic blue, with the player’s number and name set into it.
• A Mini Me of them. A small figurine sculpted from a few photos and ordered online. A hand-painted one takes about four weeks from your order, a printed one about a week, and it comes in a gift box.

Their honest limits:

• A piece about one person needs material from the people who know them: photos, stories, the running joke. Gather it quietly a few weeks ahead.
• A hand-painted Mini Me costs more than the IRAS limit above, so it counts as taxable income. A printed one of one person comes in under it.

Start a Mini Me of them

Plan a retirement piece with us

One design for the whole company

For a programme, the awards should look like a set: the same piece for everyone at a milestone, with each person’s own name and years on it.

• Every name on its own piece. Send the list once. We lay out each award and send a free digital proof of every name, so a misspelling gets caught on screen, not on crystal.
• Tiers that match. The same design in a step up of size or finish for 5, 10 and 20 years reads as one programme.
• Volume pricing. The ready awards get cheaper automatically at checkout, from 5% off at 2 pieces up to 25% off at 50, and different awards in one order count together. A custom run is quoted with the volume built in.

Its honest limits:

• A list of names is where most mistakes come in. Send it as a spreadsheet, spelled the way each person writes their own name.
• Add names before the proof, not after: a late name goes through a proof round of its own.

Send us your list of names

What to engrave on it

Three things carry it: an award line, the person’s name and the years. On our award pages, the citation layout takes:

• An award line of up to 28 characters, engraved in capitals: “In appreciation of 10 years”, “Thank you for 25 years” or “10 years of service”.
• The name, up to 26 characters. Spell it the way the person writes it, not the way the HR system does.
• A year or dates, up to 18 characters: “2016 to 2026”.

The logo layout puts your logo above the name instead. For a longer citation, your logo with a citation, or a long name, send your own artwork or the list and we’ll set it.

Pick an award and add the wording