How to work as a babysitter in Singapore
You can start babysitting in Singapore without any credential, because none exists. The Ministry of Manpower said so directly in a written parliamentary answer in September 2025: home-based care arrangements "such as babysitters" are "private arrangements that employers source on their own", are "decentralised, varied and highly personalised in nature", and are "not amenable to standardisation and regulation". There is no licence, no register and no regulator.
What the rules do cover
If the carer is a foreign national, the household must hold a valid Work Permit, applied for through MOM directly or via an employment agency. That is the only statutory touchpoint.
If you want a regulated childcare career instead
The route changes completely. ECDA's Early Childhood Development Centre Licence applies to centre-based operations — child care, infant care, kindergartens — and the individual credential you would pursue is ECDA early childhood educator certification, working at a licensed centre. That is a different occupation from babysitting, with a real qualification ladder.
What catches people out
MOM applied the same reasoning to confinement nannies. Singapore has deliberately declined to regulate paid infant care in the home, including newborn confinement care, while regulating centre-based care tightly — so the absence is a policy choice, not an oversight.
Babysitter salary in Singapore
Babysitting in Singapore is a private arrangement between the household and the carer, so pay is whatever the two agree.
No official figure exists because the Ministry of Manpower has declined to regulate the work, describing home-based care arrangements as not amenable to standardisation and regulation.
The move into structured pay is into licensed centre-based childcare, where ECDA early childhood educator certification applies.
No official scale is published for this role, so treat any single figure you find online as a third-party estimate rather than a rate you can rely on.
Is this the right role for you?
This guide covers how to get in. Whether you should is a different question. Gyfted's career quiz works from how you actually operate — how you handle pressure, structure and other people — rather than from a job title you have already picked.
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