Upwill
Manpower Placement Agency

Employer Guide · 2026

How to Read MOM Maid Agency Ratings (2026)

The Ministry of Manpower (MOM) publishes customer ratings and demerit points for every licensed maid agency in Singapore. Most employers never look at it, and most who do read it wrong. Here's the page, what the numbers actually mean, and how to use them to make a better hiring decision.

· Source: mom.gov.sg customer ratings

Open MOM Ratings Page

What the MOM ratings page actually shows

Four data points per agency. Most employers fixate on the star rating and ignore the more useful signals.

Demerit Points

Most weighted

MOM issues demerit points to agencies for violations: late work permit submissions, incomplete documents, fee disputes, helper welfare complaints, advertising breaches. A high demerit count is the clearest signal of operational sloppiness.

Practical insight: An agency with 0 demerit points over 24 months is meaningfully better than one with 5+, regardless of star score.

Number of Placements

Context only

How many helpers the agency placed in the rating period. Bigger volume does not mean better service — it just means scale. Some boutique agencies place 50/year with high satisfaction; some volume agencies place 500/year with mediocre service.

Practical insight: Use placement count to understand scale, not quality. A 50-placement agency with 0 demerits beats a 500-placement agency with 10 demerits for most employers.

Transfer Rate

Useful indicator

The percentage of placements that ended in transfer (helper moving to another employer) within 6 months. Lower is generally better — it suggests good matching.

Practical insight: A transfer rate under 10% is excellent. 10–20% is industry-typical. 30%+ suggests systemic matching problems.

Customer Feedback Score

Take with salt

Aggregated customer feedback ratings. The catch: response rates are typically very low and self-selected, so feedback skews to extremes (very happy or very unhappy employers).

Practical insight: Look at the SAMPLE SIZE next to the score. A 4.8 rating from 12 responses is meaningless. A 4.2 from 200 responses is far more informative.

The biggest mistake employers make on this page

Treating the star rating as the only signal.

A 5-star agency with 8 customer responses tells you almost nothing. A 4.2-star agency with 250 responses and 0 demerit points over 24 months is operating well. Always read demerit points alongside the star score — they are the more objective signal because MOM issues them based on verifiable rule breaches, not employer mood.

The Upwill checklist for evaluating any MOM rating

  • Step 1. Verify the EA Licence is valid and current. Cross-check at mom.gov.sg/eaDirectory.
  • Step 2. Read demerit points over the last 24 months. 0 = excellent; 1–3 = acceptable; 5+ = yellow flag.
  • Step 3. Look at transfer rate. Under 15% is good. Over 30% suggests systemic matching problems.
  • Step 4. Read customer feedback, but weight by sample size. Discount any score with under 30 responses.
  • Step 5. Cross-reference with non-MOM sources: Google reviews, forum mentions, agency's own transparency about their process.

What the MOM ratings page does NOT measure

Important context. The page is one input among several — not the only signal.

Helper welfare

MOM’s rating focuses on employer-facing service quality, not the helper experience. Complaints from helpers go through a separate process and are not reflected in the public rating.

Match quality for your specific household

A high-rated agency may have specialised in baby care while your household needs eldercare. Look at the agency’s placement specialisation, not just the rating.

Fee transparency

The rating does not measure how upfront the agency is about its placement fees, financing terms, replacement guarantee fine print, or hidden charges.

Post-placement support quality

Most operational issues happen after the helper starts work. Whether an agency picks up the phone at month 4 is not in any MOM rating.

MOM maid agency ratings — common questions

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some common questions and answers

MOM publishes the customer ratings page at mom.gov.sg under "Passes and permits → Work Permit for foreign domestic worker → Customer ratings." Direct URL: https://www.mom.gov.sg/passes-and-permits/work-permit-for-foreign-domestic-worker/customer-ratings. You do NOT need a Singpass account to view it — the page is public. You can search by agency name or filter by region.

Demerit points are issued by MOM to licensed agencies for verifiable rule breaches: late work permit submissions, document errors, fee disputes (charging helpers above the 2-month salary cap), advertising violations, mishandling helper welfare cases, and other regulatory infractions. Demerit points are objective — they reflect what an agency actually did wrong, not subjective employer opinions. An agency that accumulates too many demerits within a window can have its EA licence suspended or revoked. This is the single most useful signal on the MOM page.

Not necessarily — it depends entirely on sample size. A 5-star rating from 8 customer responses is statistically meaningless; a 4.5-star rating from 250 responses is far more credible. Always look at the response count, not just the star score. Also remember that MOM's feedback system has very low response rates (most employers never submit feedback at all), so ratings naturally skew to people who had extremely good or extremely bad experiences.

Three reasons: (1) The agency is too new — MOM requires a minimum operating window before ratings appear. (2) The agency operates under a different EA licence number than the consumer-facing brand name (some agencies brand-switch). (3) The agency only handles non-FDW placements (e.g., manufacturing labour, hospitality) and is not in the FDW category. If you cannot find an agency you are evaluating, search MOM’s general Employment Agency directory at mom.gov.sg/eaDirectory — every licensed EA must appear there even if not in the FDW ratings list.

A practical 4-step framework: (1) Confirm the agency has a valid EA Licence — search by name in MOM’s directory. (2) Check the demerit point count over the last 24 months. Zero is ideal; under 3 is acceptable; 5+ is a yellow flag. (3) Look at the transfer rate — under 15% suggests good matching. (4) Read customer feedback BUT weight by sample size. Combine all 4 signals with non-MOM sources: Google reviews, forum mentions on KiasuParents/SingaporeMotherhood, and direct conversations with the agency about their process.

Demerit points are factual and hard to dispute. Customer feedback scores can be skewed by a small number of unhappy employers writing detailed negative reviews while satisfied employers stay silent. Industry rule of thumb: trust demerit points more than feedback scores. An agency with 0 demerits but a 3.5-star feedback score (from 20 responses) is usually more reliable than one with 8 demerits but a 4.8-star score (from 12 responses).

MOM updates the ratings page periodically — typically every 6 months for customer feedback scores, but demerit points are updated as they are issued (often within days of an infraction). For the most current picture, cross-check the page with the agency’s own claims about their licence status and recent placements.

No — they are completely different. MOM’s page is a government regulator publishing official demerit and rating data based on operational compliance and customer feedback. Private review sites (Best Reviews SG, Sassy Mama, theAsianparent, SETHLUI listicles) are editorial roundups that may include paid placements, sponsorships, or partnership disclosures. Use MOM for objective compliance data; use private listicles for service-quality narrative and comparison context. Both are useful — neither alone is enough.

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