The SDL is a compulsory levy that you have to pay for all your employees, including foreign employees, working in Singapore, to SkillsFuture Singapore Agency (SSG). This article will explain how we help you calculate Skills Development Levy (SDL) for different staff.

This guide will cover the following:

The levy payable for each employee is at 0.25% of the monthly total wages. The minimum payable is $2 for an employee earning less than $800 a month and the maximum is $11.25 for an employee earning more than $4,500 a month. (CPF reference)

Add up the SDL calculated for each employee and then round the total amount down to the nearest dollar. You can use SSG’s online calculator to help with this (SSG reference)

SDL are exempted for some student employees. Find out more on who you need to pay SDL for (Gobusiness reference) under the header “SDL Exemptions”

For most employees, no special setup is needed for SDL.

The only exception is if the staff is exempted from SDL, exclude them from SDL in Statutory & Payment > Other Statutories > Exclude from Skills Development Levy (SDL)

SDL is ultimately calculated and paid by the month. However, within a month, you might run multiple payruns for a single staff. SDL for each payrun will be an estimate, and follows a similar formula as CPF contributions. Refer to the CPF contributions to learn more about this.

SDL is usually paid together with your employees' monthly CPF contributions. Learn more about how PayrollAny can support this here.