ICA's letter tells you the result, but not the reason. In a free consultation, a DSA consultant will go through what you sent in last time, check your profile against the 68 points in our Approval Evaluation Matrix, and tell you honestly whether you're ready to reapply or what needs to change first.
It takes about a minute to fill in, and there's no obligation to go ahead with anything afterwards.
You pulled together the payslips, the tax statements, the certified copies and the translations, filled in the application and paid the fee. Then you waited for months.
When the answer finally came, it said your application had been unsuccessful. It didn't say which part let you down, what you should do differently, or whether it was even worth trying again.
So now you're left guessing. Maybe it was your salary, or how long you've lived here, or something in one of the documents. You've probably gone over it a hundred times, and you're still no closer to knowing.
Some people reapply straight away with the same documents and hope for a different answer. If nothing in your profile has changed since last time, ICA is being asked to look again at the same facts it has already turned down.
Others wait a year, then two, telling themselves they'll try again after the next pay rise. If you're on an Employment Pass or S Pass, your right to live here stays tied to one employer the whole time, and every renewal feels a little more nerve-racking than the one before. It's the same on a Long-Term Visit Pass as the spouse of a Singaporean, where every renewal means another wait for another decision.
And then there's the advice. A colleague tells you to donate to charity, someone in a Facebook group swears by buying an insurance policy, and a forum thread insists it all comes down to quotas and luck. You've heard all of it, and none of it came from anyone who had actually looked at your application.
And every new application means another six months or so of waiting for an answer, while your plans for your career and your family sit on hold.
and round it goes again
The six-month figure comes from ICA's own website, which says PR applications are processed within six months when the documents are in order.
ICA does tell the public which factors it takes into account. They're your family ties to Singaporeans, your economic contributions, your qualifications, your age, your family profile and how long you've lived here, and ICA uses them to judge how well you'd contribute, fit into Singapore society and put down roots for good.
What ICA doesn't publish is how much each of those factors counts, and it won't send you a breakdown of where your application fell short.
That leaves you with two choices. You can keep guessing, or you can have your profile checked against every one of those factors, find the weak spots, and fix the ones that can be fixed before you apply again.
Helping you with that second choice is what DSA does. We work with people applying for Singapore PR and Citizenship, and this consultation is set up for people who've already been turned down.
ICA publishes these factors, but not how much each one counts.
The consultation is free and there's no obligation. You can have it at our office in The Gateway East on Beach Road, or over a video call if that's easier. This is how it goes.
When people look back at a rejected application on their own, they tend to focus on one thing, and very often it's salary, because that's the easiest number to compare. But ICA's list covers far more than salary. A profile can look fine on income and still be thin somewhere else, like how long you've been with your current employer, how your career has moved over the years, or whether the details in one document match the details in another.
The Approval Evaluation Matrix, or AEM, is the framework DSA built so that nothing like that gets missed. It looks at your profile across 12 frameworks and 68 criteria points, covering areas like your career progression, salary structure, job scope, stability of employment, how settled you are in Singapore and how well your documents line up with each other.
Going through it point by point gives you three things that guessing can't:
If you go ahead with DSA after the consultation, the AEM becomes three written reports for you:
Showing where you stand today.
Setting out what to strengthen and how.
With our recommendation on when to submit.
These are real DSA clients, and they've agreed to share their experience with you.
Every application is decided by ICA on its own facts, so your result will depend on your own profile.
We'll never tell you to make a donation, buy an insurance policy or sign up for volunteer work you have no real interest in, just to make your application look better. You won't hear a promise of approval from us either, because nobody outside ICA can make one. And if we don't think you're ready to reapply, we'll say so, even when it isn't what you were hoping to hear.
Answer a few quick questions about your last application, and our team will get in touch to set up your free consultation at a time that suits you.