Visa - Temporary mission

1. Did you terminate your previous employment on EP properly and gave your employer no reason to report you to MoM? Then there will be no problem.
2. You can get a temporary EP (limited to the planned duration of your engagement). The Singapore-registered branch of your company must apply for it and your salary (no matter where paid) is then taxable in Singapore - depending on national regulations it might be taxable in your country too!

Thank you for your answer!

1/ regarding point 1- so so -  I explained the situation to the company that I had to go back urgently in Europe . But as the Visa was not issue I thought it was ok .
They understood but they were disappointed and after several weeks - they asked me to pay back the cost of the EP (circa 2000$ if I remember well) - and I did not do that as it was not possible for me to reimburse such an amount


2/ Does anybody know if this 'EP temporary Visa' is easy to convert into a regular 'EP Visa" for a company?
For instance if I can continue to work in Singapore , Employers will be able to modify it easily and I will not be consider as a candidate "without EP VIsa" and requiring sponsorship ?
Indeed from what I heard : it can be easy to change jobs when you are already an EP Visa holder  (and how it can be difficult to be hired when you do not hold it ..).

If you read in various threads in Singapore forum, getting EP approval is never been an easy process here. Coming here under a temporary business visa for few months under employer sponsorship is possible but if company wants to send an employee for on-site work to Singapore where they have to apply EP then employer has to justify at MoM.

As you didn’t mention your educational & experiences background, it’s difficult to say whether it would be easier to a company to justify that or not.

Secondly, it was never been easy to change a job under EP as MoM will evaluate your details once again and it’s approval process. Present situation in Singapore, most of the companies are hesitant to hire foreigners due to recent Govt announcements of reducing foreigners quota by 5% in many service sectors by 2021.

Thirdly, looking at your response to Beppi’s first point, it looks like to me that you had an unpleasant closed case with your ex employer. Higher possibility that they must have complained to MoM about your refusal to join their company after EP approval. That could create hindrance on your future EP approval process. Good luck

The EP fee is around S$70, as far as I know, and cannot be charged to the job-seeker (by law). How did they  explain the S$2000 you mentioned?
If your employment contract at the time stated that you can resign before starting work and you kept the notice period such clauses usually specify, you are safe.
If not, it depends on whether the employer reported you to MoM.
All EPs are tied to a specific job, and having an EP does not help much in getting a new one for another job.

Yes they withdrew the EP Visa and 2 months later I  received an email telling me to reimburse $ 1500 SGD ('costs derivating' from the EP process : application and withdrawal  )
I hope this will not be a problem in the future - even as a tourist I will not have any issue in the future to come in Singapore (I do not think so as I did not offense anybody/commit any offense or made something wrong at all)

Regarding the switch between two jobs when you are an EP holder .I should have written  "easier" rather than "easy"  :-)
From what I heard, it is easier to change  job when you are an EP Visa holder . My comparison was more between somebody  with no working visa (e.g tourist  looking for a job) with somebody who already have an EP visa
But  for sure, each situation is different !