Appeal Letter To ICA For Singapore PR Application – Does It Work?

If somebody gets rejected for a PR application in Singapore, most people’s natural reaction will be to quickly search for and file an appeal letter to ICA. This was the case with some of my ex colleagues at JP Morgan who got their initial PR application rejected, and submitted appeal letters to ICA along with some supporting documents. If you want professional help, then you may use a company like them for help. However, for those applicants who are rejected, and are not sure if submitting an appeal letter to ICA is your best course of action for status approval success, then read on.

First of all, while it is natural tendency to want to immediately send in a letter if you get rejection, your first step should be to actually stop, read and analyze the rejection notification that you received. Some of them provide you hints of what your problem may be, while others are seemingly a blanket response. Take for instance the following two:

rejection by ica 1
In this case, you are potentially given a hint that it’s a combination or one of the following like economic contribution (which is at least partially linked to either investments in Singapore companies or your taxes), educational levels e.t.c.
rejection by ica 2
This is pretty generic, and does not even give any kinds of hint as to what the reason you got rejected may be.

Second of all, there are some cases where you will receive something quite different like the following in their notification:

rejection by ICA 3

In such a case, it is virtually impossible for you to submit any kind of letter to the authorities, as it will almost always end up in the same end result. In such a case, it is also hinted that your length of stay in Singapore as well as your time spent working in Singapore are potentially the likely reasons for getting rejected. The bad news is that there is almost no news trying to appeal in such a situation. The good news is that you know more or less what is the limiting factor, and you can work on that.

Third of all, you have to understand that not every situation stands the same chances of approval during the first application, or during the appeal process. Therefore, while there are people who constantly face rejections or easily get approved, it does not necessarily indicate that what these advice givers on expat forums in Singapore give is actually good unless your credentials and identity details are nearly identical to theirs!

Fourth of all, it is important to think from the perspective of the officer who is judging your application. While there is a small possibility that they made a mistake for you, and you were supposed to have been approved, it is much more likely that they had considered your qualifications and identity documents, and decided to give the limited amount of new permanent residency per year to another person instead. It is therefore absolutely key to show a drastic and significant improvement in your letter before you even stand a tiny chance. Only these people stand a chance at approval success. For the rest, just improving everything within your application to become a Singapore permanent resident instead of sending in a letter is probably the smarter decision. Put your effort towards that instead of being angry, though that may be the natural reaction.

Finally, keep in mind that you do not want ICA to think that you are simply abusing the appeal button, and keep trying to do that without actually putting in effort into improving your situation, credentials and qualifications before hand. One of my ex colleagues did this, and he never got approved. Another friend analysed his situation, made the necessary adjustments after some time and then got his permanent residency in Singapore. The last thing you want to happen to yourself is to get onto an informal blacklist for having wasting their time over and over again.

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