Work out your own numbers
Salary and tax calculator
Enter your fixed monthly salary. On a work pass you pay no CPF and nothing is deducted for tax each month, so your pay lands whole — and the tax bill arrives the following year. This works out what that bill will be and what to set aside.
An estimate, not a tax computation. Resident rates are IRAS's YA2026 table, checked 19 September 2026; non-residents pay the higher of 15% of employment income or the resident calculation with no reliefs. It ignores share awards, benefits in kind, housing provided by an employer, and anything earned outside Singapore. Confirm with IRAS before relying on it.
Singapore’s income tax is genuinely low. That is not the problem. The problem is that nothing is taken from your pay, so for your entire first year the money looks like yours — and then a bill arrives for the lot. People who have only ever been taxed at source are the ones it catches.
Before you read. This is personal experience and opinion, not tax advice. Rates, reliefs and deadlines are set by IRAS and change; the links at the end go to the official pages, and the “last checked” date is at the top. For anything complicated — share awards, income from abroad, a business — talk to an accountant.
The thing to understand first
There is no PAYE here. No withholding, no monthly deduction, no tax code. Your employer pays your full salary into your account, reports your earnings to IRAS once a year, and that is the end of their involvement.
You then file a return the following year, get an assessment, and pay. So the money you earn in 2026 is taxed in what IRAS calls Year of Assessment 2027, filed in the spring of 2027 and payable a month after the notice lands — potentially eighteen months after you earned the first of it.
Set aside 5–10% of every payslip from your first month. The calculator above will tell you your actual figure. Do it by standing order into a separate account, because the bill is real and it does not care that you spent the money.
Are you a tax resident?
This matters more than anything else on the page, because residents pay progressive rates from 0% and non-residents do not.
You are a tax resident for a year if you stayed or worked here at least 183 days in that calendar year. Two administrative concessions help people who arrive mid-year: if your employment straddles two calendar years and totals at least 183 days across them, you can be treated as resident for both; and if it runs continuously across three calendar years, you can be treated as resident for all three, including the short first and last ones.
Non-residents — broadly, 61 to 182 days — pay the higher of a flat 15% on employment income or the resident rates with no reliefs at all. Director’s fees and professional income are taxed at 24%. Stay 60 days or fewer and employment income is generally exempt, though not for directors and certain professionals.
Most people who move here for a job land as residents in year one or two. If you arrive in October, check the concessions before assuming otherwise.
The rates
Resident rates for the current Year of Assessment. They are progressive, so only the slice of income inside each band is taxed at that band’s rate.
| Chargeable income | Rate on the slice | Tax at the top of the band |
|---|---|---|
| First S$20,000 | 0% | 0 |
| Next S$10,000 (to 30,000) | 2% | 200 |
| Next S$10,000 (to 40,000) | 3.5% | 550 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 80,000) | 7% | 3,350 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 120,000) | 11.5% | 7,950 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 160,000) | 15% | 13,950 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 200,000) | 18% | 21,150 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 240,000) | 19% | 28,750 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 280,000) | 19.5% | 36,550 |
| Next S$40,000 (to 320,000) | 20% | 44,550 |
| Next S$180,000 (to 500,000) | 22% | 84,150 |
| Next S$500,000 (to 1,000,000) | 23% | 199,150 |
| Above S$1,000,000 | 24% | — |
What that means in practice, assuming thirteen months of pay (twelve plus a one-month bonus) and the standard S$1,000 Earned Income Relief:
| Monthly salary | Income for the year | Tax | Effective rate | Set aside monthly |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| S$3,000 | 39,000 | 480 | 1.2% | 40 |
| S$4,500 | 58,500 | 1,775 | 3.0% | 148 |
| S$6,000 | 78,000 | 3,140 | 4.0% | 262 |
| S$9,000 | 117,000 | 7,490 | 6.4% | 624 |
| S$12,000 | 156,000 | 13,200 | 8.5% | 1,100 |
| S$20,000 | 260,000 | 32,455 | 12.5% | 2,705 |
Two things stand out. The effective rate is far below the headline band rate, because the first S$20,000 is free and every band below your top one is taxed at its own lower rate. And it stays gentle for a long time — a S$12,000 salary attracts an effective rate under 9%, which is why people tolerate the rents.
Reliefs, briefly
Tax residents can reduce chargeable income with reliefs, capped in total at S$80,000 a year. Non-residents get none at all.
The one everybody gets is Earned Income Relief: S$1,000 if you are under 55, S$6,000 from 55 to 59, and S$8,000 at 60 and above. Beyond that, most of the well-known reliefs — spouse, child, parent, grandparent caregiver — carry conditions that often turn on citizenship or residency of the family member, so check each one against your own situation rather than assuming. Course fees and approved charitable donations are worth a look.
The CPF-linked reliefs that dominate a Singaporean’s tax planning are not available to you, because you have no CPF. The Supplementary Retirement Scheme is the usual substitute, and foreigners have a higher contribution cap than citizens — worth investigating if your effective rate has climbed into double digits.
When it all happens
- 1 March to 18 April — the filing window. E-filing closes 18 April; paper, 15 April. Much of it is pre-filled from what your employer reported.
- May to September — your Notice of Assessment arrives.
- One month after the notice — payment is due. You can spread it over monthly instalments by GIRO, which most people do.
If you are here on 1 January and still here filing, none of this is dramatic. It becomes dramatic when you leave.
Tax clearance: the rule that freezes your last salary
This is the part worth reading twice, because it surprises almost everyone.
When a foreign employee or permanent resident leaves their job and the country, the employer must seek tax clearance by filing Form IR21 with IRAS, normally at least one month before the last working day. From that point the employer is required to withhold all monies due to you — final salary, pro-rated bonus, leave encashment, contractual termination payments — until IRAS says otherwise.
IRAS then processes it, typically within about seven working days for electronic filings and around twenty-one days on paper, and issues one of two outcomes: a notification to release the money, or a directive telling the employer to pay a specified amount of tax to IRAS first and release the balance to you.
Plan for it. Your last pay will not arrive on your last payday, and if you are flying out and closing your bank account you need a plan for receiving money afterwards. Do not close the local account until the clearance is settled.
Tax clearance does not apply to Singapore citizens, nor to permanent residents who are staying.
Practical habits
- Open a separate account on day one and standing-order your set-aside into it. It is the single thing that turns the first bill from a shock into an administrative task.
- Keep your Singpass working. Filing, checking your assessment and setting up GIRO all run through it.
- Check the pre-filled figures rather than accepting them. Employers make mistakes, particularly with bonuses paid in a different year from when they were earned.
- Tell IRAS if you change address, including after you leave — the assessment has to reach you.
- If you have income from outside Singapore, get advice. Foreign-sourced income received by individuals is generally not taxed here, but your home country may still want to hear from you, and the answer depends on your nationality and any treaty.
Read next
- Cost of living by salary — the same calculator, with what each income band actually buys.
- A real monthly budget — costs arranged by household.