Singapore salary calculator 2026

Singapore inverts the usual payslip. Income tax on a typical salary is almost negligible, a few tens of dollars a month, while the Central Provident Fund takes a full fifth of gross pay. Nothing is withheld for tax at all: the employer deducts CPF, pays the rest, and the employee settles income tax personally after the year-end assessment. The monthly tax figure the calculator shows is therefore a notional twelfth of an annual bill, not a line you will find on a Singapore payslip.

Income tax: eleven bands starting at zero

Resident income tax is progressive, with the first 20,000 SGD of annual chargeable income taxed at nothing at all. The rate then steps up gently: 2% up to 30,000, 3.5% up to 40,000, 7% up to 80,000, 11.5% up to 120,000, 15% up to 160,000, 18% up to 200,000, 20% up to 320,000, 22% up to 500,000, 23% up to 1,000,000 and a top rate of 24% beyond that. Because the zero band does the work of a personal allowance, the model uses no separate basic exemption. The employee's CPF contribution is deducted from the base before the bands apply, which is the main relief a real assessment would also grant.

CPF: the deduction that matters

The Central Provident Fund is a compulsory savings scheme rather than a social insurance in the European sense. Contributions go into accounts in the member's own name and are drawn on for housing, approved medical costs and retirement. The model applies the full employee rate of 20%; the real rate steps down with age. Two things are worth knowing. CPF applies to citizens and permanent residents only, so a foreigner on an employment pass has no CPF deduction and a much higher net for the same gross. And contributions are only payable up to a monthly ordinary wage ceiling, which the model does not apply, so above that ceiling it overstates the deduction.

Three salaries compared

Read the table column by column and the story is obvious: CPF is forty times the income tax at 3,000 SGD and still six times larger at 8,000 SGD. The effective rate creeps up by only three points across the range because the 20% CPF is fixed and the tax bands are so gentle. At 15,000 SGD a month the model shows 963 SGD of tax and 3,000 SGD of CPF for a net of 11,038 SGD, but that is the row where the missing wage ceiling bites hardest and real CPF would be lower. The dataset carries no minimum wage for Singapore because there is no national statutory one; sector-specific progressive wage floors take its place, as the minimum wage guide discusses.

What the employer contributes

The employer pays its own CPF share, 17% of gross in the model, into the same accounts. On the 5,775 SGD average salary that is about 982 SGD a month, giving a total employment cost of 6,757 SGD. Combined with the employee's 1,155 SGD, more than 2,100 SGD of the monthly cost of an average job is being saved rather than paid out or taxed, which is the core design of the system: fund housing and retirement through compulsory individual saving rather than through the general budget.

Goods and services tax

Singapore calls its VAT the goods and services tax. There is a single standard rate of 9% and no reduced rates, so 100 SGD becomes 109 SGD at the checkout. Restaurants commonly add a service charge on which GST is also charged, so the GST calculator is useful for backing the tax out of a bill.

A 44-hour week and a short fixed calendar

Singapore's Employment Act sets the ordinary working week at 44 hours, which the model spreads as 8.8 hours a day over five days. The statutory maximum in the model is also 44 hours, longer than the 40-hour norm in most of Europe and East Asia, which matters when comparing hourly rates.

The 2026 calendar in the model holds 5 fixed-date public holidays, of which 4 fall on a weekday, for 257 working days. National Day on 9 August, marking independence, is the one that is uniquely Singaporean; Good Friday on 3 April, Labour Day on 1 May, New Year's Day and Christmas make up the rest. Missing are the moving religious holidays: Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Vesak Day, Hari Raya Haji and Deepavali. The working days calculator will therefore run a few days high against the official gazette.

How exact is this

The tax bands are the statutory resident rates and the CPF percentages are the headline rates, so for a citizen or permanent resident under the age step-downs and below the wage ceiling the table is close to real. The estimate label covers everything else: the wage ceiling, age-banded CPF rates, the personal reliefs that reduce chargeable income, and the fact that a non-resident or a foreign employee is taxed and contributes on a different basis entirely. For a comparison with Hong Kong, the other low-tax city in the dataset, it is more than adequate.