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SUMMARY
Yes. Rent is getting more expensive in Singapore again, but the current increase is modest rather than the start of another rental shock.
The more important issue for tenants is the level rents are rising from. Private residential rents are now roughly 56% above their end-2020 level, so even small increases today are being added to a much more expensive base.
The latest monthly numbers look stronger than the broader trend. Condo rents jumped 1.6% in July and HDB rents 1.7%, but their year-on-year increases were only 2.5% and 1.5% respectively.
Demand is also uneven. Condo rental volume reached a record high in July, while HDB rental activity remained below both the previous year and the five-year July average.
There is no single part of Singapore consistently driving rent growth. The strongest region has rotated between the CCR, RCR and OCR, which makes project-level comparables more useful than broad assumptions about “central” or “suburban” rents.
Higher vacancy has not stopped rents from rising because Singapore has a matching problem more than a simple shortage problem. Empty luxury units do not help a tenant looking for a smaller apartment near an MRT station at a very different price point.
Foreign population growth is supporting rental demand, but it should not be overstated. Much of the recent increase in non-resident employment came from Work Permit holders whose housing demand is not the same as that of Employment Pass holders renting private condos.
The future supply pipeline is probably the strongest brake on another sustained boom. Singapore has tens of thousands of private homes in the pipeline and a much heavier land-supply programme, even if those future completions do little for someone renewing a lease next month.
Landlords still have leverage when a unit is hard to replace, especially near MRT stations, international schools and major employment hubs. Across the broader market, though, vacancy, moderate annual growth and incoming supply give tenants more room to push back than they had during the 2021-2023 surge.
A large double-digit renewal increase is therefore not supported by the broad market alone. Recent transactions in the same condo, estate or nearby comparable projects are a much better benchmark than a landlord simply saying that “Singapore rents are going up.”
The overall picture is a high-priced rental market creeping upward. Tenants waiting for a major drop may be disappointed in the near term, but the evidence still looks much closer to a plateau with mild inflation than to another 2022-style explosion.
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Are rents in Singapore actually going up again?
Yes. Singapore rents are currently rising again, although the increase is still fairly small once we look beyond the latest monthly jump.
URA's latest official figures show private residential rents rising 0.3% in the first quarter and another 0.7% in the second, for roughly 1% growth over the first half of the year. The newer SRX rental index points in the same direction: condo rents jumped 1.6% in July and reached a record high.
That July number looks dramatic on its own, so the annual comparison is more useful. Condo rents were 2.5% higher than a year earlier. HDB rents increased 1.7% during July but were only 1.5% higher year on year.
So the basic answer is pretty clear. Rent is getting more expensive in Singapore again, but annual increases of roughly 1.5% to 2.5% are still a long way from what tenants faced during the previous rental boom.
| Singapore rental measure | Latest change | Longer comparison | What we see |
|---|---|---|---|
| Private residential rents, Q1 | +0.3% QoQ | — | Slow increase |
| Private residential rents, Q2 | +0.7% QoQ | ~+1.0% in H1 | Growth picked up |
| Condo rents, July | +1.6% MoM | +2.5% YoY | Strong month, mild annual growth |
| HDB rents, July | +1.7% MoM | +1.5% YoY | Similar pattern |
Why does rent in Singapore still feel so expensive?
Singapore rent still feels extremely expensive because the huge increases from 2021 to 2023 were never properly reversed.
URA data show private residential rents climbing 9.9% in 2021, then 29.7% in 2022 and another 8.7% in 2023. Rents finally fell in 2024, but only by 1.9%. They gained that 1.9% back in 2025 and have moved higher again this year.
When we compound those annual moves, today's private residential rental index sits roughly 56% above its end-2020 level. A tenant who remembers what Singapore cost before the boom therefore sees a far bigger change than someone comparing today's lease with last year's.
That is most of the frustration around Singapore rent today. Current rent inflation is fairly mild, but it is being added to a rental base that already moved up by roughly half in just a few years.
| Period | Private residential rent change | Approx. cumulative change from end-2020 |
|---|---|---|
| 2021 | +9.9% | +9.9% |
| 2022 | +29.7% | +42.5% |
| 2023 | +8.7% | +54.9% |
| 2024 | -1.9% | +52.0% |
| 2025 | +1.9% | +54.9% |
| First half of this year | ~+1.0% | ~+56% |
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Is Singapore heading into another rental boom?
No. Singapore's rental market is getting firmer these days, but the numbers are nowhere close to the pace we would expect from another major boom.
The comparison with 2022 is almost absurdly large. Private rents rose 29.7% that year after already increasing 9.9% in 2021. By contrast, rents rose 1.9% during all of last year and approximately 1% during the first half of this year.
The latest SRX data need the same perspective. July's 1.6% monthly condo increase was the strongest recent move, but year-on-year growth was only 2.5%. Monthly figures can jump when the mix of units leased changes or when activity rebounds after a quiet month. Sustained annual growth is harder to fake.
We would need several quarters of much faster increases before calling this another rental boom. For now, Singapore has a rising rental market, just not a runaway one.
Did Singapore's rental correction already finish?
Yes, Singapore's broad private-rental correction looks largely finished for now.
The correction started after the extraordinary post-pandemic run. Private residential rents fell 2.1% in the final quarter of 2023, then declined 1.9% across 2024. That was the first full-year fall since 2020.
The market changed direction during 2025. Rents finished the year 1.9% higher despite a 0.5% dip in the final quarter. This year then opened with two consecutive increases: 0.3% followed by 0.7%.
Put together, that looks like a market that found a floor. Weak quarters can still happen, but the broad decline that began after the peak has already given way to gentle growth.
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Are condo rents rising everywhere in Singapore?
No. Singapore condo rents are rising overall, but where someone rents still makes a noticeable difference.
URA's second-quarter numbers show rents for non-landed homes in the Core Central Region rising 1.2%. The Rest of Central Region was flat, while the Outside Central Region actually fell 0.3%. In the previous quarter, the pattern was almost reversed: the OCR had risen 1%, while the RCR slipped 0.2%.
July then changed the picture again. SRX recorded increases of 0.8% in the CCR, 1.1% in the RCR and 2.2% in the OCR. Yet year-on-year growth was remarkably similar across all three areas, ranging from 2.2% to 2.6%.
There is no clean story where central Singapore keeps getting expensive while suburban Singapore stays cheap, or the other way around. The stronger region keeps changing from quarter to quarter. For tenants, recent leases in the same condo or nearby projects will often tell us more than the national rental index.
| Condo market | Q1 | Q2 | July MoM | July YoY |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Core Central Region | +0.5% | +1.2% | +0.8% | +2.6% |
| Rest of Central Region | -0.2% | 0.0% | +1.1% | +2.4% |
| Outside Central Region | +1.0% | -0.3% | +2.2% | +2.2% |
Are HDB rents getting more expensive too?
Yes. HDB rents are also more expensive today, although the annual increase remains fairly restrained.
SRX recorded a 1.5% year-on-year increase across the HDB rental market in July. Three-room and four-room flats were both around 1.2% more expensive, five-room flats were up 2%, and Executive flats were up 2.9%.
The increases also reached both mature and non-mature estates. Mature-estate rents were 1.3% higher than a year earlier, while non-mature estates were up 1.8%.
The increase is broad enough to be real. At the same time, nothing in those annual numbers looks like the kind of rent shock that would justify saying affordable rental housing is suddenly disappearing again.
| HDB rental segment | July MoM | July YoY |
|---|---|---|
| Overall HDB | +1.7% | +1.5% |
| Mature estates | +1.2% | +1.3% |
| Non-mature estates | +2.2% | +1.8% |
| 3-room | +0.8% | +1.2% |
| 4-room | +2.1% | +1.2% |
| 5-room | +1.5% | +2.0% |
| Executive | +4.0% | +2.9% |
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Are tenants actually competing harder for Singapore condos now?
Yes. Demand for Singapore condos looks unusually active right now, although HDB rental activity tells a much quieter story.
SRX estimated 9,627 condo rental transactions in July, up 38.1% from June. More importantly, that was the highest monthly volume in its series, 10.6% above the same month a year earlier and 19.5% above the five-year July average.
That combination deserves attention. Rents rose during a month when a record number of leases were also being signed, so the increase cannot simply be dismissed as a handful of unusually expensive transactions.
HDB gives us a useful countercheck. About 3,097 HDB flats were rented during the same month. Volume rebounded from June, but it remained 2.6% below the previous year and 1.5% below the five-year July average.
Demand therefore looks genuinely strong in the condo market today. We do not see the same intensity across Singapore's entire rental market.
Are more foreigners pushing Singapore rents higher?
Yes, Singapore's growing foreign population is helping rental demand, though it cannot explain the whole increase.
Singapore's non-resident population reached 1.91 million in the government's latest annual population figures, up 2.7% from a year earlier. That is roughly 50,000 additional non-residents in one year, and many newcomers initially rely on rental housing.
Employment moved in the same direction. Ministry of Manpower figures show non-resident employment increasing by 43,900 in 2025, after a gain of 35,700 the previous year.
We should be careful about turning every foreign worker into one new condo tenant, however. MOM said much of the latest non-resident employment growth came from Work Permit holders in sectors such as construction. Their housing patterns differ considerably from those of Employment Pass holders renting private apartments.
Even with that caveat, Singapore is currently adding enough non-residents to keep rental demand supported. It helps explain why rents can rise despite a much healthier housing-supply situation than a few years ago.
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Is Singapore running short of rental homes again?
No. Singapore currently has considerably more breathing room in its private housing stock than it did during the worst of the rental surge.
URA puts the vacancy rate for completed private homes at 6.4%, up from 6.2% one quarter earlier and 6% at the end of last year. Back in 2022, when private rents were increasing almost 30% annually, vacancy ended the year at 5.5%.
The regional numbers make the point even clearer. Vacancy currently reaches 8.3% in the Core Central Region, compared with 6.1% in the Rest of Central Region and 5.6% Outside Central Region.
An empty luxury unit in the CCR obviously does little for someone searching for a cheaper two-bedroom apartment near an MRT station. Vacancy therefore cannot tell us that every tenant has plenty of choice.
Still, a market with rising vacancy looks very different from one where almost every suitable home immediately attracts competing tenants. The shortage argument is much weaker today than it was during the last boom.
| Private residential vacancy | Current rate | Previous quarter | End-2022 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Singapore overall | 6.4% | 6.2% | 5.5% |
| Core Central Region | 8.3% | 8.2% | 6.9% |
| Rest of Central Region | 6.1% | 6.3% | 7.9% |
| Outside Central Region | 5.6% | 5.2% | 3.6% |
If more homes are empty, why are Singapore rents still rising?
Singapore rents can still rise with higher vacancy because tenants are competing for specific homes rather than Singapore's entire housing stock.
A vacant large apartment in Sentosa or Orchard is not a realistic substitute for a smaller condo near an MRT station at half the rent. The same applies to differences in school access, commuting time, furnishings, lease length and apartment size.
We can see this mismatch inside URA's own numbers. CCR vacancy reached 8.3%, yet CCR non-landed rents still increased 1.2% in the second quarter. Enough suitable tenants were willing to pay prevailing rents even though plenty of homes elsewhere in that broad region remained empty.
Landlords also do not reprice vacancies immediately. An owner with enough financial flexibility can leave a unit empty for a while rather than accept the first lower offer.
Higher vacancy should still limit how far landlords can push rents. It just works gradually, and some parts of Singapore feel that pressure much sooner than others.
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Will Singapore's huge housing pipeline stop rents from taking off?
Probably. Singapore's housing pipeline is currently the strongest reason we see little chance of another prolonged rental surge.
URA says around 60,600 private residential units, including Executive Condominiums, are expected to be completed over the next few years. Around 25,900 are scheduled for completion by 2028, with roughly another 34,700 coming later.
The Government is feeding that pipeline aggressively. The Confirmed List under the Government Land Sales programme is set to provide 9,320 private homes this year, more than 50% above the average annual Confirmed List supply of the previous decade.
HDB adds another layer. New flats primarily house owner-occupiers, so they do not immediately become rental stock. But as more households move into completed homes and older flats finish their Minimum Occupation Period, some pressure is gradually removed from both private and public rental demand.
The catch is timing. Only 2,483 private homes and ECs were completed during the first half of this year. Tens of thousands of future units cannot help someone whose lease expires next week.
For the next renewal, rents can still rise. Over several years, however, Singapore is building enough housing to make another long supply-driven rental squeeze much harder to sustain.
Do Singapore landlords still have the upper hand?
Some Singapore landlords still have plenty of leverage, but tenants now have much more room to negotiate than they did at the peak of the rental boom.
The strongest landlords are those with homes that are difficult to replace: popular condos near MRT stations, international schools, major employment hubs or neighbourhoods with limited competing stock. Record condo leasing activity shows there is still plenty of demand for the right unit.
Across the broader market, landlords face more resistance. Private-home vacancy has risen, annual condo rent growth is only 2.5%, HDB rental volumes are below their five-year July average, and a large amount of housing is coming.
A landlord asking for another 15% simply because Singapore rents are “going up” is therefore making a much stronger claim than the market data support.
These days, tenants have a better case for pushing back with recent transactions from the same development. During the rental frenzy, finding another unit was often the problem. Today, the negotiation itself matters again.
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Should renters expect a big increase when renewing a lease in Singapore?
Most Singapore renters should prepare for a possible increase now, but a large double-digit jump would be difficult to justify from the broader market alone.
The best benchmark is the recent rent achieved for comparable units. The latest annual SRX increase is 2.5% for condos and 1.5% for HDB flats. Individual projects can obviously move faster, especially if a previous lease was signed below market or several desirable units have disappeared at once.
Lease history matters too. Someone who last renewed during a temporarily soft period may face a bigger catch-up increase even when Singapore-wide rent growth is modest. Someone whose landlord already pushed rent sharply higher two years ago may have a stronger argument that today's market does not warrant another large adjustment.
We would therefore take any double-digit renewal request as a starting position rather than proof of where Singapore rents have moved.
Could Singapore rents fall again?
Yes. Singapore rents could fall again, but the current evidence still points more toward small increases than an imminent broad decline.
There is already precedent. Private residential rents fell 1.9% in 2024, and another quarterly decline appeared at the end of 2025. Rising vacancies and the large supply pipeline give the market several ways to soften again.
Demand is currently preventing that. Singapore continues to add non-residents, private condo leasing has been exceptionally active lately, and URA has now recorded two consecutive quarters of rental growth.
A weaker labour market, slower foreign hiring or a faster wave of housing completions could change the balance. Until one or more of those forces become stronger, a gentle rise looks more plausible than a large fall.
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So, is rent getting more expensive in Singapore?
Yes. Singapore rent is getting more expensive again as of now, but the increase is modest and we see little evidence of another 2022-style rental shock.
The latest numbers line up surprisingly well. URA has private residential rents up about 1% over the first half of the year. SRX has condo rents 2.5% higher year on year and HDB rents 1.5% higher. At the same time, condo leasing activity has been extremely strong.
The bigger problem for renters is the level they are starting from. As seen above, we calculate from URA's annual rental index changes that private rents are roughly 56% above their end-2020 level. The small increases happening today are landing on top of that enormous earlier repricing.
There are also clear limits to how far the latest upswing can run. Singapore has more vacant private homes than during the peak squeeze, and the government has deliberately built a much larger future housing pipeline.
Our conclusion is straightforward: Singapore rents are rising again, so tenants waiting for the market to become meaningfully cheaper may be disappointed in the near term. But today's market looks far more like a high-priced plateau creeping upward than the beginning of another rental explosion.
OUR METHODOLOGY
We treated “Is rent getting more expensive in Singapore?” as several related questions rather than one headline statistic. The analysis separates current direction, pace of change, the historical rent level, differences across market segments, leasing demand, vacancy, demographic support and the future housing pipeline.
We prioritized official government data where it directly answered the question being tested. URA is the main source for private residential rent changes, regional performance, vacancy, completions and the private-housing pipeline, while Singapore's population statistics and Ministry of Manpower labour-market reports are used for non-resident population and employment trends.
SRX is used for the more recent monthly picture, especially July condo and HDB rent changes, regional movements and rental transaction volumes. We read those monthly figures alongside annual comparisons so that one strong month did not get mistaken for a new boom.
Historical rent changes were kept separate from current momentum. We compounded URA's annual rental movements from the end of 2020 to show how much of today's affordability pressure comes from the earlier repricing rather than from the much smaller increases happening now.
Vacancy was not treated as a complete measure of tenant choice. We compared it with regional rent changes and with the type of homes tenants actually substitute between, since an empty high-end unit in the CCR does not necessarily compete with a smaller condo near an MRT station in another price bracket.
Population and employment growth were used as demand support rather than as a one-for-one estimate of new private-rental households. In particular, we kept the composition of non-resident employment in view because Work Permit holders and Employment Pass holders often have very different housing patterns.
Future supply was analysed separately from homes available today. URA's pipeline and Government Land Sales programme are useful for judging how much room rents have to accelerate over the next several years, but future completions were not treated as if they already give current tenants more choices.
We did not convert these indicators into a weighted score. The conclusion comes from comparing independent measures that answer different parts of the same question, with more weight given to recent data and to indicators that directly measure rent, leasing activity or available stock.
Key sources used include URA's Q2 2026 real estate statistics, URA's Q1 2026 real estate statistics, SRX's July 2026 rental report, URA's Q4 2025 real estate statistics, URA's Q4 2024 real estate statistics, URA's Q4 2023 real estate statistics, URA's Q4 2022 real estate statistics, and URA's Q4 2021 real estate statistics.
For demand and supply context, we also used the Singapore Government's overall population statistics, the Ministry of Manpower's Labour Market Report 4Q 2025 and Labour Market Report 4Q 2024, URA's 2H2026 Government Land Sales programme, HDB's rental eligibility and Minimum Occupation Period rules, and URA's private residential rental-contract database for project-level renewal comparisons.
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