Singapore Rental Income Tax Guide — IRAS Rules, Deductions & Filing

Rental Income Tax Basics

A landlord renting out a S$3,800-a-month unit collects S$45,600 in gross rent over the year — but IRAS assesses tax on the net figure, at your personal marginal income tax rate, not a flat withholding percentage (as of 2026-07). Singapore has no separate "rental tax" regime; rental income is added to your other chargeable income (salary, business profits, and so on) and taxed under the same progressive personal income tax schedule that applies to every tax resident, rising from a 0% starting band upward as total chargeable income increases.

The taxable period follows the calendar year (1 Jan–31 Dec), and you declare the rent you were entitled to receive during that year, not necessarily what landed in your bank account — a tenant who owes two months' rent still counts as accrued income unless it becomes genuinely irrecoverable. If you co-own the property, each owner declares rental income in proportion to their share of ownership, not by who physically banked the cheque. Non-resident landlords (fewer than 183 days in Singapore in the year) are taxed at a flat rate on rental income instead of the resident scale, so your residency status changes which schedule applies to you.

For the full resident income band structure and where rental income sits within it, see IRAS individual income tax rates guidance.

Allowable Deductions

Once you know your gross rent, the next question is what you can subtract before tax applies. Under the actual expense method, IRAS allows a defined list of costs directly tied to earning the rental income — anything personal or capital in nature is excluded.

• Property tax paid on the let-out unit for the period it was tenanted (the non-owner-occupier component, since a rented unit no longer qualifies for owner-occupier rates).
• MCST or maintenance fees billed to the unit while it was rented out.
• Fire insurance premiums covering the building or unit.
• Repairs and maintenance that restore the unit rather than upgrade it (see the repair-vs-improvement distinction below).
• Agent's commission paid to secure a new tenant or renew a tenancy — often structured as one month's rent per year of the lease, paid to a CEA-registered agent.
• Mortgage interest on the loan used to buy the property — never the principal repayment (covered in detail next).

Renting out only a room while you live in the rest of the unit means you can claim only the proportion of these expenses attributable to the let-out space and a fair share of the common areas — not the whole property's costs. Commission paid must go to a properly licensed party; check an agent's registration through CEA's public salesperson register before treating the fee as deductible.

Mortgage Interest Deduction

Mortgage interest is the single largest deduction for most landlords, and it sits outside the 15% deemed-expense shortcut — you can claim actual interest paid on top of the 15% deemed figure, or as part of your itemised actual-expense claim. Only the interest portion of each instalment qualifies; the principal you repay is capital repayment of the loan, not an expense of earning rent, and is never deductible under either method.

Your bank's annual mortgage statement breaks the year's instalments into interest and principal — keep this on file, since IRAS may request it. If you refinanced mid-year or the loan also covers a second property, you need to apportion the interest to the specific unit that produced the rental income; interest on the portion of a loan spent on something else, such as a renovation top-up for your own residence, is not deductible against the rental unit's income.

If part of your down payment or mortgage instalments came from CPF Ordinary Account savings, that doesn't change the interest deduction itself — CPF funding affects your accrued-interest refund obligation when you eventually sell (see CPF Board's guidance on using CPF for property), and has no bearing on what you can deduct against rental income today.

Repair vs Improvement Distinction

IRAS draws a firm line between a repair (deductible) and an improvement (capital expenditure, not deductible against rental income). A repair restores the unit to its original condition — repainting scuffed walls, fixing a leaking pipe, replacing a broken water heater with an equivalent model. An improvement adds something the unit didn't have before, or upgrades it beyond its original standard — a full kitchen renovation, adding built-in wardrobes where there were none, or installing air-conditioning where none previously existed.

This distinction matters most under the actual-expense method — if you're using the 15% deemed-expense option instead, none of this classification work is necessary, since the flat 15% already stands in for all non-interest expenses regardless of whether they'd individually qualify as repairs.

Filing Rental Income with IRAS

1. Gather your rental records (ongoing through the year) — tenancy agreements, rent received, property tax bills, MCST invoices, insurance premiums, mortgage interest statements, and agent commission receipts.
2. Choose your deduction method (before filing) — decide between the 15% deemed-expense option plus actual mortgage interest, or the fully itemised actual-expense method; you apply one method to all non-interest expenses for that property in that year, never mixing line items between the two.
3. Log in to myTax Portal (from 1 March) using Singpass, and check whether your rental income is already pre-filled — IRAS receives some data from property agents and MCSTs directly, but you remain responsible for verifying and completing the figures.
4. Complete Form B or B1 under the rental income section, entering gross rent received and your chosen deduction method's figures to arrive at net rental income.
5. Submit by 18 April (e-filing deadline, as of 2026-07) — paper filing closes earlier, so e-filing gives you the longest runway.
6. Pay or arrange GIRO once your Notice of Assessment arrives, a few months after filing; GIRO lets you spread payment over up to 12 interest-free instalments.

If you're subletting a room in an HDB flat rather than a private condo, you additionally need HDB's approval for the subletting arrangement itself, separate from the IRAS tax filing — see HDB's rules on subletting flats.

Record-Keeping Requirements

IRAS doesn't require you to submit receipts with your filing, but it can request them in a post-filing review, so keep everything for at least five years from the end of the relevant year of assessment. Maintain a running file — physical or digital — with the signed tenancy agreement and any renewal or addendum, monthly rent receipts or bank credit records showing what was actually collected, property tax bills for the year, MCST maintenance invoices, the fire insurance policy and renewal notices, itemised contractor invoices for any repairs (described precisely enough to support the repair-vs-improvement classification), the annual mortgage interest statement from your bank, and the agent's commission invoice with a CEA registration reference for any tenancy secured through an agent.

A simple spreadsheet with one row per expense — date, category, amount, supporting document reference — turns a scramble at filing time into a five-minute copy-paste job, and it's the same record your own accountant would want if the property is ever sold and CPF accrued-interest or capital gains questions come up. Landlords letting out multiple units should keep a separate folder per property; expenses aren't fungible across units even when you use the same deduction method for both.

Common Deduction Mistakes

The same handful of errors recur across landlord tax filings, and most are avoidable with a bit of care before you submit.

• Claiming loan principal as an expense. Only the interest component of a mortgage instalment is deductible — the principal is a capital repayment, full stop, under both the deemed and actual methods.
• Mixing the two deduction methods. You cannot claim the 15% deemed expense for some months and itemise actual repairs for others on the same unit in the same year — pick one method per property per year.
• Deducting the full property tax or MCST fee when only part of the unit was rented out (a spare room, for example) — only the let-out proportion, plus a fair share of common areas, qualifies.
• Treating a full-unit renovation as a repair. A gutted-and-redone kitchen or bathroom is an improvement, not a repair, and isn't deductible against rental income even under the actual-expense method.
• Forgetting to declare rent owed but unpaid. Rental income is assessed on what you were entitled to receive, so an unpaid month still counts unless it's genuinely written off as irrecoverable.
• Paying an unlicensed party as "commission" and deducting it. Only fees paid for services actually rendered in connection with letting the property qualify — confirm the agent is CEA-registered before treating the payment as a deductible cost.

Tax Optimisation for Landlords

Consider a Singapore Citizen landlord letting a private condo unit at S$4,200/month (S$50,400 gross rent for the year), with mortgage interest of S$9,000 for the year, property tax of S$3,200, MCST fees of S$4,800, fire insurance of S$150, and an agent's commission of S$4,200 paid to renew the tenancy — all figures as of 2026-07. Here's how the deemed-expense and actual-expense methods compare for the same unit:

In this scenario the actual-expense method produces a lower net chargeable amount — S$4,790 less taxable rental income — because the itemised non-interest expenses (S$12,350) exceed the flat 15% deemed figure (S$7,560). The gap flips the other way for a unit with low MCST fees and no re-letting commission in a given year, where 15% of gross rent exceeds the real costs. There's no obligation to use the same method every year — compare both against your actual receipts each filing season and pick whichever nets a lower taxable figure, provided you don't mix line items within a single year for a single property.

Because the tax saving from choosing well can run into thousands of dollars a year, model your gross yield and full holding costs before assuming the 15% shortcut is the easier win — run your numbers through the rental yield calculator to see your gross-to-net yield gap, and the total cost of ownership calculator to see how the tax bill fits into your overall carrying cost. If you're weighing whether the unit is still worth holding once property tax at the non-owner-occupier rate is factored in, the property tax calculator shows this year's payable amount for your specific Annual Value band.

For landlords running several units, this comparison compounds across a portfolio — see our complete Singapore landlord handbook, our breakdown of gross vs net rental yield, and how property tax specifically applies to condo owners in our Singapore property tax guide.