Eligibility to rent a flat or bedroom

Citizenship

To rent a flat or bedroom, prospective tenants must be any of the following:

Singapore Citizen
Singapore Permanent Resident
Non-citizen legally residing in Singapore who holds an Employment Pass, S Pass, Work Permit, Student Pass, Dependant Pass, or Long-Term Social Visit Pass. The pass must have a validity period of at least 6 months from the date of application by the flat owners:
- Work Permit holders from the construction, marine, and process sectors must be Malaysians. Work Permit holders from the manufacturing sector must also be Malaysians if they are renting a whole HDB flat
- Tourists are not allowed to rent any HDB flat/ bedroom

Companies renting the flat or bedroom for their employees must ensure that the individuals meet our eligibility conditions for tenants.

Tenancy/ property ownership status

Prospective tenants must not be a tenants of public rental HDB flats or owners of other HDB flats unless they are:

Divorced/ legally separated. In this case, only 1 party can rent a HDB flat from another flat owner
Owners who are eligible to rent out their whole flat. However, they must rent out their own flat within a month after they have rented an HDB flat from another flat owner

Tenants must not be the owner of an Executive Condominium where the 5-year minimum occupation period has not been met.

Guidelines

Proof of ownership of the flat

Prospective tenants should visit the flat they intend to rent and ensure that they are dealing with the rightful owner of the flat. They can request for documentary proof of the flat’s ownership.

If they are renting the whole flat, ask the flat owner to provide a printout of HDB’s confirmation of the eligibility to rent out the flat. Flat owners may print the confirmation of their eligibility to rent out the whole flat from MyHDB Page.

HDB’s approval to rent out the whole flat or bedrooms

Prospective tenants should ensure that the flat owner has our approval to rent out the flat or bedrooms. They can ask the flat owner to provide a copy of the approval letter from us, and give a copy of the terms and conditions of the approval for their reference. For rental of bedrooms, flat owners must continue to live in the flat during the rental period. To protect the tenant's interest, they should also include a condition in the rental contract to specify that the contract is valid only if the flat owner obtains our approval to rent out the flat.

In addition, the prospective tenants may ask the flat owner to provide a printout of HDB’s confirmation that they are registered tenants. Flat owners can print HDB’s confirmation letter, after logging in to our e-service with Singass, via the following steps:

Renting Out of Flat > Enquiry on Tenants
Renting Out of Bedroom(s) > Enquiry on Tenants

Check if the prospective tenant has been included as an authorised tenant

When flat owners apply for our approval to rent out the whole flat or their bedroom(s) with us, they must provide us with the particulars of their tenants. These particulars will be updated in our system within 2 days from the date of approval/ registration of the rental. Only authorised tenants are allowed to stay in the flat Prospective tenants may use our service to check if the flat owners have included them as an authorised tenant.

Eligibility for Renting a Flat