Income Guidelines

Get a head start on your HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) letter application by understanding the income assessment guidelines.

Before applying, you may also:

Income guidelines

HDB considers the incomes of all persons listed in your HFE letter application to assess your household’s eligibility to buy a flat, receive CPF housing grants and take an HDB housing loan.

Assessment Guideline
Period of income assessment 12 months
End of assessment period

2 months preceding the month of HFE letter application^

^ For example, if your HFE letter application is submitted in May 2024, the assessment period will be from April 2023 to March 2024.

Note:

You must be working at the point of the HFE letter application to be considered for an Enhanced CPF Housing Grant and HDB housing loan.

Applicant(s) taking an HDB housing loan must remain in their employment or trade when HDB disburses the housing loan.
Computation of income

The average gross monthly income for each applicant and/ or occupier is the total income earned over the number of months worked during the assessment period. The incomes of all persons (both applicants and occupiers) listed in the HFE letter application are included in the assessment.

For self-employed persons, the number of months worked will be 12 or from business commencement during the assessment period.

For employed persons, the number of months worked will exclude months on no-pay leave (treated as unemployment) or from employment commencement during the assessment period. For example, if you worked for 10 months during the income assessment period, your average income earned will be the total income earned for the 10 months divided by 10.

To illustrate, the average gross monthly household income will be computed as follows:


 Applicant
1		 Applicant
2
 Applicant
3
Total gross income during the assessment period $A $B $C
Number of months worked 12 6 10
Average gross monthly income
 $A / 12 = $X $B / 6 = $Y $C / 10 = $Z
Average gross monthly household income $X + $Y + $Z
Income components All components from employment or trade, including employee’s CPF deductions and excluding employer’s CPF contributions and bonuses.

Types of income/ allowance considered for assessment of household income and credit assessment:

Types of Income/ Allowance Considered for
Assessment of household income Credit assessment for HDB housing loan
Applicant’s income
 Yes Yes
Occupier’s income Yes No
Allowances/ overtime pay e.g. allowances for food, transport, laundry, uniform, shift work, etc. Yes
Claims / reimbursements
Director’s fee
Employees’ benefits e.g. birthday incentives, marriage tokens, etc.
Incentives
Overseas cost of living allowances for working persons
Pupillage/ stipends
Employer’s CPF contributions No
Bonuses
Annual Wage Supplement
Employees’ share options and other non-monetary remuneration
National Service allowance
Overseas allowances for applicants on scholarship
Pension
Not related to employment and trade, e.g. rental income, alimony/ maintenance fee, and dividend income/ interest from fixed deposit/ savings accounts.

Documents

When you apply for an HFE letter, you will be guided to retrieve your information from Myinfo to minimise form-filling and submission of documents. However, in some cases, supporting documents may still be required and you will be informed via SMS and email. Please then approach your employer or relevant agencies to obtain the required documents or a letter from them if they are unable to provide the required information. We may not be able to process your HFE letter application without the complete set of documents.

If you hold more than 1 job and are requested to submit documents on your employment/ trade, you must provide the documents for each of your employment/ trade. The application e-Service can support the uploading of multiple documents. Alternatively, you may also consolidate them into 1 file before uploading. 

Do ensure that your documents meet the following requirements before you upload them, for a smoother application process:

  • All files are in PDF, JPG or PNG format, and are not encrypted
  • Each file is up to 5 MB and the total size of all files is up to 40 MB
  • The file names have only alphabets, numbers, spaces, dashes (‘_’), hyphens (‘-‘) or full stops (‘.’)

If the documents are not in English, Chinese, Malay or Tamil, please provide a copy of the document and its official English translation. The translation must be:

  • Notarised by a local Notary Public; or
  • A certified true copy by a local commissioner; or
  • Endorsed or processed by the high commission in Singapore or your country’s embassy.

 

To upload the documents, log in to the HDB Flat Portal and select My Flat Dashboard > Applying an HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) letter > Step 2 - Apply for HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) Letter > Upload Documents.