How does renting a home work for someone newly arrived in Singapore?
A new arrival rents a private home for at least three consecutive months, the minimum stay the Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA) sets, in a property that may house no more than six unrelated people, or eight in a larger home its owner has registered with URA until the end of 2028. A property agent, if one is used, must check and copy the tenant's passport and pass, works for one party only on a commission that no authority fixes, and steps back once the tenancy agreement is signed and the keys handed over. Stamp duty is payable on the lease to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS): 0.4 per cent of the total rent for a lease of up to four years.
The rules for private homes: minimum stay and occupancy
URA's page on renting out private residential property, updated on 15 June 2026, sets two rules every owner must keep and every tenant therefore meets. All occupants must stay for a minimum of three consecutive months, so a private home cannot be let by the day or the week as short-term accommodation. And a property may house at most six unrelated persons, where unrelated means not part of the same family unit; a domestic helper counts as part of the family. From 22 January 2024 to 31 December 2028 an owner of a larger home, of at least 90 square metres, may register it with URA for a fee of S$20 to house up to eight. URA does not require tenants of private homes to be registered with it; a condominium's own by-laws may. For HDB flats URA points to the Housing and Development Board's own tenancy rules.
The agent, and the checks on a foreign tenant
The Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) recommends that a tenant who engages an agent signs one of CEA's prescribed estate agency agreements, exclusive or non-exclusive, which set out the agent's scope of work and commission; extra terms may be added but may not conflict with the prescribed ones. CEA's page says that for a rental involving a non-citizen the agent is required to check and photocopy the passport and the immigration, work or student pass of every foreign tenant and occupier, and that agents may collect NRIC, FIN or passport numbers to verify identity, for the transaction only. CEA publishes checklists for the tenant and the landlord, one of them mandatory for the agent, and tenancy agreement templates for HDB flats and private homes, whose terms the parties may negotiate.
CEA says there are no fixed commission rates and no prescribed guidelines on commission amounts: the amount and terms are agreed with the agent before work starts, GST may apply, the commission is paid to the agency and not the agent, and an agent may not collect commission from more than one party in the same transaction. The agent's role ends once the landlord and tenant have signed the tenancy agreement and the property is handed over; help with repairs or rent collection during the tenancy is outside estate agency work and outside CEA's purview, and may carry its own fee.
The tenancy agreement and the stamp duty on it
The tenancy agreement sets the term, the rent, the deposit and the duties of each side; CEA's templates cover the usual clauses, and a tenant should read every clause before signing. IRAS charges lease duty on the agreement: for a lease of four years or less, 0.4 per cent of the total rent for the whole term; for a longer or indefinite lease, 0.4 per cent of four times the average annual rent; nothing where the average annual rent is S$1,000 or less. IRAS's example: a four-year lease with rent rising from S$3,500 to S$5,300 a month, S$205,200 in all, carries duty of S$820. The rent counted includes service, maintenance and furniture charges but not GST. The duty is rounded down to the dollar.
What to settle before you sign
Four things, each from the pages above: that the term is at least three months and the number of occupants within URA's cap; that the agent, if any, has checked the passes of everyone who will live there and that the commission and who pays it are written into the agency agreement; that the tenancy agreement's clauses on the deposit, repairs and early termination are understood; and that the lease is stamped with IRAS, whose stamp certificate, it says, protects the interests of landlord and tenant alike. A consultant who handles relocation can walk a new arrival through all four. The ranked list of property consultancies says what each provider handles for people arriving from abroad, and the ranked list of property agents names registered agents and what each says about rentals.