The cost of living in Singapore: what the numbers say, and what they mean for you

Seventy-two percent of Singaporeans say the cost of living is their biggest national concern right now. Not healthcare. Not geopolitics. Not jobs. That figure, from a YouGov survey in April 2025 and confirmed again by Fidelity International in January 2026, is one of the most consistent findings in recent Singapore polling.

Singapore has near-full employment, a globally competitive median wage, and one of the most stable economies in Asia. Nearly three in four residents still name cost of living as their primary worry. The disconnect between those two facts is what this article is about.

What the official numbers say

Singapore's headline CPI came in at 2.2% in July 2026, with core inflation at 2.0%. Those are not alarming numbers — but they are not the full picture. Core inflation was 0.7% for 2025; the 2026 projection of up to 2.5% represents a meaningful acceleration. MAS tightened monetary policy twice this year, adjusting the Singapore dollar's appreciation rate to lean against imported cost pressures.

Groceries

A February 2026 survey found that 59.5% of Singapore residents identified grocery costs as the area where their spending had risen most. Food inflation ran at 2.2% in July — roughly in line with the overall figure. But averages obscure what households notice at the checkout. A 1.6kg tin of milk powder rose from $72 to $79.50 — a 10% increase on a single staple. Across fresh produce and imported goods, individual items have moved faster than the headline rate, driven by El Niño's effect on agricultural yields and regional shipping pressures.

Housing

Singapore's HDB Resale Price Index fell 0.1% in Q1 2026 and a further 0.3% in Q2 — the first sustained softening in nearly seven years. That moderation is real. The median resale price still sits at $628,000. Prices for a typical 4-room flat in mature estates frequently exceed $700,000, and 491 flats sold for at least $1 million in Q2 2026 alone.

The structural issue is not the current rate of change. It is the price level that multiple years of growth have established.

Transport

The Certificate of Entitlement reached a record high of $129,000 for Category A in July 2026. Category B hit $131,001 in August. The Open Category reached $135,000.

These are not prices for the car. They are the right to own one, valid for 10 years. The effect on the used market: a 2020 Toyota Corolla can realistically be listed above $90,000. Ownership costs that would be middle-class in most countries become an upper-middle-class decision here.

Wages

Singapore's median monthly household income reached $12,446 in 2025 — a 6.8% real gain. Real median gross monthly income for full-time workers hit $5,775.

Two complications sit underneath. First, 2025 was unusually favorable because inflation averaged just 0.9%. With inflation now projected at up to 2.5% in 2026, those gains are unlikely to repeat. Second, between 2019 and 2024, real median employment income grew at just 0.4% per annum. A decade of strong GDP growth did not translate evenly into household purchasing power.

Where the pressure falls

Sixty percent of workers in Singapore reported living paycheck to paycheck in 2026 — the highest rate in the Asia-Pacific region. The proportion of households with low financial resilience more than doubled in a single year, from 9% in 2025 to 20% in 2026.

Government support — CDC vouchers, U-Save rebates, and a Cost-of-Living Special Payment of $200 to $400 per eligible adult in September 2026 — provides meaningful relief for lower-income households. What the data captures is something more diffuse: a middle that feels stretched. Households exposed to rising costs across groceries, housing, and transport without the buffer that higher incomes provide often experience an effective inflation rate two to three percentage points above the headline.

Structural versus temporary

Some pressure is temporary — supply disruptions are expected to ease. But housing, transport, and childcare are structural costs that are not going anywhere. MAS expects core inflation to remain elevated into early 2027 before moderating from mid-2027.

The 72% who name cost of living as their top concern are not misreading the situation. They are reading it accurately.

--------------- VenturePost covers Schools, Startups, and Society in Singapore. This article draws on data from MAS, MOM, HDB, SingStat, YouGov, Fidelity International, Channel NewsAsia, and The Straits Times. All figures are the most recently published data available as of August 2026.