You will be able to explain what happens when MediSave reaches the Basic Healthcare Sum.
Linda is 52 and works as an admin manager in Toa Payoh. Last year she noticed that her MediSave balance had barely moved, even though her payslip showed the same MediSave deduction every month. Her Special Account, meanwhile, had grown faster than she expected. Nothing had gone wrong. Her MediSave had hit its ceiling, and the extra had flowed somewhere else.
This lesson explains that ceiling, where the overflow goes, and what it means for your own MediSave.
MediSave can't grow forever. The government sets a cap on it called the Basic Healthcare Sum, or BHS. It is meant to be enough to cover a member's basic healthcare needs in old age, including MediShield Life premiums and typical hospital bills in a subsidised ward.
The BHS is revised over time to keep pace with healthcare costs, usually once a year. The figure that applies to you depends on your age. While you are under 65, it can rise each year. When you reach 65, the CPF Board fixes your BHS for the rest of your life, so later increases no longer change your cap. Check the current BHS, and how it applies to your cohort, on cpf.gov.sg. It is one of the figures in this course that you should never carry over from last year.
Most people in their twenties and early thirties are a long way below the cap. Kelvin, 32, from lesson 1.2, has S$25,000 in MediSave. If the current BHS were S$70,000, an example figure only, he would have S$45,000 of room before any overflow happened. People in their late forties and fifties who have worked steadily, like Linda, are often close to it or already there.
Once your MediSave reaches the BHS, the MediSave share of each new contribution doesn't stay there. It overflows to another account, and which one depends on your age.
If you are under 55, the overflow normally goes to your Special Account, where it earns the SA rate and becomes retirement money. If your SA has already reached the Full Retirement Sum, it goes to your Ordinary Account instead.
If you are 55 or older, there is no Special Account any more. Since 2025 the SA closes when you turn 55, as lesson 6.1, What happens to your accounts at 55, explains. The overflow goes to your Retirement Account if that account is still short of your retirement sum, and to the OA if it isn't.
Interest credited to MediSave follows the same rule. If the interest would push your balance above the BHS, the extra moves on to the next account in line. Check the current overflow order on the CPF Board website, because it is the kind of detail that gets adjusted when the account structure changes.
For Linda, the overflow is quietly good news. Every month, the money her payslip calls MediSave lands in her SA instead, where it earns the SA rate and adds to what she will have at 55. Her MediSave is full, so the next dollar does more work as retirement savings.
There are two catches. The first is that MediSave at the cap is not MediSave forever. Every premium or bill paid from it brings the balance back below the BHS, and then contributions start filling it again before any overflow resumes. Lesson 5.4, List what your MediSave pays each year, shows how to see whether your balance will stay near the cap or slowly fall away from it.
The second catch is about planning. If you are counting on overflow to build your SA, your SA projection depends on your MediSave staying full. A large hospital bill, or paying a parent's premiums from your MediSave, can switch the overflow off for a year or two.
You can put your own cash into MediSave, and lesson 3.3, Voluntary MediSave contributions and the BHS limit, weighs whether that is worth doing. For now, the mechanics.
The room for a voluntary MediSave contribution is the gap between your balance and the current BHS. Kelvin's room, using the example figure, is S$70,000 minus S$25,000, which is S$45,000. Linda's room is close to zero, so a voluntary contribution from her would mostly have nowhere to go.
There is a second limit. Voluntary contributions also count towards the CPF Annual Limit, which caps the total of compulsory and voluntary contributions in a calendar year. Someone with high compulsory contributions may have less room than the BHS gap suggests. The CPF Board publishes the Annual Limit and shows your remaining room when you log in.
You need three figures: your current MediSave balance, the BHS that applies to you this year, and your age. From those you can work out your room and where any overflow would go.
Log in to cpf.gov.sg with Singpass and note your MediSave balance. Then find the current Basic Healthcare Sum on the CPF Board website and check whether your age affects which figure applies. Keep the numbers with the interest rules you wrote down in lesson 1.2, because the worksheet in lesson 1.4 needs both.
Write your MediSave balance, the current Basic Healthcare Sum and the room left, and where overflow would go for you.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).