For a Singapore Citizen child born on or after 18 February 2025, the Baby Bonus Cash Gift is $11,000 for a first or second child and $13,000 for a third or subsequent child. It is not paid in one lump sum: the payout schedule spreads it over six and a half years, and a separate Child Development Account (CDA) adds matched savings on top. You get $3,000 (or $4,000 for a third child) soon after opening the account, then $1,500 at 6 months, $1,500 at 12 months, $1,000 at 18 months, and $400 every six months until your child turns 6.5. The CDA holds a First Step Grant of $5,000 (first or second child) and matches your deposits dollar for dollar up to a cap. With the CDA match and the MediSave Grant for Newborns, total government support reaches roughly $25,000 for a first child. This guide lays out the exact payout dates, the CDA caps by birth order, and the moves that decide how much you keep. Every figure is the current 2026 rule from MSF, LifeSG and CPF.
The Baby Bonus Scheme has two cash components that people constantly mix up. The Cash Gift is money paid to you over six and a half years that you can spend on anything. The Child Development Account (CDA) is a restricted savings account where the government doubles your own deposits up to a cap. On top of both sits a one-off MediSave Grant for Newborns that lands in the baby's CPF MediSave account.
The Cash Gift is front-loaded on purpose. You receive most of it in the first 18 months, when infant care, diapers and medical bills hit hardest, then a $400 trickle every six months until your child turns 6.5. The first payout arrives about 7 to 10 working days after the bank account is opened, so the earlier you enrol and open the account, the earlier the money comes.
This is the part most parents search for. The amounts below are for a Singapore Citizen child born on or after 18 February 2025 and are the figures published on LifeSG. The first disbursement does not arrive on a fixed calendar date; it lands within 7 to 10 working days of the bank account being opened, and the later payouts follow at each age milestone after that.
Read the table as 'age of child' against 'amount that lands'. A first or second child gets $9,000 across the first 18 months, then $400 every six months from age 2 to 6.5. A third or later child gets a heavier front load of $10,000 in the first 18 months, then the same $400 tail.
| When it lands | 1st & 2nd child | 3rd & subsequent child |
|---|---|---|
| On enrolment (first payout, 7-10 working days after account opens) | $3,000 | $4,000 |
| 6 months | $1,500 | $2,000 |
| 12 months | $1,500 | $2,000 |
| 18 months | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Every 6 months from age 2 to 6.5 | $400 per payout | $400 per payout |
| Total Cash Gift | $11,000 | $13,000 |
From the child's second birthday, $400 lands every six months until the half-year payout before they turn 6.5. That is roughly ten payouts of $400, which adds up to about $2,000 for a first or second child ($9,000 front-loaded plus ~$2,000 in the tail equals the $11,000 total). The amounts are identical for the tail regardless of birth order; only the front load differs. Treat the $400 as a small top-up, not a budget you can plan childcare around, because most of the money is already in your hands by 18 months.
You are not left guessing when each tranche lands. LifeSG sends an SMS and email 3 to 5 working days before every scheduled payout, not only the first one. The reminders run for the full six and a half years, so each $400 milestone gets flagged before it reaches the account. One catch worth knowing: keep the Child Savings Account open, because closing it delays every government payment that routes through it, and there is no minimum balance or fee for leaving it open.
The Cash Gift goes into a Child Savings Account (CSA), which is an ordinary kids' savings account. You can withdraw and spend it on anything, from a stroller to your own bills. There is no match on the Cash Gift and nothing you need to do to earn it beyond enrolling.
The CDA is the account that pays you to save. The government drops in a First Step Grant the moment you open it, then matches every dollar you deposit, dollar for dollar, up to a cap set by birth order. CDA money is restricted: it can only pay Approved Institutions such as childcare centres, kindergartens and clinics, and cannot be withdrawn as cash. The single most expensive mistake parents make is depositing into the CSA when they meant the CDA, because only the CDA earns the match. If you want the full playbook on capturing every matched dollar, the maximise your child's CDA guide walks through the deposit timing.
The CDA holds two kinds of government money. The First Step Grant is unconditional, paid just for opening the account. The co-matching is conditional: the government matches your own deposits dollar for dollar until you hit your child's cap. To capture the full match, your savings must equal the cap exactly.
The $10,000 First Step Grant for a third or later child includes an extra $5,000 added under the Large Families Scheme from Budget 2025, for children born on or after 18 February 2025. The 'total if maxed' column assumes you deposit the full cap to claim the entire match. Skip the deposit and you keep only the grant; the match is gone for good.
| Birth order | First Step Grant | Max co-matching | Your savings to max it | Total in CDA if maxed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st child | $5,000 | $4,000 | $4,000 | $13,000 |
| 2nd child | $5,000 | $7,000 | $7,000 | $19,000 |
| 3rd-4th child | $10,000 | $9,000 | $9,000 | $28,000 |
| 5th+ child | $10,000 | $15,000 | $15,000 | $40,000 |
Per MSF, the last day to deposit and still earn the co-matching in the CDA is 15 December of the year your child turns 12; deposits made between 16 and 31 December have their match routed to the Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) instead, and the CDA itself closes on 31 December that year. That long runway tempts parents to delay, but the cleanest approach is to hit the cap early. Front-loading means more years of interest on a larger balance, and it removes the risk of forgetting before the window shuts. If a lump sum is tight in the newborn year, a standing instruction of $100 to $200 a month reaches a first child's $4,000 cap inside three years, with the government matching each deposit as it arrives. A budget calculator helps the CDA deposit compete fairly with your other goals.
Every Singapore Citizen baby gets a MediSave Grant for Newborns, credited automatically to the child's CPF MediSave account after birth registration. No application is needed. For babies born on or after 1 April 2025 the grant is $5,000; babies born between 1 January 2015 and 31 March 2025 received $4,000.
This grant is not spending money you can touch. It sits in the child's MediSave account and pays for the child's MediShield Life premiums, recommended childhood vaccinations, hospitalisation and approved outpatient treatments. In practice it covers your child's basic MediShield Life premiums for years, so the cost of insuring a newborn against large hospital bills is effectively paid by the state at the start. Until it is drawn down, the balance earns the MediSave interest rate of 4% a year, so leaving it untouched while bills are small lets it quietly compound for later medical costs.
Stack the three pots and the headline numbers get large. The totals below assume you deposit the full CDA cap to claim the entire match, and a baby born on or after 1 April 2025 (so the $5,000 MediSave Grant applies). If you do not deposit into the CDA, subtract the 'max co-matching' figure from the relevant row.
For a first child that comes to about $21,000 in government money, of which $11,000 is freely spendable Cash Gift, $9,000 is locked in the CDA for childcare and health, and $5,000 sits in the baby's MediSave for premiums. A second child reaches roughly $24,000 because the CDA match cap is higher. These are the real, current figures, not the inflated 'up to $X' numbers that some sites quote by counting tax reliefs and grandfathered schemes.
| Birth order | Cash Gift | CDA (grant + match) | MediSave Grant | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1st child | $11,000 | $9,000 | $5,000 | $25,000 |
| 2nd child | $11,000 | $12,000 | $5,000 | $28,000 |
| 3rd-4th child | $13,000 | $19,000 | $5,000 | $37,000 |
| 5th+ child | $13,000 | $25,000 | $5,000 | $43,000 |
Beyond the higher CDA grant, the Large Families Scheme adds two things for a third or subsequent Singapore Citizen child born on or after 18 February 2025. The mother gets a $5,000 Large Family MediSave Grant in her own CPF MediSave account, on top of the baby's own MediSave Grant. And the family receives $1,000 a year in Large Family LifeSG Credits for each such child, paid from the year the child turns 1 to the year they turn 6, usable at merchants accepting PayNow UEN or NETS QR via the LifeSG app. That $1,000 a year for six years is another $6,000 of spending power per qualifying child.
To get the Cash Gift and CDA benefits, the child must be a Singapore Citizen and the parents must be lawfully married. The current enhanced amounts apply to citizen children born on or after 14 February 2023, with the higher third-child grants kicking in for births from 18 February 2025. If the child is not a citizen at birth, the amounts are pro-rated based on when citizenship is obtained.
Enrolment is mostly automatic if you register the birth in Singapore. You can join Baby Bonus through the LifeSG app, which is integrated with birth registration, or via the 'Apply for Baby Bonus' service. You then pick a participating bank, POSB/DBS, OCBC or UOB, and complete the CDA and CSA account opening through that bank's app. The grant and the Cash Gift schedule are identical across the three banks, so the only real difference is the interest rate on the balance and any bundled perks.
Birth order decides the size of every figure in this guide, so it pays to know how the count works before you assume which row applies to you. The order follows the mother's record of children, and it is not always the same as how many kids you are raising under one roof.
Biological children, legally adopted children and stillbirths all count toward the order. Stepchildren, foster children and children who are not Singapore Citizens do not. Twins and other multiple births are counted as separate orders by sequence, so a first set of twins is treated as the first and second child, which is why the second twin can draw the higher second-child CDA cap. If your family is blended or you have adopted, the simplest check is the official eligibility tool rather than counting heads at home.
Two questions trip up parents whose situation is not the standard 'born here, citizen at birth' case: late citizenship, and what happens to the money when life changes. Both have clear rules.
If the child becomes a Singapore Citizen after birth, the benefits are pro-rated by timing. For the Cash Gift, citizenship must be obtained before the child turns 24 months to qualify, and for the CDA before age 12. Overseas-born children of Singaporean parents need citizenship by age 12 to draw the full set of benefits. The MediSave Grant for Newborns is the strictest of the three: a child who becomes a citizen only after age 2 does not get it at all.
On life events, the scheme is more forgiving than parents fear. Divorce does not cancel the benefits; the child keeps them, though a change in custody must be reported to MSF so payments route to the right parent. If a child sadly passes away, nothing already received has to be repaid, and any remaining Cash Gift is paid out as a single lump sum rather than stopped.
Knowing the rules on spending is what turns these grants into real savings rather than money that sits idle or gets clawed back. Each pot has its own rules, and routing the right cost through the right account keeps your take-home pay free.
The CDA closes on 31 December of the year your child turns 12, and any balance transfers to the Post-Secondary Education Account (PSEA) the year they turn 13, where it funds polytechnic, ITE or university later. CDA and PSEA funds can also be used across siblings, so an older child's preschool fees can be paid from a younger sibling's CDA. There is no penalty for not draining the account before the deadline, so spend on real costs as they come and let the rest roll forward. If you are planning a larger family budget around these milestones, the money management guide sets out where child grants sit against your other goals.
For a child born from 18 February 2025, a first or second child gets $3,000 on enrolment (within 7-10 working days of opening the account), $1,500 at 6 months, $1,500 at 12 months, $1,000 at 18 months, then $400 every six months from age 2 until 6.5, totalling $11,000. A third or subsequent child gets $4,000 on enrolment, $2,000 at 6 months, $2,000 at 12 months, $1,000 at 18 months, then the same $400 tail, totalling $13,000.
It is $11,000 for a first or second child and $13,000 for a third or subsequent Singapore Citizen child born on or after 14 February 2023. The Cash Gift is paid into a Child Savings Account (CSA) over six and a half years and can be spent on anything.
No. The Cash Gift is freely spendable money paid into a Child Savings Account (CSA) over 6.5 years, with no match. The CDA is a separate, restricted account that holds a First Step Grant and matches your own deposits dollar for dollar up to a cap. CDA funds can only pay Approved Institutions and cannot be withdrawn as cash.
For a child born from 18 February 2025, the First Step Grant is $5,000 for a first or second child and $10,000 for a third or later child. The government then matches your deposits dollar for dollar up to $4,000 (1st child), $7,000 (2nd), $9,000 (3rd-4th) and $15,000 (5th and beyond). Maxed out, a second child ends up with $19,000 in the CDA.
The first Cash Gift disbursement arrives within 7 to 10 working days after you successfully open the Child Savings Account at POSB/DBS, OCBC or UOB. The earlier you enrol and open the account, the earlier the money comes, so do the paperwork soon after birth registration.
It is $5,000 for Singapore Citizen babies born on or after 1 April 2025, and $4,000 for those born between 1 January 2015 and 31 March 2025. It is credited automatically to the child's CPF MediSave account after birth registration and pays for the child's MediShield Life premiums, vaccinations and approved medical bills.
If you max the CDA and the baby was born from 1 April 2025, a first child gets about $25,000 ($11,000 Cash Gift + $9,000 CDA grant and match + $5,000 MediSave Grant), and a second child about $28,000. Third and later children get more through higher CDA grants and the Large Families Scheme.
The child must be a Singapore Citizen and the parents lawfully married. Enrol through the LifeSG app, which is linked to birth registration, or the 'Apply for Baby Bonus' service, then open the CDA and CSA at POSB/DBS, OCBC or UOB. Enrolment is largely automatic if you register the birth in Singapore.
Birth order follows the mother's record of children. Biological children, legally adopted children and stillbirths all count toward the order, while stepchildren, foster children and non-citizen children do not. Twins and other multiple births take consecutive orders, so a first set of twins counts as the first and second child, and the second twin draws the higher second-child CDA cap. If your family is blended, use the official Baby Bonus eligibility check to confirm the order.
No. CDA deposits are voluntary and there is no minimum balance or fee to keep the account open. You only deposit to trigger the dollar-for-dollar government co-matching up to your child's cap. If you deposit nothing you still keep the First Step Grant, but you forfeit the match. The government matches actual deposits only, so leaving the account empty earns no match.
Divorce does not cancel the benefits; the child keeps them, but a change in custody must be reported to MSF so payments route to the correct parent. If a child passes away, nothing already received needs to be repaid, and any remaining Cash Gift is paid out as a single lump sum rather than stopped. If the child becomes a citizen only after birth, the Cash Gift requires citizenship before 24 months and the CDA before age 12.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.