CDA matching is free government money, but only the part you go and claim. For every dollar you deposit into your child's Child Development Account, the government adds a dollar back, up to a cap that depends on birth order. For a first child the cap is $4,000; for a second child it is $7,000; for a third or fourth child it is $9,000. Deposit nothing and you get the First Step grant but none of the match. This guide gives you the exact 2026 caps, when the money lands, what spending counts toward the cap, and the timing mistakes that quietly leave thousands unclaimed. One date matters more than any other now: from 1 October 2027 every child's cap becomes $5,000, so a higher cap has to be used by 30 September 2027.
The caps in this guide apply until 30 September 2027. Under the SG Child Support Package, announced at the 2026 National Day Rally, all CDA co-matching caps become $5,000 from 1 October 2027. Birth order stops mattering.
LifeSG says you can keep saving up to your child's existing cap until 30 September 2027. So the change cuts both ways. A first child's cap goes from $4,000 to $5,000. A second child's cap goes from $7,000 to $5,000, a third or fourth child's from $9,000 to $5,000, and a fifth child's from $15,000 to $5,000. If your child's cap is above $5,000 today, deposit up to it by 30 September 2027. Children born before 2015 do not get the longer account life: a child born in 2014 turns 12 this year, so that CDA closes on 31 December 2026, and 15 December 2026 is the last day to deposit for co-matching without delay.
Three other things change. Children born on or after 1 April 2027 get a $5,000 First Step Grant and a $5,000 co-matching cap from birth. For children born on or after 1 January 2015, the CDA now stays open until the end of the year the child turns 16. And unused CDA money moves to the PSEA, where a $10,000 top-up lands in the year the child turns 17. The PSEA calculator shows what that adds up to.
The Child Development Account holds three separate streams of money, and only one of them is matched. The First Step grant is credited automatically when you open the account. The dollar-for-dollar co-matching is the part you have to trigger yourself by depositing your own savings. The third stream, the Baby Bonus Cash Gift, lands in a linked savings account and is not the CDA at all.
Matching works on a simple rule. Put in a dollar, the government puts in a dollar, until you hit your child's co-matching cap. Save $10 and you get $10 back. Save up to the full cap and you double that portion. There is no minimum deposit and no requirement to ever top up, so the entire match is opt-in. The First Step grant arrives whether you save or not, but the match only exists if you fund it.
If you want the full payout picture across all three pots, our Baby Bonus payout schedule and CDA guide maps every date and figure side by side.
The cap is the single number that decides how much free matching you can claim. It rises with birth order, and the Large Families Scheme lifted the totals for third and later children born from 18 February 2025. Figures below are from LifeSG and Made For Families, and LifeSG still lists them as of October 2026.
Read the table as: deposit the co-matching cap amount of your own money, and the government's money in the CDA reaches the figure in the last column once the First Step grant and the match are both in. Your own deposits sit on top, so a first child whose parents deposit $4,000 ends up with $13,000 in the account.
| Birth order | First Step grant | Dollar-for-dollar cap | Grant plus full match |
|---|---|---|---|
| First child | $5,000 | $4,000 | $9,000 |
| Second child | $5,000 | $7,000 | $12,000 |
| Third and fourth child | $10,000 | $9,000 | $19,000 |
| Fifth child onward | $10,000 | $15,000 | $25,000 |
Co-matching is credited within two weeks of your deposit, excluding public holidays. That sounds harmless until you look at the deadline. You can save up to your child's existing cap only until 30 September 2027, after which every cap becomes $5,000. Deposit on the very last day and there may be no working window left for the match to process before the cut-off. The account itself stays open until the end of the year your child turns 16, for children born on or after 1 January 2015.
The bigger cost of waiting is years of forgone interest. The CDA pays bank interest on whatever sits inside it, so an unmatched, unfunded account earns nothing on money you never put in. Funding the cap early lets both your deposit and the matched dollars compound for over a decade. Run the numbers yourself with our compound interest calculator to see what a decade of growth on a doubled balance looks like.
There is also no rule that you must hit the cap in one go. Spreading deposits across the years is fine, and each deposit is matched as it comes in, up to the running cap. What matters is that your deposits reach the cap in time: by 30 September 2027 if your child's cap is above $5,000, and before the account closes otherwise.
Only cash deposited into the CDA, by you or by family members, counts toward the co-matching cap. The First Step grant does not eat into it, and neither does the Baby Bonus Cash Gift, which sits in a different account entirely. People often assume the auto-credited grant has already 'used up' part of the match. It has not.
Spending CDA money does not reduce the cap either. Once a dollar is matched it is yours to use at approved institutions, and using it does not claw back any matching entitlement. So you can fund the account, claim the match, spend on approved expenses, and the cap stays where it is.
Matching is identical at all three participating banks, so the bank you pick changes only the interest your balance earns and the sign-up perk. The three options are DBS/POSB, OCBC and UOB. You can switch banks later by applying to the new bank, which closes the old CDA and moves the money across, without losing any matching. For a deeper look at the savings side, see our POSB, OCBC and UOB CDA comparison.
Rates and promotions move often, so treat the figures below as a snapshot and confirm on the bank's own page before you open. All rates and perks are from the banks' own CDA pages as of October 2026.
| Bank | Interest by balance tier | Current sign-up perk |
|---|---|---|
| OCBC | 1.20% on first $10,000; 2.40% above $10,000 | Hegen 150ml feeding bottle (worth $31) and free delivery, 1 Aug to 31 Oct 2026 |
| DBS/POSB | 1.00% on first $10,000; 2.00% on next $40,000; 0.05% above $50,000 | Pigeon gift pack (worth $52) for new CDAs, promotion ends 30 Dec 2026 |
| UOB | 1.00% on first $25,000; 2.00% on next $25,000; 0.05% above $50,000 | Baa Baa Sheepz blanket (worth $49) if you also link PayNow to the CSA, 1 Sep to 31 Dec 2026 |
Matched money is only useful if you can deploy it before the account closes. CDA funds can be paid directly to Approved Institutions, which covers most of the early-years costs parents face anyway, so funding the cap is rarely money locked away for nothing.
If you are weighing childcare options, our government versus private childcare guide shows where CDA dollars stretch furthest.
Unspent CDA money is not lost. When the account closes at the end of the year your child turns 16 (for children born on or after 1 January 2015), the balance, including every matched dollar, transfers automatically to the child's Post-Secondary Education Account, up to the child's PSEA cap. From there it can fund approved tertiary and post-secondary costs.
So even if you over-fund relative to your early-years spending, the match still flows to a useful destination. Our CDA-to-PSEA transfer guide explains how that handover works and what the PSEA covers.
Yes. LifeSG says all CDA co-matching caps will be adjusted to $5,000 from 1 October 2027, under the SG Child Support Package. You can keep saving up to your child's existing cap until 30 September 2027. If that cap is above $5,000, which is the case for a second or later child, deposit up to it before then.
The dollar-for-dollar co-matching cap for a first child is $4,000 until 30 September 2027, and $5,000 from 1 October 2027 when all caps are adjusted. Deposit $4,000 of your own savings and the government matches it, so with the $5,000 First Step grant the government puts in $9,000 and the account holds $13,000 including your own money.
No. The First Step grant is credited automatically when you open the account and is completely separate from the co-matching cap. Only cash deposits, yours or family members', trigger matching, so the full cap remains available no matter how large the grant is.
Government co-matching is credited into the CDA within two weeks of your deposit, excluding public holidays. Because existing caps end on 30 September 2027, avoid leaving deposits to the final days when the processing window may run out.
Any unused balance, including matched dollars, transfers automatically to your child's Post-Secondary Education Account, up to the PSEA cap, when the CDA closes. For children born on or after 1 January 2015 that is the end of the year the child turns 16. The money is never forfeited and can later fund approved post-secondary education costs.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change, so verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).