If you are 55 or below and earning above $750 a month, 37% of your wage goes into CPF: 20% from your pay and 17% from your employer, on monthly wages up to the $8,000 Ordinary Wage ceiling that took effect on 1 January 2026. The rate drops as you get older, the split between employer and employee shifts, and the money lands in three accounts in proportions that change with your age. This guide covers the 2026 rate table by age band, the wage ceilings that cap how much is contributed, how each dollar is allocated across your Ordinary, Special and MediSave accounts, and what self-employed people pay.
CPF contributions come from two parties: you and your employer. Both shares are a percentage of your wage, and both rates step down as you age, on the logic that older workers need more take-home pay and have less runway to compound. The rates below apply to Singapore citizens and permanent residents (after the third year of PR) earning more than $750 a month.
From 1 January 2026, the rates for workers aged above 55 to 65 went up by 1.5 percentage points in total, the last step in a multi-year plan to raise older workers' CPF closer to the rates for younger workers. The 55-and-below rate is unchanged at 37%.
| Age of employee | Employer share | Employee share | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 and below | 17% | 20% | 37% |
| Above 55 to 60 | 16% | 18% | 34% |
| Above 60 to 65 | 12.5% | 12.5% | 25% |
| Above 65 to 70 | 9% | 7.5% | 16.5% |
| Above 70 | 7.5% | 5% | 12.5% |
Your CPF rate does not change on your birthday. The new, lower rate applies from the first day of the month after the month you turn 55, 60, 65 or 70. So if you turn 60 in March, your March wages still use the above-55-to-60 rates, and the above-60-to-65 rates kick in from April. The same timing applies at each threshold age.
Employers compute and deduct CPF every month and pay it to the CPF Board by the 14th of the following month. Your share is deducted from your gross salary, so what hits your bank account is already net of CPF. If your employer pays late, the Board charges interest on the overdue amount, and persistent non-payment is an offence, so it is worth checking your CPF statement against your payslips.
The senior-worker rate increases are not finished. From 1 January 2027 two age bands go up again, the next step in the plan to close the gap with younger workers.
Workers above 55 to 60 rise from 34% to 35.5%, with the employer at 16.5% and the employee at 19%. Workers above 60 to 65 rise from 25% to 26%, split evenly at 13% each. The 55-and-below, above-65-to-70 and above-70 bands are unchanged. The whole increase is directed into the Retirement Account, up to the Full Retirement Sum, to push senior workers' retirement savings higher.
If you are near one of these thresholds, it is worth knowing the rate you pay is set by the year the wage is earned, so a December 2026 wage uses 2026 rates and a January 2027 wage uses the new ones.
| Age of employee | Total 2026 | Total 2027 | Employer 2027 | Employee 2027 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Above 55 to 60 | 34% | 35.5% | 16.5% | 19% |
| Above 60 to 65 | 25% | 26% | 13% | 13% |
CPF is not charged on your entire income without limit. Two ceilings cap the amount.
The Ordinary Wage (OW) ceiling caps the monthly salary on which CPF is payable. From 1 January 2026 it is $8,000 a month, up from $7,400. If you earn $9,000 a month, CPF is calculated only on the first $8,000; the remaining $1,000 attracts no contribution. This was the final step of a planned series of increases that began in September 2023.
The Additional Wage (AW) ceiling caps CPF on irregular pay like bonuses and commissions. It is worked out as $102,000 minus your total Ordinary Wages that were subject to CPF for the year. The $102,000 figure is the annual CPF salary ceiling, and it did not change for 2026.
Put together, the two ceilings mean the most wage that any single year can attract CPF on is $102,000. To see the exact split on your own pay, the CPF contribution calculator does the month-by-month maths, and the take-home salary calculator shows what lands in your account after CPF.
If your monthly salary is already near or above the OW ceiling, most of the $102,000 annual room is used up by your regular pay, leaving little headroom for your bonus to attract CPF. Someone on $8,000 a month uses $96,000 of OW room across the year, so only $6,000 of any bonus attracts CPF. Someone on $4,000 a month leaves far more room, so a larger slice of their bonus is contributed.
The full rates apply once you earn more than $750 a month. Below that, the rules taper so low earners are not over-deducted while their employers still build their CPF.
If you earn $50 or less a month, no CPF is payable at all. From above $50 up to $500, only the employer contributes and you pay nothing as the employee. From above $500 up to $750, your employee share is phased in gradually rather than jumping straight to the full 20%, while the employer pays the full employer rate. Above $750, both shares are at the full rates in the table.
The point of the taper is to keep more cash in the hands of low earners while still putting employer money into their accounts. If you hold more than one job, each employer contributes on the wages they pay you, subject to the same ceilings across the year.
The full 37% rates apply to citizens and to permanent residents from their third year of PR onward. In the first two years, a new PR usually contributes at lower graduated rates, so both take-home pay and the contribution build up gradually rather than jumping to the full amount overnight.
Under the standard graduated (G/G) basis, a first-year PR aged 55 and below has 9% of wages going to CPF: 4% from the employer and 5% from the employee. A second-year PR at the same age has 24% going in: 9% from the employer and 15% from the employee. The employee share climbs faster than the employer share, which is why your own deduction rises noticeably in year two. The tables below show the graduated rates for monthly wages above $750.
Employers and PR employees can jointly apply to the CPF Board to contribute at full rates earlier. The common alternative is full employer with graduated employee (F/G): the employer pays the full citizen rate while the employee stays on the graduated share, which speeds up the buildup without cutting the worker's take-home as hard. From the third year, full rates apply automatically and no application is needed. For the wider picture on housing grants, the Workfare top-ups and what changes once you hit year three, the CPF guide for permanent residents covers it in depth.
| Age of employee | Employer share | Employee share | Total |
|---|---|---|---|
| 55 and below | 4% | 5% | 9% |
| Above 55 to 60 | 4% | 5% | 9% |
| Above 60 to 65 | 3.5% | 5% | 8.5% |
| Above 65 | 3.5% | 5% | 8.5% |
In the second year of PR status the rates step up, moving closer to the full citizen rates that take over in year three.
Both shares are legally the employer's responsibility to compute and remit, but they come from different places. The employee share is taken out of your gross salary, so you fund it from money you would otherwise take home. The employer share is paid on top of your salary, so it is a cost to the company that does not reduce your headline pay.
Your compulsory employee CPF contributions are relieved from income tax automatically, so you are not taxed on the portion of salary that goes into CPF.
For a 30-year-old on $5,000 a month, the monthly CPF picture looks like this:
Applying a clean percentage to a round salary is easy. Real payslips throw up odd numbers and a rounding rule that the CPF Board sets, so it helps to know the order the sum is done in.
First, the total contribution is worked out on your total wages and rounded to the nearest dollar, with cents below 50 dropped and 50 cents or more rounded up. Then the employee share is worked out and rounded down to the nearest dollar, dropping any cents. The employer share is whatever is left after taking the employee share off the total. That order is why your own deduction and the headline total can each look slightly off a flat percentage.
Take a 42-year-old citizen earning $6,350 a month with no bonus. The total is 37% of $6,350, which is $2,349.50, rounded up to $2,350. The employee share is 20% of $6,350, which is $1,270 exactly. The employer share is the difference, $1,080. The same method runs inside the CPF contribution calculator if you would rather not do it by hand.
The total contribution does not sit in one pot. It is allocated across three accounts: the Ordinary Account (OA) for housing, education and approved investments; the Special Account (SA) for retirement; and the MediSave Account (MA) for healthcare. Each earns a different floor interest rate, with the OA at 2.5% a year and both the SA and MA at 4% a year for the first quarter of 2026.
On top of those base rates, CPF pays extra interest. Members below 55 earn an extra 1% a year on the first $60,000 of combined balances, with the OA portion capped at $20,000. Members aged 55 and above earn an extra 2% on the first $30,000 and an extra 1% on the next $30,000, again with the OA share capped at $20,000. That is how the headline figures of up to 5% before 55 and up to 6% from 55 are reached. The CPF interest rates guide breaks down where each layer of extra interest lands.
When you are young, more goes to the OA so you can fund a home. As you age, the mix tilts toward retirement and healthcare. The table below shows allocation as a percentage of your wage for 2026.
| Age | To OA | To SA / RA | To MA | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 35 and below | 23% | 6% | 8% | 37% |
| Above 35 to 45 | 21% | 7% | 9% | 37% |
| Above 45 to 50 | 19% | 8% | 10% | 37% |
| Above 50 to 55 | 15% | 11.5% | 10.5% | 37% |
| Above 55 to 60 | 12% | 11.5% | 10.5% | 34% |
| Above 60 to 65 | 3.5% | 11% | 10.5% | 25% |
| Above 65 to 70 | 1% | 5% | 10.5% | 16.5% |
| Above 70 | 1% | 1% | 10.5% | 12.5% |
At age 55 a Retirement Account (RA) is created, and the Special Account is closed for members 55 and above, so contributions that would have gone to the SA flow into the RA and OA instead. The RA is what funds your CPF LIFE payouts from 65, and money in it earns the 4% floor rate.
The MediSave share also stops growing once your account hits the Basic Healthcare Sum, which is $79,000 in 2026 for members below 65 (and is fixed at $79,000 for life for those who turn 65 in 2026); older cohorts keep the BHS that was set when they turned 65. Any overflow then spills into your other accounts. If you are weighing where your money does the most good, OA vs SA lays out the trade-off between liquidity for housing and higher retirement interest.
If you work for yourself, no employer is paying CPF on your behalf, and you are not required to contribute to your OA or SA. You are only required to contribute to MediSave, and only once your net trade income (NTI) crosses a threshold.
MediSave contributions become compulsory if your net trade income for the year is more than $6,000. From above $6,000 to $12,000 a flat low rate applies; from above $12,000 to $18,000 the rate phases in gradually; and once your NTI is above $18,000 the full rate applies. That full rate depends on your age: it ranges from 8% for those below 35 up to 10.5% for those aged 50 and above. Contributions are computed on net trade income up to a maximum set by the CPF Board, so beyond that cap your payable amount stops rising, and they also stop once your MediSave reaches the Basic Healthcare Sum. The exact cap and rate for your year are set out in the CPF Board's self-employed MediSave rate table and calculator (linked in the sources).
The exact dollar amount depends on your precise age and income, so use the CPF Board's self-employed MediSave calculator (linked in the sources) for your figure rather than estimating. After you file your tax return, the CPF Board issues a Notice of Contributions and the payment is due within 30 days.
Self-employed MediSave contributions qualify for tax relief, and you can also make voluntary CPF contributions across all three accounts, subject to the CPF Annual Limit set by the CPF Board, if you want to build OA and retirement savings too.
The rates above are the mandatory minimum. You can put in more on purpose, and many people do for the interest and the tax relief.
Cash top-ups to your Special, Retirement or MediSave account earn the higher CPF interest and can give you tax relief. Transfers from your OA to your SA or RA move money to the 4% rate but cannot be reversed, so the cash is locked for retirement. Before topping up, compare it against alternatives in OA vs SA and read the CPF interest rates guide so you know exactly what each dollar earns.
If your goal is the retirement payout rather than the tax break, the CPF retirement sum guide explains the Basic, Full and Enhanced Retirement Sums and how they set your CPF LIFE income from 65.
For employees aged 55 and below, the total CPF contribution rate is 37% of monthly wages: 20% from the employee and 17% from the employer. The rate drops with age, down to 12.5% for those above 70. Rates apply on monthly wages up to the $8,000 Ordinary Wage ceiling.
For workers 55 and below, the employer pays 17% and the employee pays 20%, for a 37% total. The employee share is deducted from your gross salary, while the employer share is paid on top of your pay. Both shares fall as you get older.
The Ordinary Wage ceiling is $8,000 a month from 1 January 2026, up from $7,400. CPF is calculated only on monthly salary up to this cap. The annual CPF salary ceiling, which covers ordinary plus additional wages, stays at $102,000.
The split depends on your age. For those 35 and below in 2026, of your wage 23% goes to the Ordinary Account, 6% to the Special Account and 8% to MediSave. As you age, more shifts toward the Special or Retirement Account and MediSave, and less to the Ordinary Account.
Self-employed persons must contribute to MediSave if their net trade income for the year is above $6,000. They are not required to contribute to the Ordinary or Special Account. The MediSave rate runs from 8% to 10.5% by age on income above $18,000; below that the rate is lower, with a phase-in between $12,000 and $18,000. Contributions are computed on net trade income only up to a cap set by the CPF Board, so check the CPF self-employed MediSave calculator for your exact figure.
No. CPF is charged only up to the $8,000 monthly Ordinary Wage ceiling. Anything you earn above $8,000 a month in regular salary attracts no CPF. Bonuses are capped separately by the Additional Wage ceiling, which is $102,000 minus your CPF-liable ordinary wages for the year.
The new rate applies from the first day of the month after you turn 55, 60, 65 or 70, not on your birthday itself. So the lower rate for your new age band starts the following month.
In the first two years of PR status, most permanent residents contribute at lower graduated rates. A first-year PR aged 55 and below has 9% going to CPF (4% employer, 5% employee); a second-year PR at that age has 24% (9% employer, 15% employee). Employer and employee can jointly apply to the CPF Board for full rates earlier. From the third year, the full citizen rates apply automatically.
Yes, for two senior age bands. From 1 January 2027, workers above 55 to 60 rise from 34% to 35.5% (16.5% employer, 19% employee), and workers above 60 to 65 rise from 25% to 26% (13% each). The 55-and-below rate stays at 37%, and the above-65 bands are unchanged. The increase goes into the Retirement Account up to the Full Retirement Sum.
The total contribution is worked out on your wages (capped at the $8,000 Ordinary Wage ceiling) and rounded to the nearest dollar. Your employee share is then worked out and rounded down to the nearest dollar, and the employer share is the total minus your share. For a 42-year-old earning $6,350, the total is $2,350, the employee share $1,270 and the employer share $1,080.
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.