Your CPF Ordinary Account earns 2.5% a year and your Special, MediSave and Retirement Accounts earn 4% a year, both guaranteed by the government. On top of that, you get an extra 1% on your first $60,000 of combined balances, and if you are 55 or older, an extra 2% on your first $30,000. That stacks to as much as 6% a year on part of your savings, fully risk-free. This guide breaks down each rate, who gets the extra interest, how CPF works out and pays the interest, and why a return that low-risk is worth understanding properly.
CPF pays different rates on different accounts. The Ordinary Account (OA) earns a lower rate because the money is meant to be more accessible, used for housing, insurance and education. The Special Account (SA), MediSave Account (MA) and Retirement Account (RA) earn a higher rate because that money is locked up for retirement and healthcare.
Both rates are floors set in law. CPF can pay more if market rates rise above the floor, but it cannot pay less. For 1 July to 30 September 2026, the market-pegged rates again stayed below both floors, so the floor rates apply: OA at 2.5% and SA, MA and RA at 4%. The same floors held for 1 April to 30 June 2026 and for 1 January to 31 March 2026, so the rates have stayed flat all year.
One number people often miss is the HDB concessionary loan rate, which is pegged at 0.1% above the OA rate. With the OA at 2.5%, the HDB loan rate is 2.6% per annum. If you are servicing an HDB loan, the rate you pay on the loan and the rate your OA earns are linked, which is worth knowing when you decide whether to use OA cash or your own cash to repay.
| Account | Interest rate (per annum) | How the rate is set |
|---|---|---|
| Ordinary Account (OA) | 2.5% | 3-month average of major local banks' rates, with a legislated floor of 2.5% |
| Special Account (SA) | 4% | 12-month average yield of 10-year Singapore Government Securities plus 1%, with a 4% floor |
| MediSave Account (MA) | 4% | Same peg as SA, with a 4% floor |
| Retirement Account (RA) | 4% | Same peg as SA, with a 4% floor |
The headline rates are only part of the picture. The government pays extra interest on the early portion of your balances, which lifts the effective return on the money most people actually hold.
If you are below 55, you earn an extra 1% on the first $60,000 of your combined CPF balances. Within that $60,000, only up to $20,000 can come from your OA. So an OA dollar inside the first $20,000 earns 2.5% plus 1%, which is 3.5%. An SA, MA or RA dollar inside the first $60,000 earns 4% plus 1%, which is 5%.
If you are 55 or older, the extra interest is more generous. You earn an extra 2% on the first $30,000 of combined balances and an extra 1% on the next $30,000. The same $20,000 OA sub-cap applies. That means a dollar in your RA inside the first $30,000 can earn 4% plus 2%, which is 6% a year, risk-free.
| Your age | First $30,000 | Next $30,000 (to $60,000) | OA sub-cap within this |
|---|---|---|---|
| Below 55 | +1% | +1% | Up to $20,000 from OA |
| 55 and above | +2% | +1% | Up to $20,000 from OA |
The order CPF counts your balances matters. It applies the extra interest to your Retirement Account first, then your Ordinary Account, then your Special Account, then your MediSave Account. The OA portion that earns extra interest is capped at $20,000 so the system rewards locking money up for retirement rather than leaving it liquid.
A worked example. Say you are 40 with $25,000 in your OA and $40,000 in your SA. Your first $60,000 of combined balances earns the extra 1%. The full $40,000 SA counts, plus $20,000 of your OA (the cap). The last $5,000 of OA and anything beyond $60,000 earns only the base rate. To see how your own balances compound over time, run them through our compound interest calculator.
The practical takeaway: holding more than $20,000 in your OA does not earn you any extra interest, while the same dollars in your SA or RA would. That gap is part of why people transfer OA money to SA, or top up the SA in cash, once their housing needs are covered. The extra 1% is small in any single year, but it applies to a $60,000 base for decades, so it adds up.
A common worry is that joining CPF LIFE switches off the extra interest, since the money leaves your Retirement Account to buy the annuity. It does not. Once you are on CPF LIFE, the savings used for your premium still count toward your combined balance for the extra interest calculation.
The mechanics shift slightly. The extra interest earned on the premium is paid into the CPF LIFE pool and shared across the scheme rather than dropped back into your own RA, but you keep benefiting from it through your payouts. For someone 65 or older with a sizeable RA and CPF LIFE premium, that first $30,000 still earns the extra 2%, lifting the effective return toward 6%.
If you want to estimate the monthly income your accumulated savings could turn into, run the figures through our CPF LIFE payout calculator.
CPF works out interest monthly but pays it once a year. Two rules decide how much you actually earn.
First, interest is based on the lowest balance in each account during the month. Money you contribute this month only starts earning interest the next month. Money you withdraw or deduct this month stops earning interest from this month. So timing matters: a withdrawal early in the month costs you the whole month's interest on that amount.
Second, the interest is compounded annually. The interest computed across all twelve months is credited to your accounts at the start of the following year, and from then on it earns interest too. That annual compounding is what turns a steady 4% into a much larger sum over a working life.
To put compounding in perspective: $10,000 left untouched in an SA at 4% becomes about $14,800 after ten years and about $21,900 after twenty, without a single extra dollar added. That is the quiet power of a guaranteed rate over time. The lowest-balance rule also explains a common piece of timing advice: if you plan to make a CPF cash top-up to capture a full year of interest, doing it earlier in the year means the money earns interest across more months.
The interest does not always land back in the account that earned it. The base and extra interest on your OA is moved into your SA or RA, to build up your retirement savings rather than your liquid OA. Interest earned on your SA stays in the SA, and interest on your MediSave stays in MA unless your MediSave has already hit the Basic Healthcare Sum ceiling.
The Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) for members below 65 is $79,000 in 2026. Once your MA reaches that ceiling, the interest it would have earned overflows into your SA or RA instead, so it keeps working for you rather than being capped out.
For most people below 55 this means the higher-earning accounts steadily grow, which is the whole design intent: the system nudges your money toward the 4%-plus accounts over time.
There is one more wrinkle for MediSave. Once it hits the $79,000 BHS ceiling, your monthly CPF contributions that would have gone to MediSave are redirected too, not just the interest, flowing to your SA or RA depending on your age. So the BHS does not cap how much your money earns; it just changes which account holds it. Either way you keep the 4% floor.
A fair question is how the government can promise 4% when banks pay far less. The answer is what CPF does with your money. Your CPF savings are invested in Special Singapore Government Securities, or SSGS. These are non-tradable bonds issued by the Singapore Government specifically to CPF, and the government guarantees both the principal and the interest.
Because the issuer is the government itself, an SSGS bond carries the AAA credit standing of Singapore. The interest CPF pays you is funded by these securities rather than by lending your money out the way a bank does, so your CPF balance does not carry the credit risk of a commercial lender. That is the structural reason the floor rates can be promised in law rather than left to market mercy.
The proceeds the government raises through SSGS are invested by GIC for the long term. The returns GIC earns flow back to the reserves, but your CPF interest does not depend on GIC's yearly performance. You get the legislated rate regardless, which is exactly what makes CPF the stable anchor of a plan. For the bigger picture of how the accounts work together, see our CPF pillar guide.
A risk-free 4% is hard to beat. Singapore Treasury bills and Singapore Savings Bonds move with the market and have recently paid below 4%. A bank fixed deposit at 4% is rare and never guaranteed for the long term. CPF's SA, MA and RA pay 4% with a legislated floor, backed by the government, with no lock-in risk on the rate itself.
The catch is liquidity. OA money can go toward a flat or be withdrawn under certain conditions, but SA, MA and RA money is locked for retirement and healthcare. You are trading access for a guaranteed return. For the portion of your wealth you would hold in low-risk assets anyway, CPF is usually the better deal than cash or short-dated government securities.
This is why voluntary cash top-ups to your SA or RA are popular. A cash top-up earns the 4%-plus rate immediately and, within limits, also qualifies for income tax relief. The trade-off is the same: the money is locked away. Weigh it against keeping cash liquid before you commit, and compare the two accounts in our OA vs SA breakdown.
Treat CPF as the bond-like, capital-stable part of your portfolio rather than your entire retirement plan. A 4% guaranteed return is excellent for a low-risk asset, but over thirty years a diversified equity portfolio has historically returned more, with more volatility. The sensible approach for most young working adults is to let CPF do the low-risk job it does well, and invest separately for the higher-growth portion. Our CPF pillar guide sets out how the accounts fit into a broader plan.
The rates are fixed, but how much of your money sits in the 4%-plus accounts is partly your choice. A few levers move the effective return on your CPF without taking on any extra risk.
The first is the timing rule. Because interest is computed on the lowest balance each month and contributions start earning from the next month, a cash top-up made in January earns interest for roughly eleven months that year, while the same top-up in December earns almost none. Front-loading any top-up captures the most interest. The same logic says delay withdrawals to the start of a month so the prior month's interest is preserved.
The second is where the money sits. Once your housing and short-term needs are covered, OA dollars above the $20,000 extra-interest cap are working at 2.5% when an SA or RA dollar would earn 4% plus any extra tier. Transferring OA to SA (below 55) or topping up the RA (55 and over) moves those dollars to the higher floor. Both are one-way moves, so only shift money you will not need before retirement.
The third is letting MediSave overflow do its job. When MA hits the Basic Healthcare Sum, both its interest and your future MediSave contributions spill into your SA or RA, so the 4% floor keeps applying to that money instead of it sitting idle.
On 19 January 2025, CPF closed the Special Account for everyone aged 55 and above. If you are in this group, your SA savings were moved into your RA up to your cohort's Full Retirement Sum, where they keep earning the long-term 4% floor rate. Any SA money beyond that went into your OA, where it earns 2.5% and you can withdraw it.
If you want that OA money to keep earning 4% instead of 2.5%, you can transfer it to your RA, up to the current year's Enhanced Retirement Sum. That transfer is irreversible, so only move money you are sure you will not need before retirement.
The extra interest rules above already reflect this change. Members 55 and over still get the extra 2% on the first $30,000 and extra 1% on the next $30,000 of combined balances, with the same $20,000 OA sub-cap. Use the CPF contribution calculator to see how contributions feed these accounts as you keep working.
CPF reviews the OA rate quarterly and the SA, MA and RA rate quarterly as well. The OA rate tracks the 3-month average of the major local banks' interest rates, and the SA, MA and RA rate tracks the 12-month average yield of 10-year Singapore Government Securities plus 1%. When those pegged rates sit below the floors, you get the floor.
The 4% floor on SA, MA and RA monies is not permanent by law; the government extends it from time to time. It has been extended to cover the whole of 2026, from 1 January to 31 December 2026. Beyond that, the floor is reviewed again, so the long-term rate could change if market yields move.
Because the rates can be revised each quarter, always confirm the current figure on the CPF Board's page before making a decision that hinges on the exact rate. The numbers in this guide are the rates announced through the 1 July to 30 September 2026 quarter and are accurate for 2026.
For planning purposes, treat the floors as the rates you will most likely get. The SA, MA and RA pegged rate has sat below 4% for years, so the 4% floor has been doing the work. The OA peg has likewise stayed at or near the 2.5% floor. As long as that holds, your CPF returns are predictable, which is exactly what you want from the stable part of a retirement plan. If long-term government bond yields climb well above 3% and stay there, the pegged SMRA rate could one day exceed 4% and you would earn the higher pegged rate instead of the floor.
The Ordinary Account earns 2.5% per annum and the Special, MediSave and Retirement Accounts earn 4% per annum. These are the floor rates that apply through 2026 because the market-pegged rates are below the floors.
If you are below 55, you earn an extra 1% on the first $60,000 of your combined CPF balances, of which at most $20,000 can come from your Ordinary Account. So OA dollars in that band earn 3.5% and SA, MA or RA dollars earn 5%.
Members 55 and over earn an extra 2% on the first $30,000 of combined balances and an extra 1% on the next $30,000, with up to $20,000 of the total coming from the OA. A Retirement Account dollar in the first $30,000 can therefore earn 6% a year.
CPF computes interest monthly based on the lowest balance in each account that month, then credits it once a year at the start of the following year. From then on, the credited interest compounds and earns interest too.
Not always. Interest earned on your Ordinary Account is moved into your Special or Retirement Account. Special Account interest stays in the SA, and MediSave interest stays in MA unless it has hit the Basic Healthcare Sum, in which case it overflows to your SA or RA.
No, it is not guaranteed by law indefinitely. The government extends it periodically and has confirmed the 4% floor for Special, MediSave and Retirement Account monies for the whole of 2026. The floor is reviewed again after that, so check the CPF Board page for the latest.
For money you would otherwise hold in cash or short-dated government securities, yes. A guaranteed 4% with a government floor beats most low-risk alternatives. The trade-off is liquidity: Special, MediSave and Retirement Account money is locked for retirement and healthcare.
Your CPF savings are invested in Special Singapore Government Securities, non-tradable bonds issued by the government to CPF. The government guarantees both the principal and the interest on these securities, so your balance does not carry the credit risk a bank deposit would. That is why the floor rates can be set in law rather than left to the market.
Yes. The savings used to buy your CPF LIFE plan still count toward your combined balance for the extra interest. The extra interest on the premium goes into the CPF LIFE pool rather than back into your own Retirement Account, but you keep benefiting from it through your payouts.
Make any cash top-up early in the year so it earns interest across more months, time withdrawals for the start of a month, and move Ordinary Account savings above the $20,000 extra-interest cap into your Special or Retirement Account so they earn the 4% floor. Each lever raises your effective return without adding risk, but transfers to SA or RA are one-way.
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.