A Good Class Bungalow in Singapore costs roughly $15 million to $40 million for a typical plot, and $40 million to over $100 million in the prime Districts 10 and 11. In 2025 about 36 GCBs changed hands for a total of $1.364 billion, at an average of $2,134 per square foot, the biggest being a $148 million bungalow on Peirce Road. The sticker price is only the start. On a $30 million purchase a Singapore Citizen pays around $1.74 million in Buyer's Stamp Duty alone, before legal fees, property tax, a teardown-and-rebuild that can run $10 million, and annual upkeep in the low-to-mid six figures. Only Singapore Citizens (or fully Singaporean companies and trusts) may buy one, so for most people this is a guide to understanding the costs rather than a shopping list. This article lays out the real numbers from IRAS, URA and 2025 transaction data: who qualifies, what the land costs, the one-off taxes at purchase, and what it costs every year to hold.
There is no single price, because a GCB is land first and house second. A standard plot starts at 1,400 sqm (about 15,070 sqft) and the price tracks location, plot size, shape and frontage far more than the building on it. As a rough 2026 map: East Coast and outlying GCBs run about $12 million to $25 million, Bukit Timah plots about $15 million to $40 million, and prime Districts 10 and 11 (Nassim, Cluny, Dalvey, Tanglin) start around $40 million and stretch past $100 million for trophy plots.
The cleaner way to read the market is per square foot of land. In 2025 GCBs transacted at an average of $2,134 psf across about 36 deals worth $1.364 billion in total, once off-market sales are counted alongside caveated ones. That average spans a wide band: a large freehold plot can trade nearer $1,800 psf because the sheer land area dilutes the rate, while a small, well-located plot in a tightly held enclave can clear well above $2,700 psf.
Records keep the headlines busy. In March 2025 a Tanglin Hill GCB sold for $93.9 million at a record $6,197 psf, the highest psf rate on record for a GCB. The largest deal by absolute price in 2025 was a $148 million bungalow on Peirce Road, sitting on an 80,448 sqft freehold plot at $1,840 psf. If you are weighing landed against strata living first, the HDB vs condo comparison is a more realistic starting point for most budgets.
| Area / district | Typical price range | Notes |
|---|---|---|
| Prime D10/D11 (Nassim, Cluny, Dalvey, Tanglin) | $40m to $100m+ | Highest psf; trophy plots set records |
| Bukit Timah / Holland (D10/D21) | $15m to $40m | Largest cluster of GCB areas |
| East Coast / outlying (D15 and others) | $12m to $25m | Lower psf, often larger plots |
| 2025 market average (all GCBs) | $2,134 psf land | ~36 deals, $1.364b total value |
GCB is a planning class, not a marketing label. The Urban Redevelopment Authority gazettes 39 GCB Areas, almost all in Districts 10, 11, 21 and 23, and a landed home only qualifies if both the plot and the building meet URA's rules. Get the land right but build too big and you lose the status, and with it a chunk of the value.
The minimum plot is 1,400 sqm (15,070 sqft), with a minimum plot width of 18.5 metres and minimum depth of 30 metres. The bungalow and all its building features can cover at most 40% of the plot, the house is capped at two storeys (an attic and basement are allowed within limits), and only a detached house is permitted. You cannot strata-subdivide a GCB or carve a plot below the 1,400 sqm floor, which is why supply is effectively fixed.
The stock is small and tightly held. There are fewer than 2,800 GCBs in Singapore, and no new GCB Areas have been gazetted in decades. That scarcity, plus the citizen-only rule, is the whole reason a GCB trades at a premium to an ordinary landed home on the same street that happens to fall outside a gazetted area.
The 39 GCB Areas cluster in the central and central-west of the island, inside the prime residential Districts 10, 11, 20, 21 and 23. The names that set records are concentrated in District 10 around Tanglin and Holland: Nassim Road, Cluny Road and Cluny Hill, Dalvey Road, Ridout Road, Chatsworth, Leedon Park and Ridley Park. The wider Bukit Timah belt (King Albert Park, Binjai Park) and the Caldecott and Upper Thomson side (Districts 11 and 20) hold the larger, more numerous plots that make up the bulk of the stock.
Where a plot sits matters as much as how big it is. A 15,070 sqft plot on Nassim Road and a 15,070 sqft plot in an outlying area can differ by tens of millions of dollars purely on address, because demand concentrates in a handful of tightly held enclaves near Orchard and the Botanic Gardens. The roads that almost never come to market are exactly the ones that clear the highest psf when they do.
Two plots can also share a road and only one be a GCB. The gazette draws hard boundaries, so a landed home one street over from a GCB Area is an ordinary bungalow, not a Good Class Bungalow, and trades at a discount. Always check a specific address against URA's gazetted GCB Area maps before you price anything, rather than relying on the agent's label.
| Tier | Example areas / roads | Districts | Indicative price |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ultra-prime (trophy) | Nassim, Cluny, Dalvey, Ridout, Tanglin | D10 | $40m to $100m+ |
| Prime established | Chatsworth, Leedon, Ridley Park, Holland | D10/D11 | $25m to $55m |
| Wider Bukit Timah / Caldecott | King Albert Park, Binjai Park, Caldecott, Upper Thomson | D11/D20/D21 | $15m to $30m |
| Outlying landed near GCB areas | Plots just outside the gazette | various | Lower; not a GCB |
This is where most aspiring buyers stop. A GCB is restricted residential property under the Residential Property Act, and only Singapore Citizens may own one. Permanent Residents and foreigners are excluded outright, even those who can otherwise get Singapore Land Authority approval for landed property elsewhere. There is no GCB carve-out at Sentosa Cove or anywhere else.
A Singapore company or trust can hold a GCB, but only if it is wholly Singaporean: every director and shareholder of the company, or every trustee and beneficiary of the trust, must be a Singapore Citizen. Buyers often use a company or trust for estate-planning and privacy reasons rather than to sidestep the citizenship rule, which cannot be sidestepped. If you are thinking about how a high-value home passes to the next generation, our property pillar guide and the basics of estate planning are the right place to start.
PRs sometimes buy landed property in non-GCB areas with SLA approval, and foreigners can buy landed homes only at Sentosa Cove, again with approval and on owner-occupation terms. Neither route reaches a Good Class Bungalow. For the vast majority of Singapore residents, the practical eligibility answer is: citizen, with the cash, or not at all.
Buyer's Stamp Duty (BSD) is the single largest one-off cost after the land itself, and on a GCB it is enormous because the top band bites hard. BSD is charged on the higher of the price or market value, on a sliding scale that tops out at 6% for the slice above $3 million (rates raised in the February 2023 Budget). On a multi-million-dollar plot, almost the entire price sits in that 6% band.
The shortcut for any GCB-sized purchase: BSD on the first $3 million is a fixed $119,600, then 6% on everything above. So a $20 million GCB costs $119,600 plus 6% of $17 million, or $1,139,600 in BSD. A $30 million plot is about $1,739,600, and a $40 million plot about $2,339,600. The $93.9 million Tanglin Hill record carried roughly $5.57 million in BSD on its own. You can sanity-check any figure on the stamp duty calculator.
A Singapore Citizen buying their first and only home pays no Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty (ABSD), and that matters at this price. The ABSD rates have held since 27 April 2023: a citizen pays 0% on a first property, 20% on a second and 30% on a third or more. Since GCBs are citizen-only, the foreigner's flat 60% ABSD never applies here, but a citizen buying a GCB while keeping other homes would face 20% or 30% ABSD, which on a $30 million purchase is $6 million to $9 million on top of BSD. That is why many GCB buyers structure the purchase as their only residential property, sometimes via decoupling from a spouse who holds the family's other homes.
| Purchase price | BSD payable | How it is built |
|---|---|---|
| $15,000,000 | $839,600 | $119,600 + 6% of $12m |
| $20,000,000 | $1,139,600 | $119,600 + 6% of $17m |
| $30,000,000 | $1,739,600 | $119,600 + 6% of $27m |
| $40,000,000 | $2,339,600 | $119,600 + 6% of $37m |
| $93,900,000 | $5,573,600 | $119,600 + 6% of $90.9m |
Beyond stamp duty, the transaction itself adds up. Legal fees on a GCB conveyance run higher than a standard home because of the title and structuring work, typically $5,000 to $20,000 or more if a company or trust is involved. A valuation report, survey and the usual disbursements add a few thousand more. If you buy through an agent, buyer-side representation is sometimes built into the deal rather than billed separately, but confirm this in writing before you sign anything.
Financing is its own cost. Banks rarely lend the full 75% Loan-to-Value on a home this size; many cap absolute loan quantum or apply tighter Loan-to-Value on the portion above a threshold, so GCB buyers usually commit far more cash than a condo buyer would proportionally. Your borrowing is also still bound by the Total Debt Servicing Ratio, which caps all monthly debt repayments at 55% of gross income. Even buyers who could pay cash often take a modest loan for liquidity, and the mortgage calculator shows how the monthly figure scales at these sums.
Then there is the building. Many GCB transactions are bought for the land, with the existing house torn down and rebuilt to the new owner's taste. A ground-up GCB build, with the architecture, structure, basement, pool, landscaping and finishes these homes are known for, commonly runs $5 million to $10 million and upwards, and takes two to three years. Budget the rebuild as a second purchase, not an afterthought, and keep a large cash buffer for cost overruns on a project of that length.
The mortgage rules that gate every Singapore home purchase still apply at this level, they just bite less because the buyers are cash-rich. The Loan-to-Value cap is 75% for a buyer with no other housing loan, so even in the best case a $20 million GCB needs $5 million in cash and CPF for the downpayment, with at least the first 5% in cash. The Total Debt Servicing Ratio then caps all your monthly debt repayments at 55% of gross monthly income, which is the real ceiling on how much you can borrow.
Work the TDSR backwards and the income hurdle is steep. A $15 million loan over 25 years at around 4% costs roughly $79,000 a month, and TDSR's 55% cap means you would need gross income near $144,000 a month, or about $1.7 million a year, with no other debt, to service it on a bank loan alone. That is why few GCB buyers stretch the full 75% LTV. Most put down far more cash and borrow a smaller slice, or skip the mortgage entirely. You can model the monthly figure for any loan size on the mortgage calculator and pressure-test the ratio with the TDSR explainer.
Cash, not income, is the binding constraint at the top of the market. Between a downpayment in the millions, BSD past a million, a possible teardown-and-rebuild and years of six-figure upkeep, a realistic GCB buyer holds eight figures of liquid wealth before the purchase, not just a high salary. The honest filter is whether the GCB would still leave you with a large, diversified base afterwards, the kind of sizing question a net worth tracker is built for.
A GCB has no maintenance fee, because there is no MCST. Instead you carry the full running cost of a large private estate yourself, and it is not small. Property tax is the formal annual bill, charged by IRAS on the Annual Value (the estimated yearly rent the place could fetch), not the purchase price. For a home you live in, the owner-occupier rates are progressive: the first $12,000 of AV is tax-free, rising in bands to a top rate of 32% for AV above $140,000.
GCBs sit at the very top of those bands. A bungalow with an Annual Value of $200,000, realistic for a large prime-district home, pays the tax on the first $140,000 (which works out to $19,020 under the current owner-occupier bands) plus 32% on the next $60,000, for $38,220 a year. The owner-occupier bands were widened from 1 January 2025, so any figure that still shows the old top-band tax is out of date. Rent it out instead of living in it and the steeper non-owner-occupier rates apply, topping out at 36% on the slice of AV above $60,000 and pushing the bill far higher. For 2026 there is a one-off property tax rebate for owner-occupied homes, but for private property it is 10% capped at $500, which barely registers at this scale. Check the working with the annual value explainer, the property tax definition, or the annual value guide.
The bigger annual number is upkeep. A GCB plot of 15,000 to 30,000 sqft with a pool, mature landscaping and a large house typically runs a six-figure annual budget: gardeners and pool maintenance, security, domestic help, building insurance on a high-rebuild-cost home, plus utilities that dwarf an HDB flat's. It is common for owners to spend $100,000 to $300,000 a year keeping the estate in order, before any renovation. Treat the holding cost as a recurring line in your budget, the way you would a personal budget, not a surprise.
| Item | Indicative annual cost |
|---|---|
| Property tax (AV $200,000, owner-occupied) | $38,220 |
| Gardening, pool, general maintenance | $30,000 to $80,000 |
| Security and domestic help | $30,000 to $100,000+ |
| Building insurance and utilities | $20,000 to $60,000 |
| Total annual upkeep (typical) | $100,000 to $300,000 |
Property tax is the one annual cost set by formula rather than choice, so it pays to see the bands. IRAS charges it on the Annual Value, the estimated yearly rent the home could fetch, and the rate is progressive: each slice of AV is taxed at its own rate, not the whole AV at the top rate. A GCB's AV sits high enough that the upper bands do most of the work, which is why the bill lands in the tens of thousands a year even before upkeep.
Live in it and you get the owner-occupier scale, which runs from 0% on the first $12,000 of AV to 32% on AV above $140,000. Let it out and the non-owner-occupier scale applies instead, from 12% on the first $30,000 of AV to 36% on AV above $60,000, so the same home costs noticeably more to hold as a rental than as a residence. Both scales were last reset for owner-occupiers on 1 January 2025, so treat any older worked example with caution.
The numbers below use the rates IRAS publishes for 2026. For a GCB with an AV of $200,000, the owner-occupier bill is $38,220; on the non-owner-occupier scale the same AV crosses into the 36% band well before the top, so the rental-use bill is materially higher. Run your own AV through the annual value explainer, then sanity-check the wider running cost against a personal budget.
| Annual Value band | Owner-occupier rate | Non-owner-occupier rate |
|---|---|---|
| First $12,000 | 0% | 12% (first $30,000) |
| Next $28,000 (to $40,000) | 4% | 12% |
| Next $10,000 (to $50,000) | 6% | 20% ($30,000 to $45,000) |
| Next $25,000 (to $75,000) | 10% | 28% ($45,000 to $60,000) |
| Next $10,000 (to $85,000) | 14% | 36% (above $60,000) |
| Next $15,000 (to $100,000) | 20% | 36% |
| Next $40,000 (to $140,000) | 26% | 36% |
| Above $140,000 | 32% | 36% |
What it costs to leave a GCB matters because plans change even at this level. Seller's Stamp Duty (SSD) applies if you sell a residential property too soon after buying it. The rules tightened in July 2025: for any residential property bought on or after 4 July 2025, the holding period is four years and each rate tier is four points higher than before.
Under the current rules, sell within the first year and SSD is 16% of the price or market value, whichever is higher; the second year, 12%; the third year, 8%; the fourth year, 4%; and after holding more than four years, zero. On a $30 million GCB, selling in year one would cost $4.8 million in SSD on top of the BSD you already paid. A GCB is built for a long hold, and the transaction costs at both ends reinforce that.
Agent commission on the sell side is usually 1% to 2% of the price plus 9% GST, which on a $30 million deal is $327,000 to $654,000. Between SSD risk, commission and the BSD sunk at purchase, the round-trip transaction cost runs into the millions. Buy a GCB to live in or to hold across generations, not to flip; if your horizon is shorter, a rent-vs-buy comparison on a more liquid home makes more financial sense.
| Sold within | SSD rate | On a $30m sale |
|---|---|---|
| 1st year | 16% | $4,800,000 |
| 2nd year | 12% | $3,600,000 |
| 3rd year | 8% | $2,400,000 |
| 4th year | 4% | $1,200,000 |
| More than 4 years | 0% | $0 |
Two taxes that would hammer a holding this size in other countries simply do not exist in Singapore, and that shapes how GCBs are owned. There is no capital gains tax, so a long-held GCB that appreciates from $30 million to $50 million owes nothing on the $20 million gain when sold, provided the sale is genuine investment or own-use rather than a trade. The only transaction tax on selling is SSD, and that drops to zero once you have held past the four-year window.
Estate duty was abolished in Singapore from 15 February 2008, so a GCB passing to the next generation is not taxed on transfer at death. That is a large part of why GCBs are treated as multi-generational assets and why so many are held in trusts and family-office structures rather than personal names. The Monetary Authority of Singapore reported that the number of single family offices awarded tax incentives grew from around 400 at end-2020 to over 2,000 by end-2024, and that pool of citizen-linked wealth is a steady source of GCB demand.
The practical takeaway is that the cost of a GCB is loaded almost entirely at the front, in BSD, downpayment and any rebuild, and during the hold, in property tax and upkeep. The back end is light: no capital gains tax, no estate duty, and zero SSD after four years. That asymmetry is exactly why the asset suits a buy-and-hold-for-generations plan and punishes anyone treating it as a trade. If passing wealth down is the goal, start with the basics of estate planning and a properly drafted will.
Strip the prestige and a GCB is a concentrated, illiquid, low-yield asset that you also pay heavily to hold. Rental yields on GCBs are thin, often well under 2% gross, because the price reflects scarcity and land banking rather than income. If you wanted the property to generate cash, almost any other asset class does it more efficiently. The case for a GCB is land scarcity, citizen-only demand and capital preservation over decades, not yield.
It also concentrates a huge share of net worth in one undiversified asset. Tying $30 million to $100 million into a single plot means a buyer needs the rest of their wealth to be very large and liquid to absorb the holding cost and any market dip. The owners who do this well treat the GCB as the trophy at the top of an already diversified base, with public-market investments, businesses and cash sitting underneath it. Sizing that base is what tools like a net worth tracker and a diversified investment plan are for.
The honest verdict for most readers is that a GCB is a study in how Singapore's most restricted property class is priced, not a near-term goal. The transferable lesson is the cost structure: the stamp duty, the holding cost and the exit friction scale with price on every home you will ever buy. If a GCB is genuinely on your horizon, the deciding factors are eligibility (citizenship), liquidity (cash, not just paper wealth) and time horizon (decades), in that order.
A typical GCB costs about $15 million to $40 million, while prime District 10 and 11 plots run $40 million to over $100 million. In 2025 about 36 GCBs sold for a total of $1.364 billion at an average of $2,134 per square foot. The biggest 2025 deal was a $148 million bungalow on Peirce Road; the highest psf was $6,197, set by a $93.9 million Tanglin Hill sale.
No. Good Class Bungalows are restricted residential property reserved for Singapore Citizens only. Permanent Residents and foreigners cannot own one, even with Singapore Land Authority approval for other landed property. A company or trust can hold a GCB only if every shareholder, director, trustee and beneficiary is a Singapore Citizen.
A GCB must sit in one of URA's 39 gazetted GCB Areas and meet the planning rules: a minimum plot of 1,400 sqm (15,070 sqft), minimum plot width of 18.5m and depth of 30m, at most 40% site coverage, a maximum of two storeys, and it must be a detached house. The plot cannot be strata-subdivided or carved below 1,400 sqm. There are fewer than 2,800 GCBs in Singapore.
Buyer's Stamp Duty is a fixed $119,600 on the first $3 million plus 6% on everything above. So a $20 million GCB costs $1,139,600 in BSD, a $30 million one about $1,739,600, and a $40 million one about $2,339,600. A citizen buying their first and only home pays no ABSD, but a second home adds 20% and a third 30% on top of BSD.
There is no MCST fee, but you pay everything yourself. Property tax on an owner-occupied GCB with an Annual Value of $200,000 is $38,220 a year under the current progressive owner-occupier rates (top band 32% above $140,000 AV, widened from 1 January 2025). Add gardening, pool, security, domestic help, insurance and utilities, and annual upkeep commonly runs $100,000 to $300,000.
Scarcity and restriction. There are fewer than 2,800 GCBs across 39 gazetted areas, no new areas have been added in decades, plots cannot be subdivided below 1,400 sqm, and only Singapore Citizens can buy them. Fixed supply meeting citizen-only demand from a small group of wealthy buyers keeps land prices high, often above $2,000 psf and into the thousands per square foot for prime plots.
As an income asset, no: gross rental yields are usually under 2% and holding costs are high. The case for a GCB is land scarcity and long-term capital preservation, not yield. It also concentrates a large share of net worth in one illiquid asset, so it suits buyers who already hold a large, diversified and liquid base of other wealth beneath it.
All 39 gazetted GCB Areas sit in the central and central-west of the island, inside Districts 10, 11, 20, 21 and 23. The record-setting roads are in District 10 around Tanglin and Holland: Nassim Road, Cluny Road and Cluny Hill, Dalvey Road, Ridout Road, Chatsworth, Leedon Park and Ridley Park. The wider Bukit Timah and Caldecott belt holds the larger, more numerous plots. A landed home just outside a gazetted boundary is not a GCB, even on the same road.
No on both. Singapore has no capital gains tax, so a long-held GCB sold for a gain owes nothing on that gain provided the sale is genuine own-use or investment rather than property trading. Estate duty was abolished from 15 February 2008, so a GCB passing to the next generation is not taxed on transfer at death. The only sale tax is Seller's Stamp Duty, which drops to zero once the home is held more than four years.
A lot, but cash matters more than salary. The LTV cap is 75%, so a $20 million GCB needs about $5 million in cash and CPF upfront, with the first 5% in cash. Servicing a $15 million bank loan over 25 years at roughly 4% costs about $79,000 a month, and the 55% TDSR cap means you would need gross income near $1.7 million a year, debt-free, to qualify on a mortgage alone. In practice most buyers borrow far less and rely on existing liquid wealth.
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.