This guide to HDB rental yields in Singapore's 2026 edition starts where most rental yield write-ups stop: after property tax, conservancy charges and financing costs, not before them. Using HDB's own Q1 2026 resale price and rent data, an islandwide 4-room flat throws off a gross yield of about 6.9% before costs, which is well ahead of a private condo in the same quarter. Strip out the non-owner-occupied property tax, the town council's conservancy bill and a bank loan's interest, and the number that actually lands in your bank account looks quite different. This 2026 edition walks through that math flat type by flat type, then covers the citizenship rules, quotas and lease decay that decide whether an HDB flat is a genuinely good rental investment or just a good number on a spreadsheet.
Rental yield is the annual rent a flat generates, expressed as a percentage of what the flat cost. Gross yield uses the full rent figure. Net yield subtracts the actual cost of holding the flat, and it is the number that decides whether renting out an HDB flat beats leaving the same money in an index fund or a savings account.
The formula for gross yield is simple: monthly rent times 12, divided by purchase price, times 100. That is also the number every rental yield article leans on, and the easiest one to overstate. Two flats with the same gross yield can hand their owners very different amounts of cash once tax, conservancy charges and a mortgage enter the picture.
Net yield instead uses annual rent, minus property tax, minus conservancy charges, minus loan interest if the flat is financed, divided by purchase price, times 100. It takes more work to calculate. It is also the number that matters, and this guide shows both for every example that follows.
HDB does not publish a yield figure directly. It publishes two separate numbers each quarter: the median resale price by flat type, and the median rent by town and flat type. Divide one by the other and a gross yield falls out.
Using HDB's Q1 2026 median resale prices, $445,000 for a 3-room flat, $628,000 for a 4-room and $745,000 for a 5-room, against the Q1 2026 median rent range for each flat type, the gross yield across HDB flat types works out as follows.
| Flat type | Median resale price | Median monthly rent range | Gross yield range |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-room | $445,000 | $2,500 to $3,200 | 6.7% to 8.6% |
| 4-room | $628,000 | $3,000 to $4,200 | 5.7% to 8.0% |
| 5-room | $745,000 | $3,250 to $4,400 | 5.2% to 7.1% |
A single average yield number hides more than it reveals. The gap between the low and high end of the 4-room range above, 5.7% versus 8.0%, is the same gap that decides whether a rental covers a mortgage comfortably or barely breaks even. Before comparing that spread to your own numbers, run the specific flat you are considering through our rent vs buy calculator rather than relying on an islandwide figure.
The same logic applies within a single town. Two 4-room flats on the same street can carry different resale prices depending on floor level, remaining lease and renovation state, while renting for close to the same amount. The cheaper of the two will always show the higher yield, which is worth remembering before assuming a higher price buys a better rental return.
Take the 4-room example: a $628,000 purchase, rented out at $3,600 a month, the midpoint of HDB's Q1 2026 range. Annual gross rent is $43,200, for a gross yield of 6.9%. None of that $43,200 is take-home income.
Non-owner-occupied property tax comes first. IRAS taxes a rented-out flat's Annual Value at progressive rates: 12% on the first $30,000, 20% on the next $15,000, 28% on the next $15,000 and 36% above $60,000. Using this flat's annual rent as a stand-in for its Annual Value, since IRAS sets Annual Value on estimated market rent, the property tax bill comes to about $6,240 a year. That is roughly three times what an owner-occupier pays on a similarly valued flat under IRAS's lower owner-occupied rates. Check your own Annual Value on IRAS's site rather than assuming this figure carries over exactly, and see our Annual Value glossary entry for how that number is set.
Service and conservancy charges come next, and landlords pay the full rate. Nee Soon Town Council's published rate for a 4-room flat is about $85 a month, or roughly $1,022 a year, and owners lose their usual town council rebate once the whole flat is sublet, since rebate eligibility requires the flat not be rented out in full.
A fresh tenancy also triggers stamp duty, payable to IRAS within 14 days of signing: 0.4% of the total rent over the lease, or $172.80 on this flat's first one-year lease. It is a one-time cost rather than a recurring one, so it sits outside the annual net yield figure below, but budget for it as day-one cash. Run the exact figure for your own lease through our stamp duty calculator.
Financing is the biggest line item for a leveraged buyer. At 75% loan-to-value, HDB's ceiling since the August 2024 cooling measures, a $628,000 flat carries a $471,000 loan. Even a low floating-rate bank package near 1.8% costs about $8,478 in interest over the first year.
Add it up: $43,200 in rent, minus $6,240 in property tax, minus $1,022 in conservancy charges, minus $8,478 in interest, leaves $27,460. Against the $628,000 purchase price, that is a net yield of about 4.4%, well under half the 6.9% gross figure. The number that actually matters to most landlords is not yield on the property price, though, but yield on the cash they put in. On a 25% down payment of roughly $157,000, that same $27,460 works out to close to 17% a year. That is the leverage effect no gross-yield headline shows you, and it cuts both ways: a vacant month or a rate rise costs a highly leveraged landlord far more, in percentage terms, than it costs one who paid in cash.
Set the numbers above against private property. Suburban condos outside the city centre are running gross yields near 3.8% in 2026, and Core Central Region units closer to 2.6%, against HDB's 5.2% to 8.6% range across flat types. Private property costs more per square foot without renting for proportionately more, so the rent-to-price ratio, which is what yield actually measures, comes out lower.
That gap is one reason an HDB flat is often the first rental property someone buys, well before a condo. It is not the only factor in an HDB-versus-condo decision, since financing rules, resale liquidity and tenant profile all differ too. Our HDB vs condo comparison covers the rest of that trade-off.
A yield figure means nothing if the flat cannot legally be rented out. Only Singapore Citizen owners can rent out a whole HDB flat, and only after fulfilling the Minimum Occupation Period: 5 years for most flats, or 3 years for a flat bought on the open market without a housing grant before 30 August 2010. Singapore Permanent Resident owners cannot rent out their whole flat under any circumstance. See our MOP glossary entry for how the period is calculated after a transfer of ownership.
There is also a non-citizen quota on top of that. No more than 8% of flats in a neighbourhood, and 11% in a single block, can be rented out in whole to non-Malaysian non-citizens at any one time. Once a block or neighbourhood hits that ceiling, only Singaporeans and Malaysians can take up a whole-flat tenancy there until a unit frees up. HDB runs a quota checker so an owner can confirm availability before signing a tenant.
Neither rule changes the yield math directly, but together they cap how many HDB flats can serve as whole-flat rentals for non-citizen tenants at any given time, which keeps demand for the remaining supply firmer than it would otherwise be.
Every HDB flat sits on a 99-year lease, and the remaining lease shortens every year regardless of whether a tenant is paying rent. Banks cap loan tenure and CPF usage once the remaining lease can no longer cover the youngest buyer to age 95, and resale valuations tend to soften faster once a flat's remaining lease drops under about 60 years.
A flat with a strong yield today in an older, mature estate can still turn out to be a worse long-term hold than a lower-yielding flat with 80 or more years left, because the exit price is doing more of the work over the holding period than the rent. None of the yield figures in this guide account for that. They describe what a flat earns now, not what it will be worth or how rentable it stays in twenty years, so treat yield as one input into a buying decision rather than the whole decision.
HDB's Resale Price Index fell 0.1% in Q1 2026 to 203.4, its first quarterly decline in six years, while HDB's rental index eased by the same 0.1% over the same quarter. When the rent figure and the price figure move by almost identical amounts, yield barely shifts, which is exactly what happened.
The bigger swing to watch is supply rather than price. A large share of Build-To-Order flats reaching their Minimum Occupation Period in 2026 sits in Punggol, Queenstown, Tampines, Toa Payoh and Bedok, and each of those flats can add to both the resale market and the rental market at the same time. Rental supply usually caps rents before it caps prices, since a landlord competes on rent immediately but can afford to hold out longer on price. If that pattern holds through the rest of 2026, yields on HDB flats in those five towns are the ones most likely to come under pressure first.
Based on Q1 2026 figures, HDB gross yields run from about 5.2% for 5-room flats up to 8.6% for the highest-yielding 3-room flats, against roughly 2.6% to 3.8% for private condos over the same quarter. A gross yield above the 4-room average of 5.7% to 8.0%, or a net yield above 4% once tax, conservancy charges and financing are subtracted, sits on the strong side of this market.
No. Only Singapore Citizen flat owners can rent out a whole HDB flat, and only after fulfilling the Minimum Occupation Period, which is 5 years for most flats or 3 years for certain flats bought on the open market before 30 August 2010. Singapore Permanent Resident owners cannot sublet the whole unit under any circumstance, though they may still rent out individual bedrooms under separate rules.
Net yield matters more when deciding whether to buy, since it reflects what actually lands in your bank account after non-owner-occupied property tax, service and conservancy charges, and any loan interest. Gross yield is still useful as a quick, comparable snapshot across flat types or towns before you commit to running the full numbers on one specific flat.
HDB resale prices per square foot sit well below private condo prices in the same area, but rents for a similarly sized unit are not proportionately lower. Since yield measures the ratio between rent and price, that gap pushes HDB yields higher even though condos have historically appreciated faster in dollar terms over a full property cycle.
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.