NUS hostel fees are billed by the week, not the semester, and the figure swings hard depending on what you pick. For students matriculated from AY2025/2026, a double room in a hall of residence runs S$104 a week and a single S$151 a week; a single in a residential college is S$187 a week with air-con; and a single in Prince George's Park Residences tops out at S$272 a week. Those are the official Office of Student Affairs rates, GST-inclusive, per person. The number most people miss is the meal plan: halls and residential colleges make it compulsory, and it adds S$621 to S$1,148 a semester on top of the room. This guide gives you every 2026 room rate by hostel type, the all-in semester and year cost once meals and air-con utilities are added, how rooms are actually allocated, and where the cheapest beds on campus are.
NUS prices accommodation by room type and by hostel category, and the rate is quoted per week. For the AY2025/2026 rates that apply to students matriculated from AY2025/2026, the cheapest bed on campus is a double (twin) room in one of the six halls of residence at S$104 a week. A single in a hall is S$151 a week. Step up to a residential college or one of the houses and an air-conditioned single is S$187 a week; the non-air-con version is S$165. The priciest standard room is an air-conditioned single in Prince George's Park Residences at S$272 a week.
Two costs sit on top of the room rate and catch people out. First, halls and residential colleges require you to buy a meal plan: roughly S$671 in semester one and S$621.30 in semester two for a hall, and S$1,147.77 and S$1,062.75 for a residential college, all per semester. Second, air-conditioned rooms bill utilities separately on a pay-as-you-use basis, so the weekly rate is not the whole air-con bill. A non-air-con room avoids that second charge entirely.
Across a full academic year (35 weeks of term, roughly 18 weeks in semester one and 17 in semester two), the room alone runs from about S$3,640 for a hall double to about S$9,520 for a PGPR single. Add the compulsory meal plan and a hall place lands near S$5,000 to S$6,500 a year all-in. That is the line item to slot into your wider personal budget calculator before you accept a room.
The table below is taken directly from the NUS Office of Student Affairs hostel rate schedule for non-graduate students matriculated from AY2025/2026. Every figure is in Singapore dollars, per week, per person, and inclusive of GST. The weekly rate is the same in both semesters; what changes between semesters is only the number of weeks billed (about 18 in semester one, 17 in semester two), so semester two costs slightly less in total.
Read it as four tiers. Halls of residence are the cheapest and the most CCA-heavy. Residential colleges, the NUS College wings (Cinnamon and West Wing) and the houses sit in the middle, with a guaranteed two-year stay and an academic programme attached. Ridge View Residential College is the value pick among the academic options, with a non-air-con double at S$108 a week. Prince George's Park Residences and UTown Residence are the apartment-style student residences, where you get more independence and pay for it.
| Hostel type | Room type | Weekly rate | Air-con? | Meal plan required? |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hall of Residence | Double (twin) | 104 | No | Yes |
| Hall of Residence | Single | 151 | No | Yes |
| Residential College / NUSC | Single | 187 | Yes | Yes |
| Residential College / NUSC | Single | 165 | No | Yes |
| Residential College / NUSC | 6-bedroom apt | 200 | Yes | Yes |
| Residential College / NUSC | 6-bedroom apt | 179 | No | Yes |
| Ridge View RC | Single | 180 | Yes | Yes |
| Ridge View RC | Single | 159 | No | Yes |
| Ridge View RC | Double | 118 | Yes | Yes |
| Ridge View RC | Double | 108 | No | Yes |
| Houses (Pioneer, Light, Helix) | Type C single | 187 | Yes | No |
| Houses (Pioneer, Light, Helix) | Type C single | 165 | No | No |
| Valor House | Single | 195 | Yes | No |
| PGPR single | Type A | 272 | Yes | No |
| PGPR single | Type C | 187 | Yes | No |
| PGPR single | Type B / Type C | 179 / 165 | No | No |
| PGPR twin-sharing apt | Twin | 210 | No | No |
| UTown Residence 4-bdrm apt | Single in apt | 187 / 165 | Yes / No | No |
| UTown Residence twin-sharing apt | Twin | 255 / 245 | Yes / No | No |
If you stay in a hall of residence or a residential college, the meal plan is not optional. NUS requires residents in those two categories to subscribe, and it is a fixed semester charge layered on top of the weekly room rate. For a hall, it is S$671 in semester one and S$621.30 in semester two, covering breakfast and dinner six days a week. For a residential college or NUS College, it is markedly higher at S$1,147.77 and S$1,062.75 per semester, again breakfast and dinner six days.
That difference matters. A residential college meal plan is roughly S$2,210 across the year versus about S$1,292 for a hall, a gap of nearly S$920 before you even compare room rates. There is no meal plan during vacation, and if a meal period is pro-rated, NUS uses a daily rate (the plan cost divided by total meal days, rounded up to the nearest five cents).
The houses and the student residences (PGPR, UTown Residence) do not impose a meal plan, which is the hidden lever in the whole decision. A 6-bedroom apartment with a kitchen lets you buy groceries and cook, and for a student who eats simply that can be far cheaper than a S$1,148-a-semester catered plan. If you are weighing a residential college against a house, run both through a quick food budget, not just the headline room rate. The lifestyle creep of catered convenience is real.
The weekly rate is only the start. To budget honestly, take the weekly room rate, multiply by the weeks billed (about 18 in semester one and 17 in semester two, so 35 weeks of term over the year), add the two semester meal-plan charges where they apply, then add an allowance for air-con utilities if your room has it.
Worked example for a hall double, the cheapest real option: S$104 x 35 weeks is about S$3,640 in room rent, plus S$671 and S$621.30 in meal plans, for roughly S$4,930 a year, with no air-con utility charge because hall rooms are non-air-con. A residential college air-con single is steeper: S$187 x 35 is about S$6,545 in rent, plus S$1,147.77 and S$1,062.75 in meals, for roughly S$8,760 before air-con utilities, which can add a few hundred dollars more depending on usage.
A PGPR air-con single with no meal plan but heavier utilities and self-catering sits differently again: S$272 x 35 is about S$9,520 in rent, then you buy your own food and pay metered air-con on top. The table below sets the realistic all-in annual band for each main option so you can see where the money goes. Treat these as planning estimates; your exact bill depends on weeks in residence and air-con use.
| Option | Room (year) | Meal plan (year) | Indicative all-in* |
|---|---|---|---|
| Hall double (non-AC) | ~3,640 | ~1,292 | ~4,930 |
| Hall single (non-AC) | ~5,285 | ~1,292 | ~6,580 |
| Ridge View double (non-AC) | ~3,780 | ~2,210 | ~5,990 |
| Residential college single (AC) | ~6,545 | ~2,210 | ~8,760+ utilities |
| House Type C single (non-AC) | ~5,775 | none | ~5,775 + own food |
| PGPR single (AC, Type A) | ~9,520 | none | ~9,520 + utilities + own food |
Price is half the battle; getting a room is the other half, and NUS does not allocate purely first-come. The mechanism differs by hostel type, so the cheapest option is not always the easiest to secure.
Halls of residence run on a points and selection system. As a freshman you apply through the Freshman Accommodation Exercise and are assessed largely on your pre-university co-curricular activities and what is available. Once you are in, staying put for later years means earning hall points through CCAs, sports and committee work; getting in as a freshman does not guarantee a bed for all your years. Only full-time NUS students are eligible, and international students must hold a valid ICA or MOM pass for the duration of the stay.
Residential colleges and NUS College work the other way. You apply to and are accepted into a programme (for example the Ridge View Residential College Programme, the University Town College Programme, or NUS College) and acceptance comes with a guaranteed two-year stay, no annual points chase. The trade is academic: residents clear programme modules (commonly around five) rather than rack up CCA points. Houses and the student residences (PGPR, UTown Residence) are allocated more on availability and category criteria. If certainty of a bed matters more to you than the lowest rate, a programme-linked residential college can be the safer bet.
Beyond the weekly rent and meals, expect a small set of one-off charges and a calendar to hit. The exact figures vary by hostel and year, so confirm on your hostel's own admissions page, but the structure is consistent: an application or registration fee when you apply, an acceptance fee or deposit when you take the room (often pegged to a portion of the rent), and then the recurring room and meal charges billed by semester.
On timing, the freshman exercise and the main hostel application windows open around the middle of the year, with outcomes released before the semester starts; the residential college programmes run their own application and interview cycles earlier. Payment is collected through the standard NUS channels, including PayNow and card. Because allocation is competitive, treat the application deadline as hard and have your CCA records or programme application ready well before it.
If you are funding the bill yourself, NUS offers Residential Programme Bursaries and a study loan, and the broader government schemes for tuition can free up cash for housing. The deeper question of how to fund your whole degree, including the new Higher Education Student Loan from July 2026, is covered in our guide to university fees in Singapore, and the trade-off of borrowing versus paying cash is the same opportunity cost calculation behind any student loan.
If you are choosing a university partly on the cost of living in, NUS is generally the cheapest of the three big names for an on-campus bed, mainly because its hall doubles start at S$104 a week and its rooms sit on a sprawling campus with plenty of supply. NTU prices its on-campus halls on a monthly basis, broadly from the low S$400s for a non-air-con double up to the high S$700s for an air-con en-suite single, which over a year lands in a similar band to NUS for like-for-like rooms, sometimes a touch higher for the premium room types.
SMU is the outlier because it is a city campus with no traditional halls. SMU students use off-campus partner residences such as Prinsep Street Residences or co-living operators near the campus, where monthly rents commonly run from the high S$500s into the S$900s and an academic year can total roughly S$11,000 to S$12,000, the priciest of the three. The city-centre location is the reason, and it is a different product from a points-based campus hall.
The honest comparison is not just sticker rate but what is bundled. NUS and NTU rates buy a campus room with a community and, in many cases, a meal plan; SMU's options are closer to renting a room in town. For a like-for-like read on the wider numbers, our comparison of the big Singapore universities and the graduate starting salaries each commands puts the housing cost in context against what the degree returns.
The lowest-cost path is the non-air-con hall double at S$104 a week, but it is also the most contested and ties you to a meal plan and the CCA points grind. If you value a guaranteed two-year bed, the Ridge View non-air-con double at S$108 a week is barely dearer on rent and removes the annual scramble, though its residential college meal plan is the expensive one.
If you want to dodge the compulsory meal plan altogether, a house or a kitchen-equipped apartment in PGPR or UTown Residence lets you self-cater, which a frugal cook can run well below a S$1,148-a-semester plan. Pair a non-air-con room with disciplined grocery shopping and the all-in cost can rival a hall while giving you more independence. The catch is the metered air-con if you pick an air-con unit, so a non-air-con room is the true budget play.
For some students the cheapest option is no hostel at all: living at home and commuting removes the entire S$5,000 to S$10,000-a-year line, leaving only transport and the odd late night. The honest trade is convenience and the campus experience against the money saved, and that is a personal call best made with the numbers in front of you. Whatever you choose, fold the housing figure into a goal-based plan early; our look at how to start investing shows what even a modest sum saved on rent can become if you redirect it.
NUS bills hostels by the week, not the month, but converting the AY2025/2026 rates: a hall double at S$104 a week is roughly S$450 a month, a hall single at S$151 is about S$650, a residential college air-con single at S$187 is around S$810, and a PGPR air-con Type A single at S$272 works out to about S$1,180 a month. Halls and residential colleges add a compulsory meal plan on top.
The cheapest bed is a non-air-con double (twin) room in a hall of residence at S$104 a week, followed closely by a non-air-con double at Ridge View Residential College at S$108 a week. Both require a meal plan. If you want to avoid the meal plan, a non-air-con house or apartment room and self-catering can come out cheaper overall, depending on how much you spend on food.
Yes, for residents of halls of residence and residential colleges (including NUS College), the meal plan is mandatory. It costs roughly S$671 in semester one and S$621.30 in semester two for a hall, and S$1,147.77 and S$1,062.75 for a residential college, covering breakfast and dinner six days a week. Houses and the student residences (PGPR, UTown Residence) do not require a meal plan, so you self-cater.
Halls allocate through the Freshman Accommodation Exercise, which weighs your pre-university co-curricular activities and availability rather than first-come. Staying in a hall for later years means earning hall points through CCAs, sports and committee roles. Residential colleges work differently: you apply to and are accepted into a programme such as Ridge View, UTown College or NUS College, and acceptance comes with a guaranteed two-year stay.
All published NUS hostel weekly rates are inclusive of GST, per person. However, air-conditioned rooms and apartments are not inclusive of air-con utility charges, which are billed separately on a prepaid or pay-as-you-use basis. Non-air-con rooms have no separate utility charge, which is why they are the true budget option.
For an on-campus bed, NUS is generally the cheapest, with hall doubles from S$104 a week. NTU's campus halls are priced monthly, roughly the low S$400s to high S$700s, landing in a similar annual band. SMU has no traditional halls; its students use off-campus partner residences in the city that can total around S$11,000 to S$12,000 a year, the most expensive of the three.
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.