Singapore has 15 or so registered political parties, but after the General Election on 3 May 2025 only two hold elected seats: the People's Action Party, which won 87 of the 97 contested seats with 65.57% of the vote, and the Workers' Party, which kept all 10 of its seats and added two Non-Constituency MP seats. Every other party that contested, from the Progress Singapore Party to Red Dot United and the Singapore Democratic Party, won nothing. The 15th Parliament that opened on 5 September 2025 holds 87 PAP MPs, 10 WP MPs, 2 WP NCMPs and 9 appointed Nominated MPs, with Lawrence Wong as Prime Minister and Tharman Shanmugaratnam as President. This guide explains what each party stands for and the part most explainers skip: the money. Parliament sets your income tax, GST, CPF rules and housing grants, MPs draw a fixed allowance, candidates lodge a cash deposit to run, and foreign donations are banned. Knowing who decides those rules is worth more to your wallet than knowing party colours.
Start with the scoreboard, because that is what changes between elections. At GE2025, all 97 directly elected seats were contested across 18 Group Representation Constituencies and 15 Single Member Constituencies. Voter turnout was 92.83%, the lowest since 1968 but still high by world standards, out of 2,758,858 registered electors.
The People's Action Party has governed Singapore continuously since 1959 and won this election comfortably. Its leader, Lawrence Wong, is the fourth Prime Minister and took over the party as Secretary-General in December 2024. The Workers' Party is the only opposition party with elected seats, holding Aljunied GRC, Sengkang GRC and Hougang SMC. Its two best-performing losing candidates, Andre Low (Jalan Kayu SMC) and Eileen Chong (Tampines GRC), were appointed NCMPs.
So the 15th Parliament has 108 members in total: 87 PAP MPs, 10 elected WP MPs, 2 WP NCMPs, and 9 Nominated MPs who belong to no party. Seah Kian Peng is the Speaker. That is the real map of who debates and votes on the laws that touch your money.
| Party | Candidates fielded | Vote share | Seats won |
|---|---|---|---|
| People's Action Party (PAP) | 97 | 65.57% | 87 |
| Workers' Party (WP) | 26 | 14.99% | 10 + 2 NCMP |
| Progress Singapore Party (PSP) | 13 | 4.88% | 0 |
| Red Dot United (RDU) | 15 | 3.96% | 0 |
| Singapore Democratic Party (SDP) | 11 | 3.72% | 0 |
| People's Alliance for Reform (PAR) | 13 | 2.51% | 0 |
| Singapore Democratic Alliance (SDA) | 4 | 1.22% | 0 |
| Singapore People's Party (SPP) | 5 | 1.18% | 0 |
| Singapore United Party (SUP) | 5 | 0.66% | 0 |
| People's Power Party (PPP) | 10 | 0.65% | 0 |
| National Solidarity Party (NSP) | 10 | 0.13% | 0 |
The PAP has won every general election since self-government in 1959, which makes Singapore one of the longest single-party-dominant democracies in the world. It runs the government, picks the Cabinet, and sets the national Budget every February. When you read about a change to income tax brackets, the GST rate, CPF contribution rates or HDB grants, it came from a PAP government and was passed by a PAP majority.
Its current Secretary-General is Lawrence Wong, who is also Prime Minister and Finance Minister. The party brands itself around economic competence, low debt, and steady long-term planning, and its policy decisions are the ones that land directly in your pay slip and your CPF statement. If you want to understand why your take-home pay looks the way it does, start with how Parliament structures income tax and CPF contributions.
The Workers' Party is the main opposition and the only non-PAP party with elected seats. Founded in 1957, it broke through in 2011 by winning Aljunied GRC, the first opposition GRC win, and has held ground since. It positions itself as a check on the government rather than a government-in-waiting, pushing for things like a minimum wage, more affordable healthcare, and tighter scrutiny of public spending.
Its Secretary-General is Pritam Singh and its Chair is Sylvia Lim. Singh held the formal title of Leader of the Opposition, a salaried role created in 2020, until Parliament voted in January 2026 to remove him from that post following his conviction in 2025 for lying to a parliamentary committee, a conviction the High Court upheld on appeal in December 2025. He remains an elected MP for Aljunied. The party still holds its three constituencies and its two NCMP seats.
For most readers the practical point is this: WP MPs are the ones who question ministers on bread-and-butter costs in Parliament, so their speeches are a useful source if you want to follow debates on healthcare bills, CPF withdrawals or the cost of living.
Several parties contested GE2025, polled respectably, and still won nothing, because Singapore's first-past-the-post system gives no consolation seats beyond the NCMP scheme. They matter because they shape debate and can break through in future.
The Progress Singapore Party, founded in 2019 by former PAP MP Tan Cheng Bock, held two NCMP seats from 2020 but lost both at GE2025 after polling 4.88% nationally. The Singapore Democratic Party, led by veteran Chee Soon Juan, is one of the older opposition parties and campaigns hard on housing affordability and free speech. Red Dot United, a newer party, polled 3.96% and is building a younger base. The Singapore People's Party, People's Power Party, National Solidarity Party, Singapore Democratic Alliance, People's Alliance for Reform and Singapore United Party also fielded candidates with smaller shares.
Centre-leaning, founded by Dr Tan Cheng Bock. Focuses on cost of living, jobs for locals, and CPF policy. Held NCMP seats from 2020 to 2025 but currently has no representation in Parliament.
Led by Dr Chee Soon Juan, Secretary-General since 1993. Known for detailed policy papers on housing and healthcare, including proposals to lower HDB prices by changing how land cost is priced in.
Red Dot United, the Singapore People's Party, National Solidarity Party, People's Power Party, People's Alliance for Reform, Singapore Democratic Alliance and Singapore United Party each contested and each won under 4% of the vote. None hold seats, but registered parties can field candidates at any future election.
Vote share tells you who is winning now. Founding year tells you who has staying power. The People's Action Party registered on 21 November 1954, five years before self-government, which is why it has run every government since. The Workers' Party is almost as old, registered in 1957, and that long history is part of why it, not a newer party, became the lasting opposition. Most of the small parties that contested GE2025 are far younger, several formed only after 2019, which helps explain why they polled respectably but converted nothing into seats.
Use the table below as a quick reference for who each party is and roughly where it sits. We have kept the labels plain: ruling party, main opposition, opposition, or opposition coalition. None of the figures here change your tax bill directly, but knowing how long a party has been around tells you how seriously to weigh its policy papers against a single election cycle.
| Party | Abbrev. | Registered | Standing in 2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| People's Action Party | PAP | 1954 | Ruling party, 87 seats |
| Workers' Party | WP | 1957 | Main opposition, 10 seats + 2 NCMP |
| Singapore Democratic Party | SDP | 1980 | Opposition, no seats |
| National Solidarity Party | NSP | 1987 | Opposition, no seats |
| Singapore People's Party | SPP | 1994 | Opposition, no seats |
| Singapore Democratic Alliance | SDA | 2001 | Opposition coalition, no seats |
| People's Power Party | PPP | 2015 | Opposition, no seats |
| Progress Singapore Party | PSP | 2019 | Opposition, no seats |
| Red Dot United | RDU | 2020 | Opposition, no seats |
| Singapore United Party | SUP | 2020 | Opposition, no seats |
| People's Alliance for Reform | PAR | 2023 | Opposition coalition, no seats |
A political party in Singapore is not a loose club. It is a legal body, registered with the Registry of Societies under the Ministry of Home Affairs, under the Societies Act of 1966. Political associations are treated as a special category that cannot use the fast automatic-registration track, so the Registrar reviews each application and can refuse one whose rules do not provide for proper management and control. The same Registrar can also order a party deregistered if it breaks the rules or goes dormant, which is why the list of active parties shrinks and grows between elections.
Registration is only the first gate. To actually contest a seat, a party still fields candidates who each lodge the election deposit, file nomination papers on Nomination Day, and account for every dollar of campaign spending afterwards. Spending is capped per voter in each constituency, and parties must declare donations under the rules covered below. The effect is a system where forming a party is achievable, but running a real national campaign costs money and invites scrutiny, which keeps the field of serious contenders small.
For voters the practical signal is this: a registered party can field candidates at any future election, even one with no seats today. So the eleven active parties above, not just the two in Parliament, are the pool from which the next contest is drawn.
Singapore does not use simple one-MP-per-area voting everywhere. There are two kinds of seats. A Single Member Constituency returns one MP by first-past-the-post, the way most countries do it. A Group Representation Constituency returns a team of three to six MPs who all stand together under one party, and you vote for the whole team. At least one member of every GRC team must be from a minority racial community, which is the official reason the system exists. At GE2025 there were 18 GRCs and 15 SMCs.
Two extra mechanisms add non-elected voices. The Non-Constituency MP scheme guarantees a minimum number of opposition seats by handing them to the best-performing losing opposition candidates, which is how the WP got two more seats this round. The Nominated MP scheme lets the President appoint up to nine non-partisan members for two-and-a-half-year terms, on the recommendation of a parliamentary committee, to bring in expertise from outside party politics. NCMPs and NMPs can speak and vote on almost everything, with a few exceptions like constitutional amendments and supply (Budget) bills.
The practical upshot for you: a GRC vote is a package deal, and the system is built to keep a working government majority while guaranteeing a floor of opposition and independent voices.
This is where a finance guide earns its place. Politics in Singapore runs on real, published numbers. An elected MP receives an allowance of about $192,500 a year, made up of a monthly allowance, a thirteenth-month component and a performance-linked variable bonus. MPs who are also Ministers draw their ministerial salary on top, and the Prime Minister's benchmark salary is roughly $2.2 million a year including bonuses. These figures are debated openly precisely because they are paid from public money, the same Consolidated Fund your GST and income tax flow into.
Running for office is not free either. At GE2025 every candidate had to put down an election deposit of $13,500, pegged to a month of an MP's allowance and rounded to the nearest $500. You only get it back if you win at least 12.5% of the valid votes in your constituency. At GE2025, 27 candidates from smaller parties fell below that line and forfeited their deposits, $364,500 in total, paid into the Consolidated Fund. That threshold is part of why micro-parties think twice before fielding full slates.
Party funding is tightly controlled. Under the Political Donations Act, parties and candidates cannot accept money from foreigners or foreign entities at all, and anonymous donations are capped at under $5,000 in total per reporting period. Permitted donors are essentially Singapore citizens aged 21 and over and Singapore-controlled companies doing business mainly here. Breaching these rules is a criminal offence. The point of the regime is to keep foreign money out of domestic politics, which also means parties here run on comparatively small war chests.
| Item | Figure | Why it matters |
|---|---|---|
| MP annual allowance | About $192,500 | Paid from public funds; sets the deposit peg |
| PM benchmark salary | About $2.2 million | Includes bonuses; tied to private-sector benchmarks |
| Election deposit (GE2025) | $13,500 per candidate | Refunded only if you poll 12.5% or more |
| Deposits forfeited GE2025 | $364,500 (27 candidates) | Goes to the Consolidated Fund |
| Foreign donations | Banned outright | Political Donations Act |
| Anonymous donations | Under $5,000 per period | Capped to limit hidden funding |
Singapore created a formal Leader of the Opposition post for the first time in 2020, after the Workers' Party won a second Group Representation Constituency. The government announced the designation on 11 July 2020 and gave the holder extra duties, the right of first response in debates, confidential briefings on national security, staff and an office. It also attached a salary. The official package is set at $385,000 a year, which is double an ordinary MP's allowance and includes that MP allowance, paid from public funds like every other parliamentary salary.
Pritam Singh held the role from August 2020. Parliament voted in January 2026 to remove him from it following his 2025 conviction for lying to a parliamentary committee, a conviction the High Court upheld on appeal in December 2025. He keeps his elected seat in Aljunied but no longer draws the Leader of the Opposition package, and the post sits vacant. The point for a reader watching public spending is that the role, its powers and its $385,000 price tag are written down and debated openly, the same as the MP allowance and the Prime Minister's salary.
You do not need to join a party to feel its decisions. Parliament is where your CPF contribution rates are set, where the GST rate moved to 9% in 2024, where income tax reliefs are added or trimmed, and where housing grants and BTO rules are written. Every Budget in February is a list of decisions about your money, and it passes or fails on the votes of the MPs above.
If you want to follow how a specific policy affects you, the cleaner path is usually the policy itself rather than party slogans. Our guides on CPF retirement sums, HDB housing grants and the CDC vouchers scheme track the actual rules and figures. Pair those with the tax pillar guide and you will understand the practical output of Parliament far better than any party manifesto explains it.
The single most useful habit is to read the Budget statement each year and check what changed for your income band, your CPF account and your housing plans. That is the moment party politics turns into dollars in or out of your account.
One date worth keeping in view: the next general election. No date is fixed yet, but the 15th Parliament first sat on 5 September 2025, and the Constitution caps a Parliament's term at five years from its first sitting. With the short window allowed after dissolution, the next vote must be held by 5 December 2030, though the Prime Minister can call it sooner. The Budgets between now and then are where the figures that hit your pay slip and your CPF statement actually get set.
There are around 15 registered political parties, but only two hold elected seats in the 15th Parliament: the People's Action Party (87 seats) and the Workers' Party (10 elected seats plus 2 NCMP seats). Every other party that contested GE2025 won no seats.
The People's Action Party won, taking 87 of the 97 contested seats with 65.57% of the national vote on 3 May 2025. The Workers' Party retained all 10 of its seats and gained 2 NCMP seats, becoming the only opposition party in Parliament.
Lawrence Wong is the fourth Prime Minister, in office since 15 May 2024, and also serves as Finance Minister and PAP Secretary-General. Tharman Shanmugaratnam is the President, having taken office in September 2023.
An SMC elects one MP by first-past-the-post. A GRC elects a team of three to six MPs who stand together under one party, with at least one team member from a minority racial community. GE2025 had 18 GRCs and 15 SMCs.
NCMP (Non-Constituency MP) seats go to the best-performing losing opposition candidates to guarantee a minimum opposition presence. NMP (Nominated MP) seats are filled by up to nine non-partisan members appointed by the President for two-and-a-half-year terms. The 15th Parliament has 2 NCMPs and 9 NMPs.
An elected MP receives an allowance of about $192,500 a year, including a thirteenth-month component and a variable bonus. MPs who are also Ministers draw a ministerial salary on top. The Prime Minister's benchmark salary is roughly $2.2 million a year including bonuses.
At GE2025 the deposit was $13,500 per candidate, refunded only if the candidate polled at least 12.5% of valid votes in their constituency. At GE2025, 27 candidates lost their deposits, forfeiting $364,500 to the Consolidated Fund.
No. The Political Donations Act bans donations from foreigners and foreign entities outright, and caps anonymous donations at under $5,000 per reporting period. Permitted donors are mainly Singapore citizens aged 21 and over and Singapore-controlled companies operating mainly in Singapore.
No date is fixed yet. The 15th Parliament first sat on 5 September 2025, and the Constitution caps a Parliament's term at five years from its first sitting. With the three-month window allowed after dissolution, the next general election must be held by 5 December 2030, though the Prime Minister can call it earlier.
A party registers with the Registry of Societies under the Ministry of Home Affairs, under the Societies Act of 1966. Political associations cannot use the automatic-registration track, so the Registrar reviews each application and can refuse or later cancel a registration. Registration lets a party field candidates, but it must still lodge deposits and file nomination papers to contest a seat.
The official Leader of the Opposition package is set at $385,000 a year, double an ordinary MP's allowance and inclusive of that MP allowance. The role was created in 2020 and held by Pritam Singh from August 2020 until Parliament removed him in January 2026, after which the post and its salary have sat vacant.
The People's Action Party registered on 21 November 1954 and the Workers' Party in 1957, which is why both have lasted. Most other active parties are far younger: the Singapore Democratic Party (1980), the Progress Singapore Party (2019), Red Dot United (2020) and the People's Alliance for Reform (2023). Founding year is a rough guide to how tested a party's platform is.
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.