SP Services is the billing arm of SP Group, the company that runs Singapore's electricity grid, water network and gas pipes. One SP account covers all three utilities for your home, billed monthly. To open it you pay a one-time security deposit, which is $40 to $400 for Singaporeans and PRs depending on flat type, and roughly double that for foreigners. From 1 October 2026 the regulated electricity tariff is 31.16 cents per kWh including GST, town gas is 23.38 cents per kWh, and the first-tier water tariff is $1.43 per cubic metre before GST and before the two water taxes. A typical four-room HDB household spends somewhere around $150 to $250 a month across all three. This guide breaks down what each charge is, how to set the account up without overpaying, what the U-Save rebates knock off, and the moves that genuinely cut the bill.
SP Group owns and operates the physical infrastructure that delivers power, water and gas to every home in Singapore. SP Services is the customer-facing billing entity within it. When you move into a flat, you open an SP Services account, and that single account meters and bills your electricity, water and town gas together each month.
SP Services sends the bill, but the prices on it come from different places. SP Group reviews the regulated electricity tariff every quarter under guidelines set by the Energy Market Authority (EMA), the industry regulator, and EMA approves the result. Water prices are set by PUB, the national water agency. Town gas tariffs are set under EMA oversight and supplied by City Energy. SP Services reads the meters and collects payment for all three.
Since the Open Electricity Market opened fully in 2019, you can also buy your electricity from a licensed retailer like Geneco, Senoko or Keppel instead of paying the SP regulated tariff. Even if you do, SP still delivers the power through the same grid and still handles your water and gas. The retailer only changes the electricity rate, not who runs the wires.
Opening an account is free. There is no setup or admin fee. The only upfront cost is the security deposit, covered in the next section. You will need it sorted before you move in, because an empty unit usually has its supply turned off.
There are three ways to open one:
You have to be at least 18 to hold an SP account. Have these ready before you start: your NRIC, FIN or passport for ID; proof that you have the right to occupy the place, which is a tenancy agreement for renters or the Option to Purchase or title documents for owners; and the exact move-in date so SP can schedule the supply turn-on.
Give yourself a one-week lead time. SP asks you to apply about a week before you need power, because most homes need a turn-on appointment, not an instant remote switch. Leave it to the day you move and you can end up in a dark flat over a weekend.
If you are renting, the account normally goes in the tenant's name so the bills and the deposit follow the person actually using the utilities. Sort out with your landlord whether the deposit comes back to you or stays with the property at the end of the lease.
An HDB BTO flat is the easy case. The supply is switched on without a site visit, so there is no appointment to attend. Every other home type, resale HDB and private property alike, needs an on-site safety inspection before the power goes live, and you or someone you authorise has to be there to let the technician in. That is the real reason to book early rather than the night before.
Town gas is the part most people miss, because SP does not turn it on. Piped gas is handled by City Energy on a separate appointment. Once your SP account is open, call City Energy to book the gas turn-on; they confirm the slot the day before. If your home runs on bottled LPG or an induction hob, skip this step, there is no piped gas to connect.
The deposit is the one cost that surprises people. It is a refundable sum SP holds against unpaid bills, not a fee. It scales with how risky the account looks to SP, which mostly comes down to property type and your residency status.
For Singaporeans and PRs the deposit runs from around $40 for a one or two-room HDB flat up to about $400 for larger private property. For foreigners it is roughly double, from about $80 up to around $800. SP confirms the exact figure when you apply, since it depends on the specific property and account holder.
The deposit is not charged at the counter. It is added to your first bill, so your opening bill is larger than a normal month. When you close the account, on lease-end or sale, SP applies the deposit against your final bill and refunds any balance to you. The refund is not instant: SP asks for up to 30 business days to process it, so do not count on that cash the week you move.
Update, 13 October 2026: electricity is now 31.16 cents per kWh with GST, up from the 29.72 cents this guide quoted for April to June, and town gas is 23.38 cents, down from 23.89 cents. These are the rates that decide your bill. All three are reviewed regularly, so the figures below are for the current quarter, 1 October to 31 December 2026. The electricity and town gas tariffs are revised every quarter; water prices change far less often.
Electricity for the October to December 2026 quarter is 28.59 cents per kWh before GST, or 31.16 cents per kWh with the 9% GST added. That is a 10.4% drop, or 3.32 cents per kWh, from July to September, because natural gas prices were lower from July to mid-September. SP Group breaks the tariff into four parts: energy costs paid to the generation companies (the largest slice, which moves quarterly with fuel prices), network costs paid to run the grid, a market support services fee covering billing and metering, and a market administration and power system operation fee. The exact split per kWh is published each quarter in SP Group's tariff revision notice.
Town gas, used for cooking and water heating in many homes, is 21.45 cents per kWh before GST and 23.38 cents per kWh with GST for the same quarter. If your stove runs on bottled LPG instead of piped town gas, this rate does not apply to you.
| Utility | Rate before GST | Rate with 9% GST |
|---|---|---|
| Electricity | 28.59 c/kWh | 31.16 c/kWh |
| Town gas | 21.45 c/kWh | 23.38 c/kWh |
| Water tariff (first 40 m³/month) | $1.43/m³ | n/a |
| Water tariff (above 40 m³/month) | $1.81/m³ | n/a |
| Waterborne tax (first 40 m³) | $1.09/m³ | n/a |
| Waterborne tax (above 40 m³) | $1.40/m³ | n/a |
Water is the most confusing line on the bill because it is three charges stacked together, not one. First is the water tariff itself: $1.43 per cubic metre for the first 40 m³ a month, rising to $1.81 per cubic metre for anything above 40 m³. A cubic metre is 1,000 litres.
Second is the Water Conservation Tax, charged as a percentage of the tariff to nudge you to use less. It is 50% of the tariff on the first 40 m³, rising to 65% on usage above that. Third is the waterborne tax, which pays for treating used water: $1.09 per cubic metre for the first 40 m³ and $1.40 above it. Stack all three and the first 40 m³ effectively costs roughly $3.24 per cubic metre before GST, or about $3.53 with the 9% GST added. Most one or two-person households stay well under 40 m³, so they pay only the lower tier.
Your bill is consumption times tariff, plus the water taxes, plus GST. SP Group puts the average four-room HDB flat at about 391 kWh of electricity a month. At 31.16 cents per kWh that is about $122 for electricity alone, before any rebate. Add a few cubic metres of water and some town gas, and the all-in monthly figure for a typical four-room household lands somewhere around $150 to $250 depending on aircon habits, household size and whether you cook a lot.
Air-conditioning is almost always the biggest swing factor. A single aircon unit running several hours a night can add tens of dollars a month on its own. If your bill jumps in a hot month, the aircon is usually the reason, not a metering error.
Because the figure moves with your habits, the useful exercise is to read your own bill rather than trust an average. For how a typical home splits across power, water and gas by flat size, see our breakdown of the average water and electricity bill. Track the monthly total in your personal budget so a creeping bill shows up early instead of as a year-end surprise.
Most Singaporean HDB households get government help with utilities through the GST Voucher U-Save scheme. U-Save is paid quarterly, in April, July, October and January, and it is credited straight into your SP utilities account, so it lowers the actual bill rather than landing as cash. You do not apply; eligible households are paid automatically.
For Financial Year 2026 the amounts are larger than usual. Budget 2026 added an extra U-Save rebate in April and July 2026, equal to the regular amount, to help Singaporean HDB households with their utilities bills. Each of those two months paid up to $190 for the smallest flats ($95 regular plus $95 extra). The October 2026 and January 2027 payments are the regular amount only, up to $95 depending on flat type, and the full-year FY2026 total reaches up to $570 for the smallest flats.
Separately, Service & Conservancy Charges rebates from your town council offset the S&CC you pay (that is the estate maintenance fee, not part of the SP bill), worth 1.5 to 3.5 months of S&CC across FY2026 depending on flat type. To qualify for U-Save, a flat that is not rented out, or only partly rented out, needs at least one Singaporean owner or occupier. If the whole flat is rented out, at least one tenant must be Singaporean. Households whose members own more than one property do not qualify. See the GST Voucher guide for the full eligibility rules and how the components fit together.
| Flat type | April and July 2026, each (regular + Budget 2026) | October 2026 and January 2027, each | Total for FY2026 |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1- and 2-room | $190 ($95 + $95) | $95 | $570 |
| 3-room | $170 ($85 + $85) | $85 | $510 |
| 4-room | $150 ($75 + $75) | $75 | $450 |
| 5-room | $130 ($65 + $65) | $65 | $390 |
| Executive / multi-gen | $110 ($55 + $55) | $55 | $330 |
SP bills monthly and gives you several ways to pay. The choice matters because the right one lowers the deposit, avoids late fees and gives you a clean record for budgeting.
Late or unpaid bills can lead to a reminder fee and, if ignored long enough, supply disconnection, after which a reconnection charge applies. None of that happens on GIRO as long as the bank account has funds, which is the practical reason to use it.
Moving out is where people lose money by doing nothing. The account stays in your name until you actively close it, so an unclosed account keeps billing you, or worse, leaves your refundable deposit sitting with SP after you have handed back the keys. Treat the close-out as a moving-day task, not an afterthought.
Tell SP at least a few working days before you leave, through the same app or portal you opened the account on, and give the date you want the supply read and the account ended. SP takes a final meter reading, issues a closing bill, and offsets your deposit against it. Anything left over is refunded, which is the moment your bank or PayNow details on the account have to be correct, or the refund has nowhere to land.
If you are a renter, line this up with your landlord. The handover bill and the deposit refund both depend on whose name the account was in, so confirm that early rather than chasing it after you have left. A clean close-out also matters for the rest of your move-out admin, which sits alongside the deposits and fees in the renting in Singapore guide.
The regulated SP tariff is the default. Under the Open Electricity Market you can instead buy electricity from a licensed retailer, which only changes your electricity rate; SP still delivers it and still handles water and gas, and your wires and meter do not change. Retailers typically offer two plan types: a fixed price per kWh locked in for the contract term, or a discount off the prevailing SP tariff.
Whether switching saves money depends entirely on where wholesale energy prices sit. When the regulated tariff is high, a fixed-rate plan signed earlier can beat it; when prices fall, the regulated tariff can be the cheaper option and a fixed plan locks you in above market. There is no permanent winner, which is why this is a recurring decision, not a one-off.
Compare the per-kWh rate honestly, not the headline discount. A '20% off' plan is meaningless without knowing what it is 20% off and whether that reference price moves. Watch for the contract length, early-termination charges, auto-renewal terms and any security deposit the retailer asks for. If a plan's total cost is genuinely lower than the SP tariff over the lock-in period, switching is worth it; if the gap is a dollar or two a month, the admin rarely is. The official electricity retailer comparison lays out the current plans side by side.
Tariffs and rebates are mostly out of your hands. Consumption is not, and it is where the real savings sit. The biggest lever by far is air-conditioning, followed by the water heater and standby power.
Cutting your monthly utilities by even $30 frees up $360 a year. That is not life-changing on its own, but redirected into a compounding habit it is the kind of small, repeatable saving that genuinely adds up over time. Trim the avoidable spend, keep the lights and aircon you genuinely want, and let the rebates and GIRO do the rest automatically.
SP Services is the billing arm of SP Group, the company that runs Singapore's electricity grid, water network and gas pipes. One SP Services account covers your home's electricity, water and town gas, billed together every month. SP delivers the utilities and collects payment. SP Group reviews the electricity tariff every quarter under EMA guidelines and EMA approves it; town gas tariffs are set under EMA oversight and water prices by PUB.
The refundable security deposit is roughly $40 to $400 for Singaporeans and PRs depending on property type, and about double that ($80 to $800) for foreigners. It is added to your first bill, not charged separately. Paying by GIRO lowers it, for example from $100 to $70 for a Singaporean or PR in a 3-, 4- or 5-room HDB flat.
For 1 October to 31 December 2026 the regulated electricity tariff is 28.59 cents per kWh before GST, or 31.16 cents per kWh with the 9% GST. SP Group reviews it every quarter under Energy Market Authority guidelines, and it moves mainly with natural gas prices. Town gas for the same quarter is 23.38 cents per kWh with GST.
Use the SP Utilities app or online portal with Singpass and MyInfo, which is free and fastest, or visit an SP Customer Service Centre. Have your NRIC, FIN or passport, your tenancy agreement or property documents, and your move-in date ready. Apply a few working days before you move in so the supply can be turned on.
GST Voucher U-Save is paid quarterly (April, July, October, January) and credited directly into your SP account to lower the bill, with no application needed. For FY2026, Budget 2026 added an extra rebate equal to the regular amount in April and July 2026, so each of those months paid up to $190 for the smallest flats. The October 2026 and January 2027 payments are the regular amount, up to $95, and the full-year FY2026 total reaches up to $570 for the smallest flats. To qualify, the flat needs at least one Singaporean owner or occupier, or at least one Singaporean tenant if the whole flat is rented out, and households whose members own more than one property are excluded.
Sometimes. Under the Open Electricity Market you can buy electricity from a retailer instead of the SP regulated tariff, while SP still delivers it. A fixed-rate plan beats the tariff when energy prices are high but can cost more when they fall. Compare the actual per-kWh rate over the contract length, and watch for early-termination fees and auto-renewal.
GIRO. It auto-deducts the bill each month so you never incur a late fee, and SP charges GIRO customers a smaller security deposit. PayNow, credit card, eNETS and AXS also work for manual payment. Using a rewards credit card can earn points, but check that your card does not exclude utilities.
Plan for about a week. SP asks for a one-week lead time from your application because most homes need an on-site turn-on appointment before the power goes live. An HDB BTO flat is the exception, with no appointment needed. Apply through the SP app or portal with Singpass a week before your move-in date rather than on the day itself.
For an HDB BTO flat, no, the supply is switched on without a visit. For a resale HDB flat or any private property, yes: a technician does an on-site safety inspection before turning on the power, and you or someone you authorise must be there to let them in. Piped town gas is a separate turn-on handled by City Energy, which you book by phone after your SP account is open.
Tell SP a few working days before you leave, through the same app or portal you opened the account on, and give the date to end the supply. SP takes a final meter reading, issues a closing bill, offsets your security deposit against it, and refunds any balance. The refund can take up to 30 business days, so make sure your bank or PayNow details on the account are correct before you close it. You cannot transfer an account to a new address; close the old one and open a new account at the new home. City Energy charges a fee to end piped gas supply, and if you buy electricity from a retailer, close that account with the retailer too.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change, so verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.
Junxiong-WFG Organisation is an authorised representative of AIA Financial Advisers Private Limited (Reg. No. 201715016G).