A Singapore Treasury bill is a short-term debt instrument issued by the Singapore Government through the Monetary Authority of Singapore. You buy it below face value and get the full face value back at maturity, and the gap between the two is your return. There are two tenors: a 6-month T-bill and a 1-year T-bill. They are about as safe as a Singapore-dollar asset gets, since they carry the Government's AAA credit rating, and you can buy them with cash, CPF or SRS money. The catch is that the return is not fixed in advance. It is set at auction, and the rate you earn is whatever the auction settles on the day you apply.
T-bills are one type of Singapore Government Securities (SGS). Unlike an SGS bond, a T-bill pays no coupons along the way. It is sold at a discount and redeemed at face value. Put in $10,000 of face value at a price that works out to a 3% annualised yield on a 6-month bill, and you pay roughly $9,852 up front, then receive the full $10,000 about six months later. The roughly $148 difference is your return.
Because the Singapore Government issues them, T-bills carry its credit rating, which is the top AAA grade from the major agencies. There is no realistic default risk over a 6 or 12-month horizon. That is the trade you are making: a near-riskless place to park cash for a fixed period, in exchange for a yield that moves with short-term interest rates rather than one you lock in by shopping around.
The flip side of no coupons is that you get nothing until maturity. If you need the money earlier, you have to sell the T-bill on the secondary market, where the price you get depends on where rates have moved since you bought it. For most people, the point of a T-bill is to hold it to maturity and collect the face value.
Singapore issues two T-bill tenors, and the issuance rhythm differs between them.
The 6-month T-bill is the workhorse. It is auctioned roughly every two weeks, so there is almost always one coming up within the next fortnight. The 1-year T-bill is issued quarterly, so there are only about four auctions a year. If you specifically want the 1-year, you have to plan around its calendar; if you want the 6-month, you rarely wait long. MAS publishes the full auction and issuance calendar, so you can see the exact dates and issue codes for the year ahead.
| Feature | 6-month T-bill | 1-year T-bill |
|---|---|---|
| Tenor | About 6 months | About 12 months |
| Auction frequency | Roughly fortnightly | Roughly quarterly |
| Pays coupons | No (sold at a discount) | No (sold at a discount) |
| Minimum bid | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Bid increments | $1,000 | $1,000 |
| Buy with | Cash, SRS, CPF via CPFIS (OA, and SA for members under 55) | Cash, SRS, CPF via CPFIS (OA, and SA for members under 55) |
T-bills are sold by a uniform-price auction, not at a rate the bank quotes you. Institutional and retail investors submit bids stating how much they want and, if they choose, the yield they are willing to accept. MAS fills the lowest-yield bids first (those are the buyers willing to pay the most), working up until the issue is fully allotted. The yield of the last accepted bid becomes the cut-off yield, and everyone who is allotted T-bills gets that same cut-off yield, regardless of what they bid.
That single number, the cut-off yield, is the return you earn if your bid is filled. It is why you see headlines about the T-bill yield moving from one auction to the next. As a recent example, the 6-month T-bill issued on 9 June 2026 (code BS26111H) had a cut-off yield of 1.48%, and the 1-year T-bill auctioned on 16 April 2026 (code BY26101H) came in at 1.46%. These move every auction, so always check the cut-off yield of the latest auction on the MAS site before you apply.
Demand swings a lot between auctions, which affects your odds of getting filled. The amount applied for can be many times the amount on offer in one auction and barely above it in the next. That ratio matters most if you bid non-competitively, which is what most individuals do.
When you apply, you choose one of two bid types. The difference is whether you name a yield.
You state only how much you want, not a yield. You accept whatever the cut-off yield turns out to be. Non-competitive bids are filled first, up to 40% of the total issue. If non-competitive demand is below 40% of the issue, every non-competitive bid is filled in full. If it exceeds 40%, the available amount is shared pro-rata, so you might get less than you asked for and the rest is refunded.
This is the simplest route and the one most individuals use. You are guaranteed the cut-off yield if you are allotted, and you do not have to guess where rates will land. The risk is allotment, not pricing: in a heavily oversubscribed auction you could be scaled down.
You state the maximum yield you are willing to accept, to two decimal places. If your bid yield is at or below the cut-off yield, you are allotted, and you still receive the cut-off yield, not the yield you bid. If you bid a yield higher than the cut-off, you get nothing. Bids exactly at the cut-off yield may be filled only partially.
Competitive bidding gives you control over your minimum acceptable rate, at the cost of possibly being left out entirely. It suits investors with a firm view on where the yield should settle. If you are unsure, a non-competitive bid is the safer default.
The minimum bid is $1,000, and you bid in multiples of $1,000. There is no cap on the total amount of T-bills an individual can hold, but each non-competitive bid is capped at $1 million per auction, which is far above what most retail investors apply for.
There is no separate sales charge from MAS for buying at auction. Your bank may apply a small transaction or service fee, and CPF purchases attract CPF agent-bank charges (covered below). For a cash application, what you pay is the discounted purchase amount; the difference up to face value comes back to you at maturity.
Buying a T-bill with cash needs two things in place before you apply: a bank account with one of the three local banks (DBS/POSB, OCBC or UOB) and an individual CDP Securities account with Direct Crediting Service activated, so the maturity proceeds land in your bank account automatically.
Once that is set up, you apply through the internet banking or mobile app of DBS/POSB, OCBC or UOB, or at their ATMs. You select the T-bill by its issue code, choose a non-competitive or competitive bid, and enter the amount. Note the application cut-off: it is usually around 9pm one business day before the auction, and at least one bank closes its window a day earlier than the others, so do not leave it to the last evening.
On a non-competitive bid you pay the full face value of what you applied for up front, then the discount is refunded shortly after the auction once the cut-off price is known. If your bid is scaled down or not filled, the unused cash is returned to your account within a few business days. The maturity proceeds are paid into the bank account linked to your CDP. To weigh a T-bill against keeping the money invested, our fixed deposit vs investing calculator is a useful sanity check.
A few settlement details trip people up. The T-bill is issued three business days after the auction (T+3), so your money is committed but not yet earning until the issue date. The bid must come from an individual CDP account; joint CDP accounts are not accepted for T-bills, so a couple bidding together each apply separately. After issuance, a cash purchase shows up in your CDP statement, not on SGX, which catches out first-timers who go looking in their brokerage app and panic when nothing appears. T-bills are held in board lots of $100 face value, so a $10,000 application is recorded as 100 units.
You can also buy T-bills with CPF Ordinary Account or Special Account savings and with SRS funds, but the mechanics and the maths differ from cash.
For SRS, you apply through the internet banking portal of your SRS operator (DBS/POSB, OCBC or UOB). It works much like a cash bid, except the money moves in and out of your SRS account, and the return stays inside the SRS wrapper. If you have idle SRS cash earning next to nothing, a T-bill is a low-risk way to put it to work without leaving the scheme. See our SRS calculator for how SRS contributions and withdrawals are taxed.
For CPF, you buy through the CPF Investment Scheme using your agent bank (DBS/POSB, OCBC or UOB), and only your agent bank can process the application so the settlement flows correctly. Most CPF buyers now use Ordinary Account money through CPFIS-OA: the Special Account was closed for members aged 55 and above in early 2025, and CPFIS-SA investing in low-risk products such as T-bills only remains available to members under 55. CPF savings can be invested only after you have set aside the required minimum balance, and there are agent-bank charges of $2.50 plus GST per transaction and a $2 quarterly service fee per counter while you hold the T-bill. The eligibility thresholds and the CPFIS rules have changed in recent years, so confirm the current set-aside amounts and which CPF accounts you can still use on the CPF Board site before you apply.
The catch with CPF OA is the interest you give up. CPF OA already earns a floor rate of 2.5% a year, and the way CPF computes interest means you can lose up to two months of OA interest in the round trip of taking money out and putting the maturity proceeds back. A T-bill only makes sense for OA money if its yield clears that 2.5% floor by enough to cover the lost interest and the agent-bank fees. When the cut-off yield sits below the OA rate, buying T-bills with OA money usually leaves you worse off than just leaving it in the OA. Run the numbers each time rather than assuming.
T-bills sit between two other popular safe options for Singapore-dollar cash. Singapore Savings Bonds (SSBs) are also Government-issued and even more flexible; fixed deposits are bank products with a rate quoted up front. The right pick depends on how long you want to commit and how much certainty you need.
| Feature | T-bill | Singapore Savings Bond | Fixed deposit |
|---|---|---|---|
| Issuer | Singapore Government (MAS) | Singapore Government (MAS) | A bank (covered by SDIC up to $100k) |
| Tenor | 6 months or 1 year | Up to 10 years, exit anytime | Typically 1 to 24 months |
| Rate known before you commit | No (set at auction) | Yes (rates published upfront) | Yes (quoted by the bank) |
| Early exit | Sell on secondary market at market price | Redeem any month, no penalty | Usually forfeit interest if broken early |
| Minimum | $1,000 | $500 | Varies by bank, often $1,000 to $20,000 |
| Buy with CPF/SRS | Yes (CPF via CPFIS-OA, plus SA for members under 55, and SRS) | SRS only | Cash only (most banks) |
If you have a fixed timeline of 6 or 12 months and want a Government-backed return, a T-bill is a clean fit, especially for a lump sum you will not touch. The yield is uncertain until the auction, but the credit risk is as low as it gets.
If you want to keep the money fully accessible and still earn a Government rate, an SSB is the better match because you can redeem in any month with no penalty and still get the interest accrued. Read our Singapore Savings Bonds guide for how the step-up rates work, and SSB vs T-bill vs fixed deposit for a side-by-side.
If you would rather lock a rate you can see today and skip the auction guesswork, a promotional fixed deposit can win, particularly when banks are competing for deposits. Compare the latest offers in our best fixed deposit rates guide. The honest answer is that the gap between these three is often small, so it usually comes down to access and convenience rather than chasing the last few basis points.
The cut-off yield is quoted as an annual rate, but a 6-month T-bill only runs for half a year, so the cash you receive is roughly half that rate on the amount you put in. Knowing how to convert the yield into dollars stops you from over- or under-estimating the payout.
Start from the price. The purchase price for $100 of face value is 100 minus the discount, where the discount is the annual cut-off yield scaled to the number of days the bill runs. For a 6-month bill the period is about 182 days; for a 1-year bill about 364. The return is simply the face value you get back minus the price you paid.
Take a 6-month T-bill at a 1.48% cut-off yield, the rate from the 9 June 2026 auction. On $10,000 of face value you pay about $9,927 up front and receive $10,000 at maturity, a gain of roughly $73 over six months. At a 3% cut-off the same $10,000 would cost about $9,852 and pay back $148. The table below shows how the dollar return scales with the rate so you can sanity-check any auction.
If you want to compare that against compounding a lump sum elsewhere, our compound interest calculator lets you line the two up over the same period.
| Cut-off yield | Approx. price you pay | Cash back at maturity | Your return |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1.50% | $9,926 | $10,000 | about $74 |
| 2.00% | $9,901 | $10,000 | about $99 |
| 2.50% | $9,877 | $10,000 | about $123 |
| 3.00% | $9,852 | $10,000 | about $148 |
| 3.50% | $9,828 | $10,000 | about $172 |
For an individual in Singapore, the return on a T-bill is tax-free. The discount you earn between the price you pay and the face value you get back counts as qualifying income from Singapore Government Securities, and individuals do not pay tax on it. If you sell before maturity and the price has moved in your favour, that gain is also untaxed, because Singapore has no capital gains tax.
This is one quiet advantage over some alternatives. A fixed-deposit return is interest, which for an individual is generally exempt too when the deposit sits with an approved bank, so on tax the two usually end up level. The point is that you keep the full headline yield on a T-bill rather than handing a slice to IRAS. You also have nothing to declare in your tax return for the T-bill itself.
The exemption is for individuals. If you hold T-bills through a company or as part of a trading business, different rules apply, so check the specifics for that case.
Because a T-bill pays nothing until maturity, getting out early means selling it on the secondary market. You do that through a dealer bank (DBS/POSB, OCBC or UOB) or on SGX, and the price you get depends on where short-term rates have gone since you bought. If rates have risen, your bill is worth less than you paid; if they have fallen, you may get a small premium. T-bill secondary trading is thin compared with the auction, so do not assume you will get a clean price on a large lot at short notice. Treat early exit as a fallback, not a plan.
The bigger practical risk for most holders is not getting out early but what happens at maturity. When a 6-month bill matures, you have to decide where the cash goes next, and the rate on offer then may be lower than the one you just earned. That is reinvestment risk, and it bites hardest if you park a large sum in a single tenor and the whole lot rolls over on one date.
Laddering smooths that out. Instead of putting everything into one auction, you split the money across several issues that mature at staggered dates, for example a slice every fortnight across a few 6-month auctions. Something matures regularly, so you always have cash freeing up to redeploy and you are never forced to reinvest the entire amount at a single low point in the rate cycle. It also keeps part of your money closer to hand if plans change. For idle cash you genuinely will not need for a year, a plain hold-to-maturity 1-year bill is simpler; laddering earns its keep when you want a rolling, semi-liquid cash position.
Yes, about as safe as a Singapore-dollar asset gets. They are issued by the Singapore Government, which carries a AAA credit rating, so there is no realistic default risk over a 6 or 12-month term. The main uncertainty is the return, which is set at auction rather than fixed in advance.
The minimum bid is $1,000, and you bid in multiples of $1,000. There is no cap on total individual holdings, though each non-competitive bid is limited to $1 million per auction.
A non-competitive bid means you accept whatever cut-off yield the auction settles on; these are filled first, up to 40% of the issue, and shared pro-rata if oversubscribed. A competitive bid means you name the highest yield you will accept, and you get nothing if the cut-off comes in lower than your bid. Both successful types receive the same cut-off yield.
Yes. You can use CPF Ordinary Account and Special Account savings through the CPF Investment Scheme via your agent bank, and SRS funds through your SRS operator's internet banking. CPF purchases carry agent-bank fees and can forfeit some CPF interest, so they only pay off when the cut-off yield clears the CPF floor rate by enough to cover those costs.
T-bills pay nothing until maturity, so to get out early you must sell on the secondary market through SGX or a dealer bank. The price you receive depends on where interest rates have moved, so you could get back more or less than you paid. If you need flexible access, a Singapore Savings Bond is usually a better fit.
By auction. MAS accepts the lowest-yield bids first and works up until the issue is filled; the yield of the last accepted bid is the cut-off yield, and every successful applicant earns that same rate. Check the latest cut-off yield on the MAS website before applying, as it changes every auction.
Application windows usually close around 9pm one business day before the auction date, but the exact cut-off varies by bank and at least one bank closes a day earlier. Confirm the specific timing with your bank and the MAS auction calendar before you apply.
No. For an individual, the discount you earn on a T-bill is qualifying income from Singapore Government Securities and is exempt from tax, and any gain from selling on the secondary market is untaxed because Singapore has no capital gains tax. You keep the full yield and have nothing to declare for the T-bill in your tax return. Different rules apply if you hold T-bills through a company or trading business.
The T-bill is issued three business days after the auction (T+3). For a cash purchase it then appears in your CDP statement, not in your SGX or brokerage account, so do not be alarmed if your trading app shows nothing. Each $100 of face value is one unit, so a $10,000 holding is recorded as 100 units. CPF and SRS purchases show up on your agent bank or SRS operator statement instead.
Convert the annual cut-off yield to the bill's length. A 6-month bill runs about 182 days, so you earn roughly half the annual yield on the face value. At a 1.5% cut-off you pay about $9,926 for $10,000 of face value and get $10,000 back, a gain of around $74; at 3% you pay about $9,852 and gain about $148. The dollar return scales with the rate, and you can line it up against other options in our compound interest calculator.
Laddering means splitting your money across several auctions so the holdings mature on staggered dates rather than all at once. It helps when you want a rolling, semi-liquid cash position, because something matures regularly and you are never forced to reinvest the whole sum at a single low point in the rate cycle. If you simply have idle cash you will not touch for a year, a single hold-to-maturity 1-year bill is simpler.
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.