ABSD Rates In Force From 27 Apr 2023: What 0%, 20% And 60% Cost At Four Prices

If you are looking at a second home, buying with a partner who is not a citizen, or purchasing through a company, the additional buyer's stamp duty (ABSD) is often the single largest cash item in the exercise. It is a tax on the purchase itself, charged as a percentage of the price, and it is settled at the point of purchase rather than spread over the loan.

In this article, we look at the ABSD rates by buyer type under the rules recorded as in force from 27 Apr 2023, and what those rates come to at four purchase prices: S$600,000, S$1,000,000, S$1,500,000 and S$2,500,000.

The rates are from IRAS, Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty from 27 Apr 2023, as recorded in our rules data and verified on 18 Sep 2026. The headline figure: a Singapore citizen buying a first home pays 0%, while a foreigner pays 60% — which on a S$1,000,000 home is S$600,000 in ABSD alone.

What Are The ABSD Rates By Buyer Type?

ABSD is charged on top of buyer's stamp duty, and the rate depends on who is buying and how many residential properties that buyer already holds. "Entity" here means a purchase made by a company or similar body rather than by an individual. The table below sets out the rates recorded as in force from 27 Apr 2023.

The table shows that the rate for a Singapore citizen rises from 0.0% on a first home to 20.0% on a second and 30.0% on a third or later. A permanent resident (PR, a non-citizen with permanent residence status) pays 5.0% on a first home and 30.0% on a second. A foreigner pays 60.0% regardless of how many homes are held, and an entity pays 65.0%.

Note that our rules data records only this version, dated 27 Apr 2023, and does not carry the rates that applied before that date, so no comparison with an earlier set is possible from this pack.

What Does ABSD Cost At S$600,000, S$1,000,000, S$1,500,000 And S$2,500,000?

Rates on their own are hard to picture, so the table below applies each of them to four purchase prices. The amounts were computed by this site's position engine from the recorded rates; they are indicative workings of the rule, not a valuation of any home.

At S$600,000, the table shows S$120,000 for a Singapore citizen buying a second home, S$30,000 for a PR buying a first home, and S$360,000 for a foreigner. At the top of the ladder, S$2,500,000, the same three buyers face S$500,000, S$125,000 and S$1,500,000.

Because ABSD is a flat percentage of price with no bands, each row scales in step with the price: the citizen third-or-later row and the PR second-home row are identical at every price, both sitting at 30.0%. The entity row is the highest throughout, reaching S$1,625,000 at S$2,500,000.

What These Figures Do And Do Not Include

The amounts in this article cover ABSD only. Buyer's stamp duty, legal fees and any other transaction costs are separate and are not part of the rules data used here, so they do not appear in either table.

The rates also turn on facts about the buyer rather than the property: citizenship or residence status, and the number of residential properties already held. A purchase involving two buyers of different profiles is handled under IRAS rules that this pack does not record, so the tables above should be read as the rate for a single stated buyer type at a stated price.

Summary

Under the ABSD rules recorded as in force from 27 Apr 2023, the rate is 0.0% for a Singapore citizen's first home, 20.0% for a second and 30.0% for a third or later; 5.0% and 30.0% for a permanent resident's first and second home; 60.0% for a foreigner; and 65.0% for an entity. Applied to a S$1,000,000 purchase by this site's position engine, that comes to S$200,000 for a citizen buying a second home and S$600,000 for a foreigner, with the entity figure at S$650,000.

What the data can tell you is the arithmetic: the rate that attaches to each buyer type, and the cash amount it produces at four price points from S$600,000 to S$2,500,000. What it cannot tell you is anything about the rates before 27 Apr 2023, how mixed-profile purchases are assessed, or what any individual home is worth — the tables are workings of a published rule, verified on 18 Sep 2026, and not a formal valuation.

Method: rates as recorded in this site's rules file (ABSD version 2023-04-27, source: IRAS, Additional Buyer's Stamp Duty from 27 Apr 2023; verified 2026-09-18); amounts computed by the position engine on the price alone. Remissions, refunds and exemptions are not modelled. The rules must be checked against IRAS before anyone relies on them. Private figures are from URA Data Service caveats, HDB figures from data.gov.sg resale records, both loaded weekly by this site's ingest. Medians are of the non-excluded transactions in the period named; sales flagged by the hygiene rules (related-party transfers, bulk deals, outliers) are left out. Every figure is indicative and drawn from recorded transactions, not a formal valuation.