CPF Contribution & Allocation Rates in 2026 (Simple Explanation)

Every month, a chunk of your pay goes into your Central Provident Fund (CPF) accounts before it ever reaches your bank. How much, and which account it lands in, comes down mostly to your age.

Quite a lot has changed in recent years. The salary ceiling has been raised in stages to $8,000, contribution rates for workers above 55 have gone up several times, and the Special Account no longer exists for members aged 55 and above.

This page is updated regularly, so the rates below reflect what applies in 2026.

Key Takeaways

• For employees aged 55 and below, the total CPF contribution rate in 2026 is 37% of wages, made up of 17% from the employer and 20% from the employee
• CPF contributions are payable on the first $8,000 of monthly salary, following the Ordinary Wage ceiling’s final increase in January 2026
• CPF contribution rates for workers aged above 55 to 65 rose by 1.5 percentage points in January 2026
• Contributions are split between the Ordinary Account (OA), MediSave Account (MA), and either the Special Account (SA) for those below 55 or the Retirement Account (RA) from 55, with the split depending on age
• From 1 January 2027, total contribution rates rise to 35.5% for those aged above 55 to 60 and 26% for those aged above 60 to 65, under changes that are already legislated

Who Needs to Contribute to CPF?

Employees who are Singapore citizens or permanent residents (PRs), working in Singapore, and earning more than $50 per month will have contributions made into their CPF accounts.

The total CPF contribution consists of an employer’s share and an employee’s share, both calculated as a percentage of your salary. Your employer deducts your share and pays both shares to the CPF Board, so you don’t have to do anything.

How much goes in depends on your age, income, and residency status. Broadly, there are four groups:

• Singapore citizens and PRs (third year onwards) earning $750 a month or more
• Singapore citizens and PRs (third year onwards) earning less than $750 a month
• Self-employed persons (SEPs), who only make MediSave contributions
• Platform workers, such as private-hire drivers and delivery riders, who came under CPF from 2025

PRs in their first and second year contribute at lower graduated rates, which we’ll touch on briefly below.

CPF Contribution Rates in 2026

Here are the contribution rates from 1 January 2026 for employees earning more than $750 a month:

Age of Employee	By Employer (% of Wage)	By Employee (% of Wage)	Total (% of Wage)
55 & below	17	20	37
Above 55 to 60	16	18	34
Above 60 to 65	12.5	12.5	25
Above 65 to 70	9	7.5	16.5
Above 70	7.5	5	12.5

Note: these rates apply to private sector and public sector non-pensionable employees. When you cross into a new age band, the new rates apply from the first day of the month after your 55th, 60th, 65th, or 70th birthday.

Example:

If you’re 28 years old and earn $3,500 a month, your own contribution is 20% of your salary, or $700, leaving $2,800 as take-home pay. Your employer adds another 17%, or $595.

Item	Amount
Take-home salary	$2,800
Employee’s CPF contribution	$700
Employer’s CPF contribution	$595
Total	$4,095

That’s $1,295 going into your CPF accounts every month, on top of your take-home pay.

If you earn less than $750 a month

Employees earning lower wages keep a greater share of their take-home pay. There are three wage bands:

• $50 or less: no CPF contributions at all
• More than $50 to $500: only your employer contributes, and nothing is deducted from your salary
• More than $500 to less than $750: your employer contributes in full, while your share is phased in gradually

The exact phased-in formulas vary by age band. You can find the full contribution rate tables on the CPF Board’s website.

Senior worker rates keep rising until 2027

If you’re above 55, your contribution rates have been climbing steadily since 2022 to strengthen retirement adequacy, and one more legislated increase takes effect on 1 January 2027.

Here’s how the total rates have stepped up, based on the CPF Board’s past rate tables and the announced 2027 changes:

Year	Above 55 to 60 (Total %)	Above 60 to 65 (Total %)
2022	28	18.5
2023	29.5	20.5
2024	31	22
2025	32.5	23.5
2026	34	25
2027	35.5	26

With the 2027 increase, workers aged above 60 to 65 reach the 26% target rate the government set out for “about 2030”, arriving a few years early. Those above 55 to 60 are still short of their 37% target at 35.5%. The increases from 2026 and 2027 are fully allocated to the Retirement Account, up to your Full Retirement Sum (FRS), and channelled to your Ordinary Account if you have already set aside your FRS.

These changes go hand in hand with the higher retirement and re-employment ages in Singapore, as more Singaporeans work beyond 55.

First and second year PRs

New PRs contribute at lower graduated rates for their first two years, to ease the transition into the CPF system. A first-year PR aged 55 or below, for instance, has a total contribution of just 9% of wages, with 5% from the employee. Full rates apply from the third year, though a PR and their employer can jointly apply to contribute at full rates earlier.

Self-employed persons (SEPs)

For SEPs, only MediSave contributions are compulsory, and only if you earn a net trade income (NTI) of more than $6,000 a year. NTI is broadly your trade income minus allowable business expenses.

How much MediSave you must contribute depends on your age and income level, subject to a yearly cap. The CPF Board’s page on saving as a self-employed person has the current rates, and mandatory MediSave contributions enjoy full tax relief.

Platform workers

From 1 January 2025, platform workers (such as private-hire drivers and delivery riders) born on or after 1 January 1995 make CPF contributions, deducted and paid by the platform operators they work with. Rates are being stepped up each year until they match regular employee rates, with transition support for eligible workers from 2025 to 2028. Those born before 1995 can opt in.

CPF Contribution Ceilings: How Much of Your Salary Attracts CPF

There’s a maximum amount of wages on which CPF contributions are payable. Three caps matter:

1. Ordinary Wage (OW) ceiling
2. Additional Wage (AW) ceiling
3. CPF Annual Limit

1) Ordinary Wage ceiling: $8,000 in 2026

The OW ceiling is $8,000 per month as of 1 January 2026. You only make CPF contributions on the first $8,000 of your monthly salary, and your employer doesn’t contribute on anything above that either.

This ceiling sat at $6,000 for years before being raised in four steps:

Period	CPF Ordinary Wage Ceiling
Up to 31 Aug 2023	$6,000
1 Sep to 31 Dec 2023	$6,300
2024	$6,800
2025	$7,400
From 1 Jan 2026	$8,000

For example, if you’re a 28-year-old earning $9,000 a month, your employee contribution would be $1,600 (20% of $8,000), and your employer’s contribution would be $1,360 (17% of $8,000). The remaining $1,000 of your salary attracts no CPF at all.

At $8,000, the ceiling now sits well above the median salary in Singapore, so most employees have their entire monthly wage attracting CPF.

2) Additional Wage ceiling

Your bonuses and other non-monthly payments are classified as Additional Wages, and they have their own ceiling. Here’s the formula:

Yearly AW ceiling = $102,000 minus total OW subject to CPF for that year

The $102,000 figure is the CPF annual salary ceiling, which has stayed unchanged even as the monthly OW ceiling rose.

Say you earn a monthly salary of $6,000. Your total OW for the year would be $72,000, so your AW ceiling would be $30,000. A $20,000 annual bonus would attract CPF contributions in full, but a $35,000 bonus would only attract them on the first $30,000.

3) CPF Annual Limit

Beyond mandatory contributions, you can also make voluntary contributions to boost your CPF savings, and these may come with tax benefits.

However, there’s a cap on all CPF contributions (mandatory plus voluntary) in a calendar year, and that’s $37,740 per person.

CPF Allocation Rates in 2026: Where Do Your Contributions Go?

Your monthly CPF contributions are split across three accounts, and the split changes as you get older. Before 55, the money goes into your Ordinary Account, Special Account, and MediSave Account. From 55, it goes into your Ordinary Account, Retirement Account, and MediSave Account.

Here’s what each account is for:

Account	Purpose
Ordinary Account (OA)	Housing, tertiary education, investing, and retirement
Special Account (SA)	Retirement savings for members below 55, which can also be invested
MediSave Account (MA)	Approved medical expenses and premiums for MediShield Life, Integrated Shield Plans, and CareShield Life
Retirement Account (RA)	Created on your 55th birthday to hold your retirement savings, which later provide monthly payouts

The Special Account closed for members 55 and above

On 19 January 2025, the CPF Board closed the Special Accounts of around 1.4 million members aged 55 and above. SA savings were transferred to the RA up to the member’s Full Retirement Sum, with any remainder going to the OA.

If you’re below 55, nothing changes until you turn 55, when your SA closes and your RA takes over. This is why the allocation table below switches from SA to RA at 55.

Allocation rates by age

Here are the CPF allocation rates from 1 January 2026 for those earning $750 a month or more, expressed as a ratio of your total contribution:

Below 55 (OA / SA / MA)

Age	Ordinary Account	Special Account	MediSave Account
35 & below	0.6217	0.1621	0.2162
Above 35 to 45	0.5677	0.1891	0.2432
Above 45 to 50	0.5136	0.2162	0.2702
Above 50 to 55	0.4055	0.3108	0.2837

55 and above (OA / RA / MA)

Age	Ordinary Account	Retirement Account	MediSave Account
Above 55 to 60	0.353	0.3382	0.3088
Above 60 to 65	0.14	0.44	0.42
Above 65 to 70	0.0607	0.303	0.6363
Above 70	0.08	0.08	0.84

Contributions to the RA only flow in up to your Full Retirement Sum. Once your RA has reached the FRS, that portion is channelled to your OA instead. The retirement sums that set this cap are fixed in the year you turn 55 and differ for every cohort.

Example 1:

Our 28-year-old earning $3,500 receives a total CPF contribution of $1,295 each month. Here’s how it would be distributed:

• Ordinary Account: $805.10
• Special Account: $209.92
• MediSave Account: $279.98

Example 2:

A 57-year-old earning $8,000 receives a total contribution of 34%, or $2,720 a month ($1,440 from their own salary and $1,280 from their employer). It would be distributed as:

• Ordinary Account: $960.16
• Retirement Account: $919.90
• MediSave Account: $839.94

There may be small rounding differences in practice.

How Contributions and Allocations Change Throughout Your Lifetime

The pattern is deliberate. When you’re young, contribution rates are at their highest and most of the money lands in your OA, because you’re likely to need it for a home. This is one reason home ownership in Singapore is so high, at 91.2% in 2025, up from 90.8% the year before. It also means a large share of CPF money ends up in property rather than sitting in your accounts, which is why the balance in your CPF app understates what you have actually built through the system. As you move through your 40s and 50s, a growing slice shifts towards retirement and healthcare, and by your 60s, more than 40% of every contribution goes to MediSave alone. That shift tracks the years when medical bills climb fastest, which is the point of front-loading MediSave before you need it.

Each account also earns different interest rates, which affects how quickly your balances grow. Our guide on CPF and retirement explains what happens to these savings at 55 and beyond.

What’s Changing From 1 January 2027

One more increase is already law. From 1 January 2027, for employees earning more than $750 a month:

Age	2026 Total (%)	2027 Total (%)	Employer / Employee Split (2027)
Above 55 to 60	34	35.5	16.5 / 19
Above 60 to 65	25	26	13 / 13

Rates for all other age bands stay the same, as does the $8,000 OW ceiling and the graduated rates for new PRs. We’ll update this page when the 2027 rates take effect.

What’s Next?

While you’re able to purchase a property with your OA funds, remember that your CPF savings are meant for retirement as well. Balancing the two is one of the harder trade-offs in property planning. If a significant chunk goes towards your mortgage every month, it’s worth asking whether your CPF alone will be enough. CPF is also only one pillar of a proper retirement plan in Singapore.

If you’d like a second pair of eyes on the full picture, consider a comprehensive financial planning session where a licensed consultant reviews it all in one sitting.