- For employees aged 55 and below, CPF is 37% of the Ordinary Wage (17% employer, 20% employee), capped at the S$8,000 monthly Ordinary Wage ceiling from 1 January 2026.
- CPF is payable only for Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents. It does not apply to foreign employees on an Employment Pass, S Pass or Work Permit.
- Contributions are due by the last day of the month. Late payment attracts 1.5% interest per month, so a missed deadline gets expensive quickly.
CPF contributions in Singapore are the mandatory monthly payments an employer makes to the Central Provident Fund for staff who are Singapore Citizens or Permanent Residents. From 1 January 2026, two things changed: the Ordinary Wage ceiling rose to S$8,000 a month, and contribution rates went up for employees aged above 55 to 65. Get the rate, the ceiling or the deadline wrong and the interest starts adding up fast. This guide sets out what you owe, for whom and by when, with every figure checked against the CPF Board, a practical reference for founders building accounting services that include payroll from the first hire.
In short: For employees aged 55 and below, you contribute 17% of the Ordinary Wage to CPF, and the employee contributes 20% (37% total), on wages up to the S$8,000 monthly Ordinary Wage ceiling that took effect on 1 January 2026. CPF applies only to Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents, not to foreign work-pass holders, and payment is due by the last day of each month. From 1 January 2026, rates also rose for employees aged between 55 and 65. |
What changed for CPF contributions in 2026?
Two changes took effect on 1 January 2026, and both touch the way you run payroll. The Ordinary Wage ceiling rose from S$7,400 to S$8,000 a month, the final step of a phased increase that began in September 2023.
The second change is easy to miss: contribution rates went up for employees aged above 55 to 65. The extra amount flows straight into the employee’s Retirement Account, up to the Full Retirement Sum, and into the Ordinary Account after that.
If your payroll system is still running 2025 senior-worker rates, it is now under-contributing for those staff. That is the single most common 2026 error we see, and it is worth a five-minute check this month.
Who must pay CPF, and who is exempt?
You must pay CPF for every Singapore Citizen and Singapore Permanent Resident you employ who earns more than S$50 a month, including part-time and casual staff. You do not pay CPF for foreign employees on an Employment Pass, S Pass, Work Permit or Dependant Pass.
The most common confusion on this point involves foreign hires. If you employ an engineer on an Employment Pass, there is no employer CPF on their salary at all. A separate foreign worker levy can apply to some S Pass and Work Permit categories, but that is paid to the Ministry of Manpower, not the CPF Board.
The table below is the quick lookup most employers need. Use it as your first filter before you touch any rates.
One scenario trips up groups with an overseas parent: a Singapore employee paid from abroad. If the employment relationship sits with your Singapore-incorporated company, the CPF obligation stays with that entity, even when the salary is funded or paid from overseas. Where the money is paid from does not remove the duty.
|
Employee profile |
CPF? |
Notes |
|---|---|---|
|
SG Citizen, full-time, on salary |
Yes |
Standard rates by age band |
|
SG Citizen, part-time or casual, on salary |
Yes |
Payable once monthly wages exceed S$50 |
|
SG PR, Year 1 of PR status |
Yes |
Graduated (lower) rates |
|
SG PR, Year 2 of PR status |
Yes |
Graduated rates, stepped up from Year 1 |
|
SG PR, Year 3 onwards |
Yes |
Full standard rates, same as a Citizen |
|
Foreign employee on EP / S Pass / Work Permit / DP |
No |
No employer CPF; a foreign worker levy may apply |
|
Director (SG Citizen/PR) on a salary |
Yes |
Treated as an employee |
|
Director receiving only director’s fees |
No |
Fees are not salary |
|
Director receiving only dividends |
No |
Dividends are shareholder returns, not wages |
What are the 2026 CPF contribution rates by age?
For Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents from their third year onwards, earning more than S$750 a month, the 2026 rates run from 37% of Ordinary Wage for the youngest band down to 12.5% for the oldest. Employees aged 55 and below stay at 37% (17% employer, 20% employee); the increases for 2026 fall on the bands above 55 to 65.
Read the table as employer share, employee share, then total. New rates apply from the first day of the month after an employee’s 55th, 60th, 65th or 70th birthday, so a staff member who turns 60 in March moves to the next band from 1 April.
|
Age band |
Employer % |
Employee % |
Total % |
|---|---|---|---|
|
55 and 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 |
Permanent Residents in their first two years sit on lower graduated rates. For a PR aged 55 and below earning more than S$750, the rate is 4% employer and 5% employee (9% total) in Year 1, rising to 9% employer and 15% employee (24% total) in Year 2, before full rates apply from Year 3. These graduated rates did not change for 2026. Full rate tables sit on the CPF Board website.
Diarise each employee’s birthday month. The rate change lands on the first of the following month, and a missed age-band transition is one of the easiest errors for an auditor to spot.
How do the CPF wage ceilings work?
Four numbers govern how much of an employee’s pay attracts CPF. The Ordinary Wage ceiling is S$8,000 a month, so monthly salary above that does not attract CPF on the Ordinary Wage side.
The annual salary ceiling is S$102,000, the most CPF can be charged on across a full year. The Additional Wage ceiling, which covers bonuses and other non-monthly pay, is S$102,000 minus the total Ordinary Wage already subject to CPF for the year.
Sitting above all of these is the CPF Annual Limit of S$37,740, the maximum total CPF (employer plus employee) for one employee in a year. None of these four figures changed for 2026 except the Ordinary Wage ceiling.
A quick bonus example shows why the Additional Wage ceiling matters. An employee on S$5,000 a month has S$60,000 of Ordinary Wages for the year, so their Additional Wage ceiling is S$42,000 (S$102,000 minus S$60,000). A year-end bonus up to S$42,000 attracts CPF; anything above that does not.
|
Ceiling |
2026 figure |
What it caps |
|---|---|---|
|
Ordinary Wage (OW) ceiling |
S$8,000 / month |
Monthly salary subject to CPF |
|
Annual salary ceiling |
S$102,000 / year |
Total wages subject to CPF in a year |
|
Additional Wage (AW) ceiling |
S$102,000 minus yearly OW subject to CPF |
Bonuses and other additional wages |
|
CPF Annual Limit |
S$37,740 / year |
Total CPF per employee per year |
Worked examples: Three CPF scenarios for employers
Numbers make the rules concrete. Here are three common situations, each calculated end to end on the 2026 figures.
Example 1: Citizen, age 30, S$5,000 a month
Salary is below the S$8,000 ceiling, so CPF is charged on the full S$5,000. Employer pays 17% (S$850), the employee pays 20% (S$1,000), for S$1,850 total each month.
On the annual side, Ordinary Wages of S$60,000 for the year leave an Additional Wage ceiling of S$42,000 (S$102,000 minus S$60,000) for any bonus.
Example 2: Citizen, age 58, S$10,000 a month
Salary is above the S$8,000 ceiling, so CPF is charged on S$8,000 only. This employee is in the above 55 to 60 band, so the 2026 rates are 16% employer and 18% employee.
That is S$1,280 employer and S$1,440 employee (S$2,720 total). The senior-worker portion flows into the Retirement Account up to the Full Retirement Sum. An employer still running 2025 rates would under-pay here.
Example 3: PR in Year 1, age 35, S$4,000 a month
First-year PRs are on graduated rates. At 4% employer and 5% employee, that is S$160 and S$200, for S$360 total on a S$4,000 salary, well below the full-rate figure a Citizen on the same pay would attract.
From Year 3, this employee moves to full rates.
Do you pay CPF when you pay yourself as a director?
The answer turns on how you are paid, not on your job title. If you draw a salary and you are a Singapore Citizen or PR, that salary attracts CPF in exactly the same way an employee’s would.
Director’s fees are different. Fees voted by the board for your services as a director are not wages, so no CPF is due on them. Dividends you receive as a shareholder are not wages either, so they carry no CPF.
Many founders pay themselves with a mix of all three. CPF applies only to the salary portion, while the tax treatment of fees and dividends is a separate question handled through payroll taxes in Singapore and your annual filings.
When is CPF due, and how do you submit it?
CPF for a given month is due by the last day of that month. If payment has not reached the CPF Board by the 14th of the following month, enforcement action is triggered, so treat the 14th as your real hard stop.
Most employers submit through CPF EZPay, the CPF Board’s free online portal, which computes the contributions for you. Accredited payroll software such as Xero or QuickBooks can also file directly, with payment by GIRO, eNETS or direct debit.
If this is your first hire, there is one step before any of that: apply for a CPF Submission Number (CSN), which links your company to the CPF Board for submissions. You can apply online through the CPF website, and you will need it before your first contribution is due, so do it as soon as the offer is signed rather than in the week the deadline lands.
What happens if you pay CPF late?
Late CPF is not a soft deadline. Here is what the non-compliance sequence looks like in practice:
- Interest starts immediately. 1.5% per month on the outstanding amount (minimum S$5), charged from the first day after the due date. A S$1,500 monthly CPF bill unpaid for one month attracts S$22.50; unpaid for three months, S$67.50 — on top of the original liability.
- Interest compounds. It is charged on the full outstanding principal each month, not on a declining balance, so the longer it runs, the more expensive it gets.
- Composition is offered first. The CPF Board typically allows the employer to settle by paying a composition amount in lieu of prosecution. If that is not taken up, formal enforcement notices follow.
- Prosecution is possible. Persistent or significant non-payment is an offence under the CPF Act and can result in a fine or imprisonment. The CPF Board also maintains a public register of employers in default.
- You cannot pass the cost to the employee. The employer’s share cannot be recovered from or deducted from the employee’s wages. Only the employee’s own share may be deducted from their salary. The full exposure sits with the company.
What CPF mistakes do Singapore employers make most often?
Most CPF errors are not exotic. They cluster around a handful of recurring slips, and almost all of them are avoidable with a monthly check before payroll runs.
- Running 2025 senior-worker rates on 2026 wages for staff aged above 55 to 65.
The January 2026 rate increase for the 55 to 60 and 60 to 65 bands is the change most likely to have been missed. If your payroll system was not updated before the first 2026 run, you have been under-contributing since January. The shortfall is recoverable through a CPF Board adjustment application, but it creates a formal record and triggers back-interest on the gap. - Charging CPF on salary above the S$8,000 monthly Ordinary Wage ceiling.
Over-contributing is also an error. CPF is only payable on the portion of monthly Ordinary Wages up to S$8,000; anything above that is not subject to CPF on the Ordinary Wage side. Employers who overcalculate need to apply to the CPF Board for a refund, which takes time and creates administrative work. - Applying full rates to a Year 1 or Year 2 PR who should be on graduated rates.
First and second year PRs are on lower graduated rates by default. Unless the employee and employer have jointly applied to the CPF Board to use full rates early, over-contributing for a new PR is an error. Tracking the PR effective date and diarising the Year 1 to Year 2 and Year 2 to Year 3 transitions is a payroll admin task most small teams miss. - Missing an age-band transition during the year.
Rate changes for senior workers apply from the first day of the month after the employee’s 55th, 60th, 65th or 70th birthday. A staff member who turns 60 in March moves to the above 60 to 65 band from 1 April, not from their birthday date and not from the start of the financial year. Employers who do not track birthdays against payroll configurations will run the wrong rate silently for months. - Forgetting CPF on a director who draws a salary, not just fees.
A director-employee on a salary attracts CPF in exactly the same way any other employee does. Many founder-directors pay themselves a combination of salary, fees and dividends and apply CPF only to the fees element, which is the opposite of correct. CPF is due on salary; not on fees or dividends. - Overlooking part-time or casual Citizens and PRs earning more than S$50 a month.
There is no minimum-hours threshold for CPF. A part-time employee working two days a week on S$800 a month attracts CPF at the same age-band rates as a full-time employee. The S$50 threshold is the only wage floor; below it, no CPF is due. - Paying late and letting the 1.5% monthly interest build.
The most straightforward mistake is also the most expensive over time. A late submission that goes unnoticed for a quarter becomes a liability three times larger than one caught in the first month. Setting a calendar reminder for the 25th of each month gives five clear days to compute, check and submit before the month-end deadline.
What about foreign employees, the self-employed and senior-worker support?
Foreign employees on a work pass attract no employer CPF, full stop. If a foreign employee later becomes a PR, CPF starts from the month after their PR status takes effect, beginning on graduated rates the same Year 1 and Year 2 structure covered earlier in this guide.
Self-employed people and freelancers sit outside the employer CPF framework entirely. Their obligations are chiefly MediSave-based and follow different thresholds; the rules forself-employed professionals andfreelancers are covered in dedicated guides. If you want the broader picture of how contributions flow across the Ordinary, Special and MediSave accounts, theCPF account structure is worth reading alongside this one.
Employers hiring or retaining staff aged 55 and above may also be eligible for the Senior Employment Credit, a government wage offset scheme that partially offsets the cost of employing older workers. The scheme parameters like, qualifying age, offset percentage and income ceiling are confirmed annually, so check the current figures at the Ministry of Manpower before factoring them into a hiring budget.
How Sleek helps you stay on top of CPF and payroll
CPF goes wrong in the gaps: a birthday that shifts a rate, a ceiling that quietly capped a calculation, a deadline that landed on a busy week. Sleek’s accounting service folds monthly CPF submission and payroll in with your bookkeeping, so one team tracks the rates, the transitions and the deadlines for you. Payroll comes built into the Accounting Premium package for up to five employees, or as Payroll Expert Support from S$300 a year per employee.
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FAQs about CPF contributions in Singapore
What is the CPF contribution rate for employers in Singapore in 2026?
For employees aged 55 and below, the employer rate is 17% of Ordinary Wage and the employee pays 20%, a total of 37%, up to the S$8,000 monthly ceiling. The employer share is tax-deductible as a business expense. Rates for staff aged above 55 to 65 rose from 1 January 2026, so check the age-band table before you run payroll.
What is the CPF wage ceiling in 2026?
The Ordinary Wage ceiling is S$8,000 a month from 1 January 2026, up from S$7,400, the final step of a phased increase that began in September 2023. The annual salary ceiling stays at S$102,000 and the CPF Annual Limit per employee remains S$37,740. Only the Ordinary Wage ceiling changed for 2026.
Do I have to pay CPF for foreign employees?
No. CPF applies only to Singapore Citizens and Permanent Residents. Foreign staff on an Employment Pass, S Pass, Work Permit or Dependant Pass are outside CPF entirely. A separate foreign worker levy, payable to the Ministry of Manpower, can apply to some Work Permit and S Pass categories.
Do I pay CPF if I pay myself as a director?
It depends on how you are paid. A director’s salary attracts CPF if you are a Citizen or PR; director’s fees voted by the board do not, because fees are not wages; and dividends carry no CPF because they are shareholder returns. Many founders use a mix, and CPF applies only to the salary portion.
When is the CPF payment deadline, and what is the penalty for paying late?
CPF is due by the last day of the month for that month’s wages, with enforcement from the 14th of the following month. Late payment attracts interest of 1.5% per month (minimum S$5) from the first day after the due date. The employer cannot recover its own share from the employee.
