If you’re an American on an Employment Pass in Singapore, your US bill usually comes down to one thing: how much of your salary the foreign earned income and housing exclusions can wipe out. Singapore tax is too low for the foreign tax credit to do the job on its own, which is the opposite of what people who’ve lived in London or Paris expect. The money that actually gets lost here tends to be in the unit trusts your bank sold you, not in your salary.
US figures below are for tax year 2025, the return you file in 2026. Singapore figures are for Year of Assessment 2026, which taxes what you earned in calendar 2025. Where we convert, we use the IRS yearly average rate for 2025 of S$1.307 per $1.
Do I need to file a US return while living in Singapore?
Yes, if your worldwide gross income is at or above the filing threshold. For 2025 that’s $15,750 if you’re single and under 65, and income you later exclude still counts toward it.
Two situations catch people out. If you’re married to a non-American and don’t elect to file jointly, you’re filing married filing separately, where the threshold is just $5. And if you freelance or consult, $400 of net self-employment earnings is enough to trigger a return, plus US self-employment tax (more on that below).
US deadlines for Americans in Singapore (tax year 2025)
- 1
15 April 2026: tax due
The regular due date, and the date any US tax owed has to be paid. You can file later; paying later costs interest.
- 2
15 June 2026: automatic extension for Americans abroad
If on 15 April you live and mainly work outside the US, you get two extra months to file. Attach a statement saying you qualify.
- 3
15 October 2026: with Form 4868
File Form 4868 by 15 June to move the filing deadline to 15 October. The FBAR is extended to 15 October automatically.
Moved to Singapore partway through 2025? You may not qualify for the exclusion yet by the due date. Form 2350 extends your deadline until after you do, so you file once with the exclusion instead of filing without it and amending later. We use it a lot for first-year arrivals.
How Singapore’s Year of Assessment lines up with your US return
Both countries tax the calendar year, so the income on your Form B1 is the income on your 1040. The catch is timing: Singapore taxes on a preceding-year basis, so 2025 salary is assessed in YA2026 and the bill arrives well into 2026.
| Step | Singapore (YA2026, 2025 income) | US (tax year 2025) |
|---|---|---|
| Employer year-end form | Form IR8A (with appendices for benefits and share gains), usually sent to IRAS by your employer under the Auto-Inclusion Scheme | The IR8A figures, converted to dollars, are the starting point for wages and taxable benefits |
| Return | Form B1 for employees; Form B if you have trade, business or professional income. Due by 18 April 2026, on myTax Portal or on paper | Form 1040 due 15 June 2026 if abroad, 15 October with an extension |
| Tax bill | Notice of Assessment issued from May onwards, most by September; tax payable within one month, or in up to 12 interest-free GIRO instalments | Tax due 15 April 2026, regardless of extensions |
IRAS generally expects a return once your income is over S$22,000. You’re broadly resident for employment income at 183 days or more in the year; non-residents pay the higher of a flat 15% or the resident rates. Neither changes anything on the US side.
The lag matters for the foreign tax credit. On the cash basis, Singapore tax on 2025 income (paid in 2026) would land on your 2026 return. Electing to claim it in the year it accrues matches tax to income, and for Singapore that’s what we usually recommend. Once made, the election sticks for later years.
On currency, salary and other income spread through the year can use the IRS yearly average rate. One-offs like a share vest, a big bonus or selling a flat use the spot rate on the day, and FBAR balances use the Treasury rate for 31 December.
FEIE or foreign tax credit in Singapore? Usually the exclusion
Singapore’s resident rates climb from 0% to 24% and only get steep at high incomes, so you’ll almost always pay less Singapore tax than the US would charge on the same salary. That’s why our default for most Employment Pass holders is the exclusion, topped up with the credit if the salary is big enough.
The foreign earned income exclusion (Form 2555) takes up to $130,000 of 2025 earned income off your US return ($132,900 for 2026). You need your tax home in Singapore and either bona fide residence or 330 full days outside the US in a 12-month period. It doesn’t touch investment income.
The housing exclusion is where Singapore gets interesting. It covers rent, utilities other than phone, and insurance above a base of $20,800. The default cap on housing costs is $39,000, but IRS Notice 2025-16 sets Singapore’s limit at $82,900, so you can exclude up to about $62,100. With condo rents what they are, that’s often a big chunk of the saving. Employees take it as an exclusion; the self-employed take it as a deduction.
Past what you can exclude, you credit the Singapore tax on the rest, with two limits. You can’t credit Singapore tax on excluded salary. And under the stacking rule, what’s left is taxed as if the excluded income were still there, so it starts in your top bracket, not at 10%.
One caution: revoke the exclusion later and you generally can’t use it again for five years without IRS consent, and excluded wages can’t fund an IRA. It’s a decision, not a box to tick.
Example: Alex, an Employment Pass holder on S$260,000
Say Alex is single, works for a Singapore employer and earned S$260,000 in 2025, about $198,900 at the IRS average rate. Rent on the condo is S$72,000 a year (about $55,100), and there’s no other income.
Singapore tax for YA2026 comes to about S$32,650 (roughly $25,000) before reliefs, an effective rate of about 12.6%. On the US side, Alex’s $55,100 of housing costs is well under the $82,900 cap, so after the $20,800 base the housing exclusion takes out about $34,300. The FEIE takes another $130,000, leaving about $34,600 exposed.
Stacking puts that slice in Alex’s top brackets, so it carries about $4,500 of US tax. The Singapore tax on the same slice (roughly $4,350) is credited, and Alex ends up owing a couple of hundred dollars.
Compare the alternatives. The credit alone leaves about $11,800 to pay (about $36,800 of US tax on the full salary, less $25,000 of Singapore tax). The exclusions without the credit leave about $4,500. Using both is clearly the answer here.
Illustrative, rounded, ignoring Singapore reliefs and assuming the accrual election. A real return also has bonuses, benefits in kind and any share awards to deal with.
Why there’s no US–Singapore tax treaty, and what that costs you
There’s no full income tax treaty, just a limited deal on shipping and air transport income. So nothing settles how the US treats CPF or SRS, and a green-card holder resident in both countries has no tie-breaker.
The missing withholding rates matter less than you’d think, since Singapore generally doesn’t tax individuals on foreign-sourced income, so your US brokerage income is taxed only by the US anyway. The quieter cost: a foreign dividend only gets the lower US qualified-dividend rates if the company is in a treaty country or trades on a US exchange, so dividends from most SGX-only companies are taxed at ordinary rates.
There’s also no totalization agreement. Work for a Singapore employer and you generally pay no US Social Security tax. Seconded by a US employer, you usually stay in US Social Security and Medicare. Self-employed, you owe US self-employment tax at 15.3% up to the Social Security wage base and 2.9% above it, the FEIE doesn’t reduce it, and there’s no certificate of coverage to get you out. That surprises a lot of consultants.
How does the IRS treat CPF?
CPF only becomes your problem once you take PR or citizenship; Employment Pass holders don’t contribute. For members aged 55 and below, you put in 20% of wages and your employer 17%, up to a monthly ceiling.
This is the one area on this page where the law genuinely isn’t settled. With no treaty, the answer depends on how CPF is characterised under US rules, and practitioners land in different places:
| Question | Where practitioners generally land |
|---|---|
| Is CPF a foreign pension or a foreign trust? | Views differ. It is often analysed as a foreign employees’ trust or a social-security-type scheme, not as a US-qualified plan |
| Employee contributions | Not deductible on the US return; they come out of taxable salary |
| Employer contributions and growth | Some practitioners treat them as taxable in the US as they accrue; others take a more deferral-friendly position. The answer follows from the characterisation above |
| FBAR and Form 8938 | In the usual view, CPF balances are reported on the FBAR and, above the thresholds, Form 8938 |
| Forms 3520 / 3520-A | If CPF is a foreign trust these could apply. Many practitioners look to the relief for tax-favoured foreign retirement trusts in Rev. Proc. 2020-17, but whether CPF qualifies depends on the facts |
Pick a CPF position and stick with it
What gets people into trouble isn’t choosing the “wrong” reasonable position. It’s switching treatment from year to year, or leaving CPF off the FBAR. We agree a position with you, document it and apply it the same way every year, with the account fully reported.
Is SRS worth it for a US citizen in Singapore?
The Supplementary Retirement Scheme is open to foreigners too. Contributions (up to S$35,700 a year for foreigners, S$15,300 for citizens and PRs) cut your Singapore tax, and only half of withdrawals are taxed once you reach the statutory retirement age.
The US ignores all that: no deduction, generally no deferral, and the account goes on your FBAR and Form 8938. The bigger trap is what’s inside, usually unit trusts or insurance products, which are PFICs. SRS can still pay off for Americans, mainly if it holds cash, fixed deposits, bonds or individual shares.
Singapore unit trusts, ETFs and PFICs
This is the costliest mistake we see here, and it’s usually made at a bank branch. Nearly any non-US pooled investment can be a Passive Foreign Investment Company (PFIC): Singapore unit trusts, SGX-listed or Ireland-domiciled ETFs, robo-advisers, investment-linked insurance, some REITs.
Each PFIC generally needs its own Form 8621 every year. Without an election, gains and large distributions are spread back over the years you held the fund, taxed at the highest US rate for each of those years, plus an interest charge. No capital gains rates, and losses can’t offset gains. A mark-to-market election for listed funds, or a QEF election where the fund provides the numbers, limits the damage, but it has to be made correctly and ideally from the first year.
Example: Jordan and a portfolio of Singapore unit trusts
Take Jordan, a US citizen and Singapore PR who bought S$150,000 of Singapore unit trusts through a local bank four years ago. In 2025 Jordan sells one for a S$30,000 gain, about $23,000 assuming the exchange rate hasn’t moved, and has never made a PFIC election.
Singapore doesn’t tax the gain at all. The US spreads it across the four years Jordan held the fund: the three earlier years’ share (about $17,200) is taxed at 37%, roughly $6,400, plus interest, and the 2025 share is taxed as ordinary income. Had it been a US fund, the same long-term gain at 15% would have cost about $3,400.
What we’d do for Jordan: get every fund onto Form 8621 now, look at elections for the ones being kept, and put new money into individual shares or a US brokerage account that accepts Singapore residents.
Illustrative, rounded. The real calculation allocates the gain day by day and adds interest for each earlier year.
Individual SGX-listed company shares normally aren’t PFICs and are reported like any foreign shares. With Singapore’s one-tier dividends, local tax-free gains and generally exempt bank interest, there’s no Singapore tax to credit, so the US taxes all of it in full.
RSUs, ESPPs and share options in Singapore
The two countries tax stock pay on different timetables. The US generally taxes RSUs at vesting and non-qualified options at exercise, with ESPP discounts under their own rules. Singapore taxes share-plan gains tied to Singapore employment, reported in your IR8A appendices.
The US sources the income by where you worked between grant and vesting (or exercise), so any US days make part of it US-source: not excludable, and Singapore tax on it may not be creditable. And one big vest can push you well past the $130,000 exclusion, which is the most common reason people here end up combining the FEIE with the credit.
Leaving Singapore: the deemed exercise rule
If you’re not a Singapore citizen, IRAS applies a deemed exercise rule on tax clearance when your Singapore employment ends or you’re posted abroad. Unexercised options and unvested awards are generally treated as earned one month before employment ends (or at grant, if later) and taxed on a deemed value; you can ask for a reassessment if the real gain turns out lower. The US usually taxes the same income later, when it actually vests or you exercise, so the Singapore tax and the US income land in different years. Plan the credit and its carryover before you go, not after.
Selling your HDB flat or condo: what the US taxes
Singapore generally doesn’t tax the gain on your home. Seller’s Stamp Duty can apply if you sell soon after buying, but that’s a stamp duty, not income tax. The US does tax the gain, though the §121 exclusion removes up to $250,000 of it ($500,000 married filing jointly) if you owned the place and lived in it as your main home for two of the five years before selling. That works for an HDB flat and a private condo alike. Anything above it is taxable, with no Singapore tax to credit.
Currency trips people up. The gain is worked out in dollars, so a flat that barely moved in Singapore dollars can show a US gain if the Singapore dollar strengthened. Paying off a Singapore-dollar mortgage after the currency weakened can create a taxable exchange gain, while a loss on a personal mortgage isn’t deductible. Letting out a former home? The rent is taxable in both countries, with credit for the Singapore tax, plus US depreciation to track.
ABSD and other stamp duties generally aren’t creditable against US income tax, because they tax the transaction, not income. Stamp duty on a purchase generally gets added to your US cost basis instead. Under the US–Singapore Free Trade Agreement, US nationals get the same ABSD treatment as Singapore citizens, but check the current IRAS rules for your purchase before counting on it.
Own a Singapore Pte Ltd? Expect Form 5471
A Singapore company owned more than 50% by US shareholders (each with 10% or more) is a controlled foreign corporation, and those shareholders generally file Form 5471 every year, with heavy penalties for missing it.
The rules formerly known as GILTI, now “net CFC tested income”, can also tax you each year on the company’s profits even if nothing’s paid out, and Singapore’s 17% rate, lower after partial exemptions, is generally too low for the high-tax exception. A §962 election or the salary-versus-dividend split can change the result a lot.
Form 5471 work with us starts from $450. Please talk to us when you incorporate, not after several years of unfiled forms.
Reporting Singapore bank accounts: FBAR and Form 8938
If your non-US accounts together topped $10,000 at any point in 2025, you file an FBAR (FinCEN Form 114). That means bank and multi-currency accounts, brokerage accounts, SRS and, in the usual view, CPF, plus accounts you can sign on but don’t own, like a company account. It goes to FinCEN, separately from your return, and is due 15 April with an automatic extension to 15 October. Our FBAR guide has the detail, or we can file it for you.
Form 8938 goes in with your 1040 once your foreign financial assets pass $200,000 on the last day of the year or $300,000 at any time if you’re single or married filing separately, or $400,000 and $600,000 if married filing jointly. Your Singapore bank is already reporting you to the IRS under FATCA, so assume the IRS knows the account exists.
Have you really left your US state?
Moving doesn’t automatically end your state residency. California, New York and Virginia can keep treating you as a resident if you keep a home, driver’s licence or voter registration, and California doesn’t allow the FEIE, which stings more in low-tax Singapore. Our state tax guide for expats covers how to leave cleanly.
Behind on US filing from Singapore?
Plenty of people here find out late, often when a bank asks for a US tax number. If it wasn’t willful, the Streamlined Foreign Offshore Procedures let you catch up with the last three years of returns, six years of FBARs and a signed certification on Form 14653. Meet the non-residency test and there’s no penalty, just any tax and interest, which with the FEIE is often little or nothing. See our Streamlined guide or our Streamlined package (from $1,500).
What we’d do for you
For most Employment Pass holders, the Expat return below covers everything: the FEIE, housing exclusion or credit, the FBAR and Form 8938. If you hold Singapore unit trusts or ETFs, or get RSUs and ESPP shares, you’re in Premier territory ($999), which includes Form 8621 and equity compensation. An extra state return is $75. See full pricing or get in touch.