Singapore raises Land Betterment Charge rates for five of nine use groups from 1 September 2026

The rates for Use Group A, commercial, increased by 1.7% on average.

An average across all 118 sectors, including the 72 that did not move. No individual sector rose by 1.7%, so this is not the increase any commercial site will see. Across the 46 sectors that did move, the mean increase reconstructed from the two published tables is 4.3%. The figure is a rate of change and not a level, so no before-value is stored. The Singapore Land Authority does not state how it computes the published averages; the unweighted mean across all 118 sectors reproduces all five of them and that the method remains a reconstruction.

For Use Group A, 46 of the 118 sectors saw an increase of about 3% to 19%, and the remaining 72 sectors saw no change.

The lower endpoint is approximate and the release says so. Reconstructed from the two published tables, the smallest increase is 2.52% in sector 71, and eighteen of the 46 moving sectors rose by less than 3%. The stated upper endpoint of about 19% corresponds to sector 96, where the reconstructed rise is 19.05% and which is carried at claim 20. No sector decreased. The stored range is the range the release states; the sector counts are in the claim text and are not stored in a value column, because one claim cannot hold a count and two endpoints at once.

The rates for Use Group B1, residential landed, increased by 3.5% on average.

An average across all 118 sectors, including the 10 that did not move, and a rate of change rather than a level, so no before-value is stored. This is not a land price index and not a forecast of landed values. It is the Chief Valuer's assessment applied to a tax table, and it moves in discrete steps at six-month intervals. The comparable figure at the March 2026 revision was 4%.

For Use Group B1, 108 of the 118 sectors saw an increase of about 2% to 8%, and the remaining 10 sectors saw no change.

Reconstructed from the two published tables, the range runs from 1.82% in sector 34 to 8.14% in sector 67, which is carried at claim 21. The ten sectors that did not move are 96, 97, 98, 99, 104, 105, 108, 109, 110 and 117. Outside Use Groups D and E, where every sector moved, this is the widest participation in the revision.

The rates for Use Group B2, residential non-landed, increased by 3.4% on average.

An average across all 118 sectors, including the 48 that did not move, and a rate of change rather than a level, so no before-value is stored. Across the 70 sectors that did move the mean increase reconstructed from the two published tables is 5.7%. A collective sale or redevelopment budget cannot be adjusted by 3.4% on the strength of this number: the sector rate is what the charge is assessed on, and sector outcomes in this revision run from no change at all to 29%. The comparable figure at the March 2026 revision was 4.1%.

For Use Group B2, 70 of the 118 sectors saw an increase of about 1% to 29%, and the remaining 48 sectors saw no change.

The 29% describes one sector and not a market. Reconstructed from the two published tables, the range runs from 0.93% in sector 100 to 29.09% in sector 54. Only three sectors rose by 20% or more, and they are 54, 55 and 56, which shared one March 2026 rate and are carried at claims 18 and 19. This is the widest dispersion of any use group in the revision, and 48 sectors did not move at all.

The rates for Use Group D, industrial, increased by 3.9% on average, and every sector rose.

The largest average increase of any use group in this revision, and a rate of change rather than a level, so no before-value is stored. The largest average is not the largest single move, which sits in Use Group B2 at sector 54 and is carried at claim 18. That every sector rose is carried by the sentence quoted at claim 11, in the same paragraph.

For Use Group D, all 118 sectors saw increments of about 2% to 10%.

Reconstructed from the two published tables, the range runs from 1.84% in sector 99 to 10.09%, the upper figure shared by fifteen sectors that all moved from S$2,359 to S$2,597 per sq m of gross floor area. Use Groups D and E are the only two in which every sector moved. The sector count is in the claim text and the stored range is the range the release states.

The rates for Use Group E, covering places of worship and civic and community institutions, increased by 2.9% on average across all sectors, which the release attributes to keeping pace with the overall growth in land values.

The only use group for which the release gives a reason, and the reason is not extended to any other group anywhere in the text. That reason does not make Use Group E a proxy for land values generally: its rates take three distinct values across the whole island, as carried at claim 26, so the column holds far less sector detail than the others. Every sector moved, within a narrow spread of 2.74% to 3.45%.

In sector 54, the Use Group B2 rate rose from S$7,700 to S$9,940 per square metre of gross floor area, the largest single-sector increase in this revision.

Sector 54 is not an isolated outlier, and reporting it as one misdescribes what happened. Sectors 55 and 56 sat at the same S$7,700 in March 2026 and both rose to S$9,520, so three adjacent sectors were repriced off a common base rather than one sector moving alone; claim 19 carries the other two. The increase reconstructs to 29.09%, which is the upper endpoint the release states as about 29%. The rate applies to non-landed residential development in that sector only, and it is a tax rate per sq m of gross floor area rather than a land price.

In sectors 55 and 56, the Use Group B2 rate rose from S$7,700 to S$9,520 per square metre of gross floor area, from the same March 2026 base as sector 54.

The increase reconstructs to 23.64% in both sectors. With sector 54 these are the only three sectors in any use group that rose by 20% or more in this revision. The release identifies none of the three by number and states no reason for the move, and nothing held names the valuation evidence the Chief Valuer considered.

In sector 96, the Use Group A rate rose from S$7,350 to S$8,750 per square metre of gross floor area, the largest commercial increase in this revision.

The increase reconstructs to 19.05%, matching the upper endpoint the release states as about 19% and carried at claim 4. Sector 96 is also one of the ten sectors in which the Use Group B1 rate did not move, so a sector can sit at the top of one use group and be static in another. The release does not identify the sector; the ranking is read across all 118 rows of the column.

In sector 67, the Use Group B1 rate rose from S$20,650 to S$22,330 per square metre of gross floor area, which is both the largest landed residential increase and the highest landed residential rate in the table.

The increase reconstructs to 8.14%, matching the upper endpoint the release states as about 8% and carried at claim 6. The ranking stated here is within use group b1 only, and that is narrower than the source packet asserted. The packet placed this rate below Use Group C at sectors 41 and 42, and separately recorded that rate as S$19,110, which is lower than S$22,330; the two statements cannot both hold. Only the six table rows transcribed into the packet are held here, so no cross-group maximum is asserted in either direction. The release states no ranking of any kind.

In sector 42, the Use Group A rate rose from S$17,850 to S$18,550 per square metre of gross floor area, the highest commercial rate in the table.

Highest within Use Group A only. Nothing in the release identifies it as the highest; the ranking is read across all 118 rows of the column and is the archive's reading rather than a statement by the Singapore Land Authority. The increase reconstructs to 3.92%, so the highest commercial rate is not among the largest commercial movements.

In sector 43, the Use Group B2 rate rose from S$14,700 to S$15,540 per square metre of gross floor area, the highest non-landed residential rate in the table.

Highest within Use Group B2 only, and read across the table rather than stated in the release. The increase reconstructs to 5.71%, against a headline group average of 3.4%, so the most expensive non-landed sector moved at roughly the rate of the sectors that moved rather than at the rate of the table.

In sector 111, the Use Group D rate rose from S$2,758 to S$2,898 per square metre of gross floor area, the highest industrial rate in the table.

Highest within Use Group D only, and read across the table rather than stated in the release. Industrial rates sit far below commercial and residential rates throughout the table: in sector 111 itself the commercial rate is S$11,550, four times the industrial one, and in sector 41 it is S$17,850 against an industrial S$917. The increase reconstructs to 5.08%.

In sectors 41 and 42, the Use Group C rate stayed at S$19,110 per square metre of gross floor area, the highest rate recorded in Use Group C.

A level that did not move, so no change pair is stored. Writing a before-value and an after-value that are the same number would present a static rate as a revision. The source packet called this the highest rate anywhere in the table and that is not carried, because the same packet records S$22,330 in Use Group B1 at sector 67, which is higher. Only six table rows are transcribed into the packet, so this archive can rank within Use Group C and no further. The release states no ranking of any kind.

Use Group E takes only three distinct values across the whole table, at S$1,050 per square metre in sectors 1 to 91, S$840 in sectors 92 to 115 and S$441 in sectors 116 to 118, each band contiguous.

The banding is read off the table and is not stated in the release. The same three-band structure with the same boundaries is present in the March 2026 table, where the values were S$1,022, S$812 and S$427, so each band moved as a block. That is why the spread of Use Group E movements is only 2.74% to 3.45% while every sector moved. The stored range is the top and bottom of the column; the middle band value is in the claim text.

The Use Group G column shows a dash in sectors 1 to 95 and a rate of S$34 per square metre of land area in sectors 96 to 118, unchanged from March 2026.

A dash should not be read as a rate of zero. The release does not say what it means. It may record that no rate is published for those sectors, or that the use group is not applicable there, and nothing held decides between the two readings. Nothing in the release supports treating an unpublished cell as a nil charge. Only the S$34 is stored, because a value column would misrepresent the dash as a number.

The Land Betterment Charge rates for the period from 1 September 2026 to 28 February 2027 were revised following a review by the Singapore Land Authority conducted in consultation with the Chief Valuer.

This states that a review took place and who conducted it, and nothing about what the review found. The release does not set out the valuation evidence, the transactions considered, or the method by which sector rates or the published averages were derived. The only figures in the claim are the two calendar dates bounding the rate period, and the start of that period is stored as the event effective date.

Rates increased for Use Groups A, B1, B2, D and E, and remained unchanged for Use Groups C, F, G and H.

Increased on average is not increased everywhere. For Use Groups A, B1 and B2 the word describes the average across sectors, and a majority or a substantial minority of sectors did not move at all: 72 of the 118 sectors were unchanged in Use Group A and 48 in Use Group B2. Only in Use Groups D and E did every sector move. Reading this as every commercial and residential sector rising is the available error, and it is wrong for 120 sector cells. The digits in the claim are parts of the use group names B1 and B2, not measurements; the size of each increase is carried at claims 3, 5, 7, 10 and 12.

The rates for Use Group C, covering hotel and hospital uses, remain unchanged.

Confirmed against the tables: all 118 Use Group C cells are identical in the two releases. A wording difference between the two releases is not a narrowing of the use group. The March 2026 release heads the equivalent paragraph "Hotel, Hospital and Nursing homes" where the September 2026 release heads it "Hotel, Hospital". Appendix 2 describes Use Group C identically in both, as hospital, hotel room and hotel-related uses, and the September release states that the Use Groups Table did not change. Reading the shorter heading as the removal of nursing homes would be wrong on the face of an appendix that did not move.

The rates for Use Groups F, G and H remain unchanged.

Confirmed against the tables. Use Group F stands at S$10 per sq m of land area in every sector and Use Group H at S$1, both unchanged. Use Group G is the column that holds two kinds of entry and is carried separately at claim 27. Together with Use Group C, four of the nine use groups did not move anywhere on the island.

There are no changes to the Use Groups Table, and the number of geographical sectors remains 118.

The number of sectors being unchanged is not the sectors being unchanged, and the same paragraph records boundary adjustments to four of them, carried at claim 15. The Use Groups Table half of the claim rests on comparing Appendix 2 in the two releases, which read identically. The standalone Annex F published alongside the September 2026 release was not read, records that.

Boundary adjustments described as minor were made to geographical sectors 7, 16, 23 and 35, to align with the land parcel zoning demarcations in the Urban Redevelopment Authority's Master Plan 2025.

For these four sectors a sector number in the March table and the same number in the September table do not describe identical ground. The release gives no measure of the land moved and no detail of where the boundaries went. Minor is the Singapore Land Authority's characterisation and is not checkable from anything held: that requires the September 2026 sector maps, which this archive does not hold, set against the maps in force for March 2026. The rate comparisons remain arithmetically correct, because they compare the rates published against each sector number, but they establish nothing about a parcel that crossed an adjusted boundary. Sector 23 rose 5.56% in Use Group A and 5.95% in Use Group B2, and sector 35 rose 6.13% in Use Group B2, all above their group averages, and none of those movements can be separated from the boundary change on anything held. The digits in the claim are sector identifiers and the name of a Master Plan, so no value column applies.

Rates for Use Groups A to E are stated per square metre of gross floor area, and rates for Use Groups F to H per square metre of land area.

This states the denominator and not the calculation. Multiplying a sector rate by a project's gross floor area does not give the Land Betterment Charge. The charge follows from the difference between the post-chargeable and pre-chargeable valuations, so only the uplift is charged, and the release does not state how chargeable floor area is measured.

After a planning application or plan lodgment has been submitted to the Urban Redevelopment Authority, the landowner makes no separate application to the Singapore Land Authority for payment of Land Betterment Charge. Where the proposed development results in an increase in land value, the Singapore Land Authority issues a Liability Order stating the amount payable, and payment falls due within one month from the date of that order.

The standing administrative process, which this revision did not alter, and it is carried because it is what decides when a rate change is felt. It does not mean that no applications exist anywhere in the regime: separate forms cover election of the Valuation method, assumption of liability, deferment and transfer of deferred liability. The one month runs from the date of the Liability Order and not from the grant that triggered the charge.

The revised rates take effect from 1 September 2026 and apply to cases granted Provisional Permission, or a second or subsequent extension to a Provisional Permission, on or after that date.

A first extension is not named in the trigger. The release names Provisional Permission and second and subsequent extensions, says nothing about a first extension granted on or after the effective date, and this event does not resolve it. New rates from 1 September 2026 reads as though every case assessed after that date is caught, and that is the available error: a case granted Provisional Permission in August 2026 stays on the March 2026 table even where its Liability Order issues much later. A later qualifying extension can create a new applicable trigger, so a grant before the effective date does not put a case beyond every future table.

The Land Betterment Charge is a tax on the increase in the value of land arising from a chargeable consent, and it replaced Differential Premium, Development Charge and Temporary Development Levy with effect from 1 August 2022.

Background to the regime, which this revision did not change. It is carried so that a reader arriving from an earlier Development Charge table understands why the series changes name in 2022. Differential Premium and Development Charge were administered by the Singapore Land Authority and the Urban Redevelopment Authority respectively before that date.