Singapore cuts SSD to three years and 12%, lifts TDSR from low-LTV equity withdrawal loans and adds duties on property-holding entities

Announced

10 March 2017

Effective

11 March 2017

Issuing authority

Monetary Authority of Singapore, Ministry of National Development, Ministry of Finance, Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore

Category

Policy relaxation

Affected market

Residential property purchased on and after 11 March 2017, for Seller's Stamp Duty; mortgage equity withdrawal loans from financial institutions with LTV ratios of 50% and below, for TDSR; and conveyances of equity interests in residential property-holding entities by or to significant owners from 11 March 2017, for the additional conveyance duties. The SSD trigger is the seller's purchase date, not the sale date: property purchased before 11 March 2017 keeps the schedule of its own cohort.

Primary source

Joint Press Release on Measures Relating to Residential Property

On 10 March 2017 Singapore cut the Seller's Stamp Duty holding period for residential property from four years to three and lowered every tier by four percentage points, for property purchased on and after 11 March 2017. The schedule became 12%, 8% and 4%, with no duty on a sale in the fourth year, which had carried 4%. Property bought earlier kept its own schedule, so the change reached only future buyers when they came to sell. From the same date MAS stopped applying TDSR to mortgage equity withdrawal loans with LTV ratios of 50% and below, leaving the 60% threshold in place for every other property loan. A new stamp duty, the additional conveyance duty, was imposed on significant owners who buy or sell equity in entities holding mainly Singapore residential property: 12% on the seller for equity sold within three years, and on the buyer banded rates of 1% to 3% plus 15%, each applied to the value of the underlying property attributable to the equity. ABSD rates and LTV limits were retained.