Cost of Buying a Condo Singapore 2026: A $1.88M Purchase Needs $63,600 BSD and $533,600 Upfront

Expert takeaway: A $1,880,000 condo bought by a Singapore Citizen as a first home carries $63,600 in Buyer's Stamp Duty and roughly $533,600 to get to key collection once the 25% downpayment is added. Some of that is fixed by law, but a meaningful slice is made up of ranges you can negotiate, so knowing which is which is the whole game.

Ask most buyers what a condo costs and they name the sticker price. The real question is the cost of buying a condo in Singapore in 2026 once every fee is stacked on top, from the option fee you pay to reserve the unit to the maintenance and property tax waiting for you at key collection. This is a reference piece: one complete cost table you can work from, with two worked examples at $1,880,000 and $2,400,000. Every stamp duty and loan figure below was verified on 22 September 2026 against IRAS and MAS.

What the full cost of a condo purchase actually includes in 2026

There are eight cost buckets between you and your keys. Three are fixed by the government (BSD, ABSD, property tax). Three are near-fixed but vary a little by lender or firm (legal, valuation, mortgage charges). Two are ongoing from day one (MCST maintenance, moving-in). The single largest number is not a fee at all, it is the downpayment, the part of the price your loan does not cover.

For a Singapore Citizen buying a first home with a bank loan, MAS caps the loan at 75% of the price or valuation, whichever is lower, so the downpayment is 25%. Of that 25%, a minimum of 5% must be paid in cash and up to 20% may come from your CPF Ordinary Account. If the loan tenure runs past 30 years or beyond age 65, the loan-to-value falls to 55% and the minimum cash rises to 10%.

The option fee, exercise and how the deposit works

On a resale condo, you typically pay a 1% option fee to secure the Option to Purchase (OTP), then a further 4% when you exercise it, for 5% total that forms part of your downpayment. On a new launch bought directly from a developer under the Progressive Payment Scheme, the booking fee is usually 5% of the price, paid when you take the OTP. For a $1,880,000 unit, that first 1% is $18,800 and the full 5% is $94,000. This is not extra money on top of the price; it counts towards your 25% downpayment. What matters is timing: this cash leaves your account first, well before the loan disburses.

Buyer's Stamp Duty: the band-by-band working for $1,880,000

BSD is progressive and marginal, meaning each rate applies only to the slice of price inside its band, not the whole price. The bands from 15 February 2023 are 1% on the first $180,000, 2% on the next $180,000, 3% on the next $640,000, 4% on the next $500,000, 5% on the next $1,500,000, and 6% above $3,000,000. Never compute this from memory. Here is the full working for the assigned $1,880,000 quantum, and you can check any figure against our stamp duty calculator.

The common error is stopping at the 4% band. Any price above $1.5M crosses into the 5% band, and forgetting it understates the bill. At $1,880,000 the 5% band alone adds $19,000, which is why the total is $63,600 and not the $44,600 that a $1.5M purchase would pay.

ABSD: the fee that decides everything, by buyer profile

ABSD sits on top of BSD and is set entirely by who you are and how many homes you already own. It is the reason a second purchase costs a completely different amount from a first. The rates below were verified on 22 September 2026.

On $1,880,000, a first-timer Singapore Citizen pays $0 ABSD. A PR first home pays 5%, or $94,000. A Singapore Citizen buying this as a second property pays 20%, or $376,000, which single-handedly dwarfs BSD, legal fees and everything else combined. US, Swiss, Liechtenstein, Norwegian and Icelandic nationals receive Singapore Citizen treatment under free trade agreements. Married Singapore Citizen couples buying a second home can claim ABSD remission if they sell the first within six months. Couples weighing a structured purchase should read our guide on how decoupling and 99-1 legally skip second-property ABSD before committing, because the ABSD line is where a purchase is won or lost.

Downpayment, cash and CPF: the biggest cheque you write

At 75% LTV, the loan on $1,880,000 is $1,410,000 and the downpayment is $470,000. Of that, the minimum 5% cash is $94,000 and up to 20% ($376,000) may come from CPF OA. Add the $63,600 BSD and the total to exercise and complete is about $533,600 before legal, valuation and moving costs. Note the coincidence buyers miss: on a second property the 20% ABSD is also $376,000, the same figure as the CPF portion here, which shows how a single policy line can double the cash you need. To pressure-test whether your income supports the loan under the 55% TDSR cap and 4% floor rate, run the numbers through our affordability calculator before you fall in love with a unit.

A word on who actually buys at $1,880,000. This is a mainstream OCR or RCR condo, not a luxury purchase, but it is not entry level either. Servicing a $1,410,000 loan over 30 years at the 4% stress-test floor implies a household income comfortably into five figures a month, and $533,600 of liquid cash and CPF ready before completion. It is the price point for dual-income upgraders and established professionals, not first jobbers. If you are moving out of an HDB flat, sequence the sale carefully so your CPF refund and sale proceeds land before this cheque is due, and check the timing implications in our HDB-to-condo upgrade guide.

Legal, valuation, mortgage and the costs at key collection

These are the ranges, not the fixed figures. Conveyancing and legal fees for a condo purchase typically run $2,500 to $3,500 including disbursements. A valuation report, needed by your bank, is usually $300 to $700 and often arranged through the lender. Mortgage-related charges such as a valuation admin fee or fire insurance are frequently absorbed by banks competing for your loan, so ask. At handover you also face MCST maintenance, commonly $300 to $800 a month depending on facilities and unit share value, often collected quarterly in advance. Finally, property tax is charged by IRAS on the annual value of the property, at owner-occupier rates if you live in it, and a portion may be payable at or shortly after key collection.

Two worked examples side by side: $1,880,000 vs $2,400,000

Both examples assume a Singapore Citizen buying a first home with a bank loan at 75% LTV. The BSD for $2,400,000 works out to $89,600 ($1,800 + $3,600 + $19,200 + $20,000 + $45,000 on the $900,000 in the 5% band).

Notice that the fixed government and downpayment costs scale predictably while the legal and valuation ranges barely move. That is the useful mental model: the big numbers are formula-driven, the small ones are negotiable.

A note on floor area if you are comparing new launches

If your shortlist mixes new launches with resale, be careful comparing price per square foot across the harmonisation line. Under the harmonised floor-area rules that govern new development applications submitted from 1 June 2023, areas are measured to the middle of the wall and voids such as aircon ledges and planter boxes are excluded from saleable area, so a harmonised project shows a smaller but more efficient number. Three years past the cut-off, the large majority of 2026 launches are harmonised, while older en bloc redevelopments and all resale stock still quote the old way. A harmonised project such as ELTA in Clementi will look tighter on paper than a resale unit of the same headline size, even though you are paying for more genuinely liveable space. Adjust before you judge psf, and if you want the full sequence of buying off-plan, see our step-by-step new launch guide.

Opportunities and risks in budgeting this way

The opportunity is control. Once you separate the fixed costs (BSD $63,600, downpayment $470,000, property tax) from the ranges (legal, valuation, mortgage, MCST, moving), you know exactly where negotiation and shopping around actually help. You can also time the CPF and cash so nothing is scrambled at the 14-day mark. The risk is underestimating the cash floor. The minimum 5% cash of $94,000 is not optional, CPF cannot cover it, and if your tenure pushes LTV to 55% the cash minimum jumps to 10%. The second risk is ABSD creep: if this is not genuinely your only property, the $376,000 line changes the entire arithmetic and no amount of fee-shaving offsets it. Budget for the profile you actually are, not the one you wish you were.

Every buyer's mix of citizenship, existing property count, CPF balance and loan tenure shifts these numbers, and the difference between a first and second purchase alone is $376,000 on this price. If you want your own figures worked out cleanly, from the exact stamp duty to how much cash versus CPF you will need at each stage, reach out to the team at PropertyNet.SG for independent, no-pressure advice tailored to your situation before you exercise any option.