Mortgage & Financing · 2026
How much can I borrow for a house in Singapore?
By Winfred Quek · 10-minute read · Last reviewed May 2026
Facts verified: May 2026 · Sources linked below
Key Takeaways
- • Three rules set your loan ceiling: TDSR (55% of income), MSR (30%, HDB and EC only), and LTV (75% of price for a first loan). The lowest of the three wins.
- • Banks compute TDSR using a 4.0% stress-test floor rate, not the ~1.5% market rate, so your borrowing capacity is materially smaller than naive arithmetic implies.
- • Existing debt, car loans, personal loans, credit-card minimums, all eats into the same 55% TDSR envelope before any housing loan is counted.
- • Age matters: if your age plus loan tenure exceeds 65, the bank caps LTV lower. Older borrowers get a shorter tenure and a smaller maximum loan.
- • An In-Principle Approval (IPA) from the bank tells you your real ceiling before you commit to an Option to Purchase. Get it first.
The most common question I get before a client even looks at a listing is some version of "how much can I borrow?" It is the right question, because your loan ceiling, not the asking price of the unit you like, is what actually determines your budget. Get this wrong and you sign an Option to Purchase you cannot complete.
The answer in Singapore is not a single number. It is the lowest of three separate caps, each set by a different rule. Once you understand all three, you can work out your own ceiling in about ten minutes.
What three rules decide how much you can borrow?
Singapore's mortgage framework is built on three constraints. A bank applies all three and lends you the smallest amount they produce.
1. TDSR, the income rule
The Total Debt Servicing Ratio caps your total monthly debt repayments at 55% of gross monthly income. According to the Monetary Authority of Singapore, every loan commitment counts, your new home loan plus any car loan, personal loan, student loan, and the minimum payment on your credit cards. TDSR applies to all residential property, HDB and private.
The trap: the bank does not calculate your housing instalment at the ~1.5% rate you will actually be charged. It uses a stress-test floor rate of 4.0% on the new loan. The point is to confirm you could still service the loan if rates rose, so your TDSR-allowed loan is meaningfully smaller than a 1.5% instalment calculation would suggest.
2. MSR, the HDB and EC rule
The Mortgage Servicing Ratio caps the housing loan instalment alone at 30% of gross monthly income. It applies only to HDB flats and Executive Condominiums bought from a developer. It does not apply to private condos or resale ECs past the privatisation point. Where MSR applies, you must satisfy both MSR (30% on the housing loan) and TDSR (55% on all debt), and the tighter of the two binds.
3. LTV, the property-value rule
The Loan-to-Value limit caps the loan as a percentage of the lower of purchase price or bank valuation. For a borrower with no other outstanding housing loan, LTV is 75% for a bank loan. The remaining 25% is your downpayment, of which at least 5% must be in cash and the rest can be cash or CPF.
| Outstanding housing loans | Maximum LTV (bank loan) | Minimum cash downpayment |
|---|---|---|
| None (1st loan) | 75% | 5% |
| One (2nd loan) | 45% | 25% |
| Two or more (3rd+ loan) | 35% | 25% |
LTV limits per MAS rules. The 75% first-loan LTV applies only where loan tenure does not exceed 30 years (private) or 25 years (HDB) and your age plus tenure does not exceed 65. Otherwise a lower LTV cap applies.
How do you work out your own ceiling? A worked example
Take a single buyer, age 35, gross monthly income $9,000, with an existing car loan of $700 a month and no other debt. They want a private condo on a 30-year loan.
So this buyer's ceiling is around $891,000 of loan, supporting a purchase near $1.19M. Note what happens to the instalment in real life: on $891,000 at the actual ~1.5% rate over 30 years (about $3.45 per $1,000), the monthly repayment is roughly $3,074, comfortably inside the $4,250 envelope. The 4.0% stress test is a safety buffer, not your real payment.
How do age and tenure change the number?
Loan tenure is capped at 30 years for private property and 25 years for HDB. But there is a second cap: if your age plus the tenure exceeds 65, you keep the loan but the bank applies a lower LTV. A 50-year-old taking a 30-year loan (finishing at 80) would not get the full 75% LTV; the bank would cut the LTV and require a larger downpayment.
This is why two people on identical incomes can have very different ceilings. The younger borrower gets a longer tenure, a lower per-$1,000 instalment, and the full LTV. The older borrower gets a shorter tenure, a higher per-$1,000 instalment, and possibly a reduced LTV. For the older borrower, income capacity is squeezed from both ends.
How do banks treat variable or self-employed income?
Salaried income with a steady payslip is taken largely at face value. Variable income, commission, bonus, rental income, or self-employed earnings, is haircut. Lenders commonly apply a discount of around 30% to variable and self-employed income before running TDSR, because that income is less certain. If a large share of your earnings is commission-based, your assessed income for loan purposes will be lower than your headline figure. I cover this in detail in the guide on self-employed mortgages in Singapore and the income haircut.
Winfred's Take
The number the bank approves and the number you should actually borrow are two different things. Maximum LTV is a ceiling, not a target. I tell clients to model the instalment at 4.0%, not 1.5%, and confirm they can still sleep at that level, because rates do move. Borrowing the maximum at today's ~1.5% leaves no buffer if your package resets higher at the end of the lock-in. The disciplined buyer borrows what is comfortable at the stress rate and treats the gap to the ceiling as a margin of safety.
What should you do before you start viewing?
Get an In-Principle Approval from a bank, or have a mortgage broker run the numbers across several lenders. An IPA is a non-binding indication of how much that bank will lend you, based on your documented income and existing debt. It tells you your real ceiling before you fall in love with a unit you cannot complete. It is free, it takes a few working days, and it is the single most useful thing you can do at the start of a purchase.
FREE · 30 MINUTES · NO COMMITMENT
Find out your real borrowing ceiling
We work through your actual income, existing debt, age, and target property type, then map your true TDSR, MSR, and LTV ceiling. You leave knowing the price range you can genuinely complete.
Winfred Quek · CEA R073319H · Crestbrick
Frequently asked questions
Does TDSR include my credit card debt?
Yes. The minimum monthly repayment on outstanding credit-card balances counts toward your 55% TDSR. So do car loans, personal loans, education loans, and any other instalment commitments. Clearing revolving debt before you apply lifts your housing-loan capacity.
Why does the bank use 4% when my rate is only 1.5%?
The 4.0% figure is the TDSR medium-term stress-test floor rate. It exists so the bank confirms you could still service the loan if interest rates rose well above today's level. You are not charged 4.0%, you pay the actual package rate of around 1.5% in 2026, but the 4.0% test makes your approved loan smaller and more conservative.
Can I borrow more by stretching the tenure?
A longer tenure lowers the monthly instalment per $1,000 borrowed, which can lift the loan that fits inside TDSR. But tenure is capped (30 years private, 25 years HDB), and if your age plus tenure exceeds 65 the bank cuts your LTV. Stretching tenure also increases total interest paid over the life of the loan.
Does using an HDB loan change the limit?
An HDB concessionary loan has its own LTV (up to 75%) and is still subject to MSR and TDSR. According to HDB, the concessionary loan rate is 2.6%, higher than current bank rates of around 1.5%. The trade-offs between the two are covered in the HDB loan versus bank loan guide.
What if my income is mostly commission?
Banks typically haircut variable and self-employed income by around 30% before running TDSR. So a large commission component reduces your assessed income, and therefore your loan ceiling, relative to your headline earnings.
The bottom line
Your borrowing ceiling is the lowest of three numbers, not a single figure. Work out the TDSR-supported loan first, then check it against the LTV cap, then, if it is an HDB or EC, against MSR. Get an IPA before you view. And borrow comfortably at the 4.0% stress rate rather than maxing out at today's 1.5% headline.
Winfred Quek is an Associate Marketing Consultant at Crestbrick Pte Ltd, advising Singapore upgraders, investors, and families. CEA R073319H. The information on this page is general and does not constitute financial, investment, or mortgage advice.