CPF, SRS and retirement savings in Singapore

If you're on an Employment Pass, Singapore's famous pension system isn't yours, and the one retirement account you can open comes with a US tax catch. Your 401(k) and IRA still do most of the heavy lifting.

The short version

CPF is for citizens and permanent residents. The CPF Board says contributions are payable for employees who are Singapore citizens or PRs, so EP and S Pass holders don't pay in and don't get the employer match [1].
Become a PR and that changes. From January 1, 2026, the full rate for workers 55 and under is 37% of wages: 20% from you, 17% from your employer. New PRs start at lower, graduated rates for their first two years [1].
The Supplementary Retirement Scheme (SRS) is open to foreigners, with a yearly cap of SGD 35,700 (about USD 27,900) versus SGD 15,300 for citizens and PRs. Contributions cut your Singapore taxable income [2].
The IRS doesn't recognize SRS. There's no US–Singapore income tax treaty [6], so the deduction doesn't carry over, and the funds you buy inside SRS are often PFICs [5].
Keep your US accounts. A 401(k) or IRA keeps growing tax-deferred while you live here; the hard part is contributing to an IRA, not keeping one.

USD conversions use the Federal Reserve H.10 rate of October 30, 2026 (USD 1 = SGD 1.2776).

CPF: why your payslip has no pension line

Back home in the States, Social Security comes out of every paycheck whatever your passport. Singapore's equivalent, the Central Provident Fund (CPF), is narrower. The CPF Board's employer guide says contributions are payable for employees who are Singapore citizens and Singapore permanent residents [1]. Foreigners on a work pass sit outside it, and so does the employer's share.

That has a few knock-on effects worth knowing:

Your take-home pay looks high next to a Singaporean colleague on the same salary, because nothing is going into CPF. But nothing is building up for you either.
No CPF means no MediShield Life. Singapore's basic hospital insurance is tied to citizenship and PR status, which is why your health plan matters so much. Our guide to healthcare covers that.
No US Social Security credits, usually. If a Singapore company pays you, you aren't paying US Social Security tax, and there's no totalization agreement between the two countries [7]. Those years don't count toward your US benefit. A US expat tax preparer can check whether self-employment tax applies if you freelance instead.

If you become a permanent resident

Many long-term EP holders apply for PR, and CPF then becomes compulsory. The CPF Board publishes the 2026 rates by age: for employees 55 and under earning more than SGD 750 a month, it's 17% from the employer and 20% from the employee, a total of 37% [1]. That's a lot more than the 6.2% you'd pay toward Social Security stateside. In the first and second year of PR you contribute at lower graduated rates, and you and your employer can jointly opt into the full rates early [1]. The money is split across accounts for retirement, housing and healthcare, with a monthly wage ceiling on contributions.

	Employment Pass or S Pass	Permanent resident (year 3 on, age 55 and under)
CPF contributions	None [1]	20% employee + 17% employer [1]
MediShield Life	Not covered [8]	Covered automatically [8]
SRS cap per year	SGD 35,700 (about USD 27,900) [2]	SGD 15,300 (about USD 12,000) [2]
US Social Security credits from a Singapore employer	No	No

Leaving later? If you give up PR and leave, the CPF Board closes your account and you transfer the savings to your bank account. The rules differ for people who renounced before or after April 1, 2024, and the Board says closure takes about 18 weeks on average [3][4].

CPF and your US return

This is where we'd slow down and get help. The IRS has no special rule for CPF, and with no treaty there's nothing to lean on. Your own CPF contributions come out of pay that's already taxable on your US return, and there's a real question about whether the employer's share and the interest are taxable to you each year. Practitioners don't all treat it the same way. The accounts are also foreign financial accounts for FBAR and Form 8938 purposes. A US expat tax preparer can check your situation before you file your first PR-year return.

SRS: the one Singapore retirement account open to you

The Supplementary Retirement Scheme is a voluntary account you open at one of the local banks that operate it (DBS is one; the scheme is run by the private sector, not the government). It was set up in 2001 to sit alongside CPF, and it's open to Singapore citizens, PRs and foreigners who are at least 18 [2].

How it works, per the Ministry of Finance [2]:

Contribution cap: SGD 35,700 a year for foreigners (about USD 27,900), SGD 15,300 for citizens and PRs (about USD 12,000). The caps have been unchanged since January 1, 2016. You can put money in any time until December 31.
Tax relief: contributions reduce your Singapore taxable income, inside the overall SGD 80,000 (about USD 62,600) yearly cap on personal reliefs.
Tax-free growth: returns inside the account aren't taxed until you withdraw.
Investments: shares, unit trusts, bonds, fixed deposits, ETFs and some insurance products. Direct property isn't allowed.
Withdrawals at or after the statutory retirement age in force when you first contributed: only 50% is taxable, and you can spread withdrawals over 10 years.
Withdrawals before that age: fully taxable plus a 5% penalty. IRAS has separate withdrawal and withholding-tax rules for foreigners and PRs, including penalty-free routes in some cases, so check IRAS's foreigners' page before you close out [9].

For a Singaporean in a high bracket, that's a nice deal. For you, it's half a deal.

How the IRS sees SRS

Uncle Sam doesn't care that IRAS gave you a deduction. Without a treaty, there's no provision that makes SRS a tax-deferred pension for US purposes, so:

No US deduction. Money you put in is still income on your Form 1040, unless you're excluding it anyway under the foreign earned income exclusion.
Growth may be taxable each year. Interest, dividends and gains inside the account can be taxable on your US return as they happen, not when you withdraw.
Reporting. An SRS account counts toward the FBAR's USD 10,000 aggregate threshold [10] and toward Form 8938.

So when does SRS make sense? Mostly when Singapore tax is the bigger bill and the account is kept in plain vanilla holdings, like fixed deposits or individual shares, that don't create PFIC paperwork. If you rely on the foreign tax credit, cutting your Singapore tax can also shrink the credits you carry to your US return. Run the numbers with a preparer.

The PFIC trap

The menu of SRS investments is mostly Singapore unit trusts, local ETFs and investment-linked insurance. To the IRS, a non-US fund is usually a passive foreign investment company (PFIC). That means:

A separate Form 8621 for each PFIC, in most years you hold it [5].
Gains and big distributions taxed under the punitive "excess distribution" regime, at ordinary rates plus an interest charge, unless you made a QEF or mark-to-market election [5].
A small de minimis break: no Part I filing if all your PFIC stock is worth USD 25,000 or less at year end (USD 50,000 joint) and you had no excess distributions or gains [5].

The IRS does exempt PFICs held inside US IRAs and similar US accounts, and arrangements treated as foreign pension funds under a tax treaty [5]. SRS fits neither box, because there's no treaty. Inside SRS, a Singapore ETF is just a PFIC with a nicer wrapper. Our guide to PFICs explains the elections, and the banking guide covers why banks limit what they'll sell to US persons anyway.

Keeping your 401(k) and IRA

Here's the good news: moving to Singapore doesn't blow up your US retirement accounts.

Account	Can you keep it?	Can you add to it?
Old employer 401(k)	Yes, or roll it to an IRA	Only through a US employer's plan
Traditional or Roth IRA	Yes	Only if you have taxable compensation
US brokerage (taxable)	Usually, but some brokers restrict foreign addresses	Yes, if the broker allows it

Growth stays tax-deferred in the US, and Singapore generally leaves individuals' foreign-sourced investment income alone (our Singapore tax guide has the details), so the account keeps working the way it did stateside.
IRA contributions need taxable compensation. For 2026 the limit is USD 7,500, or USD 8,600 at 50 and up; it was USD 7,000 and USD 8,000 for 2025 [11]. Pay you exclude under the foreign earned income exclusion doesn't count as compensation for this, so many Americans here who use the exclusion can't contribute. Claiming the foreign tax credit instead keeps that pay in the mix.
Keep a US address and phone number that your plan provider accepts. A surprise "we no longer serve your country" letter is a lot easier to handle before you need a withdrawal.

A simple plan

On an EP: keep funding US accounts where you can, and treat SRS as optional, not automatic.
If you open SRS: favor fixed deposits or individual shares over unit trusts, and add it to your FBAR list.
When PR arrives: talk to a preparer about CPF before your first PR-year return.
Track your Social Security record at ssa.gov, since Singapore years add nothing.

Want to compare notes with people in the same spot? Ask in our community group for Americans in Singapore.

CPF, SRS and retirement savings in Singapore: what an American can and can't use