Earned income relief and tax saved.
Earned income relief
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Tax saved
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Your breakdown
Updates live as you type| Age band | Standard relief | Tax saved at 11.5% |
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The relief you get just for working
Earned income relief is the most automatic deduction in the Singapore tax code. If you have any employment, trade, or business income in the year, IRAS grants it without you lifting a finger or filing a form. It is modest for younger workers and grows with age, on the reasoning that older taxpayers face higher living and medical costs. This tool shows the amount for your age band and the tax it removes at your marginal rate, so you can see exactly what the relief is worth to you rather than treating it as an invisible line on the assessment.
Three age bands, three amounts
The standard relief is $1,000 if you are below 55, $6,000 from 55 to 59, and $8,000 from 60 onward. The jump at 55 is steep, sixfold, which is deliberate support for older workers staying in the workforce. One limit to keep in mind: the relief cannot exceed your earned income. If a semi-retired 62-year-old earns only $5,000 from part-time work, the relief is capped at $5,000, not the full $8,000, because you cannot deduct more than you earned.
A worker under 55 at an 11.5 percent rate
For someone below 55 on an 11.5 percent marginal rate, the relief is $1,000 and the tax saved is $115. It is small, but it is free and stacks with every other relief you claim. Contrast the two older bands at the same rate to see how the value grows: $6,000 of relief saves $690, and $8,000 saves $920. The relief itself is fixed by age, but its cash value rises with your marginal rate.
Higher amounts if you are handicapped
If you are a handicapped individual with earned income, the relief is substantially larger: $4,000 below 55, $10,000 from 55 to 59, and $12,000 from 60. Tick the handicapped box in the tool and it switches to these figures. The enhancement recognises the additional costs of working with a disability. As with the standard relief, it is granted automatically once IRAS has the relevant record, though it is worth confirming it appears on your Notice of Assessment, since a missing enhanced relief is a meaningful sum to leave on the table.
It is worth being precise about what counts as earned income, because the relief hangs on it. Salary, bonuses, commissions, and the net profit from a trade or profession all qualify. Passive income does not. Rental income from a property you let out, interest, and one-tier dividends are not earned income, so a retiree living purely on investments and rent has no earned income and therefore no earned income relief, even if their total income is high. The relief is specifically a reward for active work, which is why it sits separately from the way Singapore treats investment returns.
Common questions
Does earned income relief count toward the $80,000 cap?
Yes. There is an overall ceiling of $80,000 on the personal reliefs any individual can claim in a year of assessment, and earned income relief sits inside that limit alongside every other relief. For the vast majority of taxpayers this is irrelevant, since the combined reliefs fall well under $80,000. It only matters for high earners stacking large reliefs such as CPF cash top-ups, SRS, and several family reliefs at once, where the cap can blunt the benefit of the last few thousand dollars. The automatic earned income relief is rarely the piece that pushes you over.
Do the self-employed get it too?
They do. Earned income includes trade and business income, not just salary, so a freelancer or sole proprietor qualifies on the same age-based scale. It is granted automatically once you declare your net trade income. For the self-employed it sits alongside other deductions such as CPF relief on compulsory MediSave, all of which reduce the income that is finally taxed at the resident rates.