The Index, three personas
Modelled on mid-range choices — not luxury, not scraping. All figures SGD, rounded to the nearest 50; rent bands reflect what our relocation clients are actually signing this quarter.
| First-month line | Single professional (1-bed fringe, SGD 3,400/mo) | Couple (2-bed central, SGD 5,500/mo) | Family of four (3-bed near school, SGD 6,800/mo) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rental deposit (2 months, 2-yr lease) | 6,800 | 11,000 | 13,600 |
| First month's rent | 3,400 | 5,500 | 6,800 |
| Stamp duty on lease (approx.) | 150 | 250 | 300 |
| Utilities opening + first bill (SP) | 250 | 300 | 350 |
| Fibre + mobile setup | 150 | 200 | 250 |
| Essential furnishing & appliances top-up | 1,200 | 2,400 | 3,500 |
| Transport month one (contactless fares) | 110 | 200 | 280 |
| Health insurance bridge (private, month 1) | 250 | 450 | 750 |
| School: application + enrolment one-times* | — | — | 6,500 |
| Groceries & sundries, week one landing | 350 | 500 | 750 |
| Index total — first-month cash | 12,650 | 21,700** | 39,050 |
* One child entering an international school: application ≈ SGD 500, enrolment/facility one-time fees ≈ SGD 3,000–5,000, plus first term's pro-rated tuition beyond this index. Annual tuition itself runs SGD 30,000–50,000 per child. ** Rounded from 21,700 modelled components; headline figure.
Quarter-on-quarter reading
This is the inaugural published edition (Q3 2026); the index will publish quarterly, holding methodology constant so movements mean something. The direction of travel our client work already shows: central two-bed asking rents have stabilised after the 2023–24 surge, but school one-time fees continue to creep, and furnishing costs have risen with the "partially furnished means less than you think" trend in newer condos.
How these numbers are built
Cost figures are only as good as their method, so here is ours in full. Every line in the Index is modelled, not surveyed: we start from the actual commitments our relocation-advisory clients signed this quarter (leases, school invoices, insurance premiums), cross-check each against published rates from the providers themselves, and then hold the model's structure constant between quarters so movement means something real rather than reflecting a changed method.
- Defined personas, not averages. An "average" cost of living is a meaningless number in a city where a single professional and a family of four differ by a factor of three. We publish three fully-specified households instead, with every assumption stated.
- Mid-range defined explicitly: the middle of the band our clients actually choose — not the cheapest possible, not expatriate-package luxury.
- One-time costs separated from recurring costs. The failure mode we see most often is budgeting monthly rent and forgetting the deposit stack. The Index puts first-month cash and monthly run-rate in separate columns for exactly that reason.
- Revised quarterly, method fixed. Figures change; the model doesn't. Where we revise an assumption, the revision is noted rather than quietly applied.
- No commercial relationships. No provider named or priced here pays us, and no figure is supplied by a vendor. Independence isn't a virtue signal in cost research — it's the difference between a model and a marketing document.
The same discipline underpins the SG Cost-of-Living Budget Model (SGD 49): a structured spreadsheet with the assumptions exposed and editable, not a static PDF of guesses.
Methodology, honestly
Figures are modelled from three sources: (1) the actual rental commitments of our relocation-advisory clients this quarter; (2) published rates of the major telcos, utilities and insurers; (3) the school fee schedules of the ten international schools our client families most commonly enter. Mid-range is defined as the middle of the band our clients actually choose — not the cheapest possible, not expat-package luxury. No commission relationships exist with any provider named or priced in this research; that independence is the point of it.
Run your own numbers
The Index models three personas; your situation is a fourth. Two tools:
Free 60-second calculator → The full Budget Model — SGD 49The full model adds toggles for car ownership, helper, school count and lifestyle level, plus the complete first-year projection — and its SGD 49 is credited against a Relocation Advisory within 60 days.