If you live in an HDB flat, you’ll need to pay service and conservancy charges (S&CC). As of now, the S&CC charges are payable to your town council every month. However, on May 9, an MP proposed that HDB should handle maintenance for public housing estates instead of town councils. The responsibility has not been transferred so maintaining the HDB estate is still under town councils.
In this article, we’ll walk you through what HDB’s service and conservancy charges are all about, how much you need to pay, and how they’ve changed over the past few years.
Service and Conservancy Charges: What Are S&CC Charges?
Service and conservancy charges are costs incurred by HDB’s flat owners, as well as shops, offices, markets, and food stalls. Think of it like condo maintenance fees for private homeowners, but for those living in public housing.
Service and Conservancy Charges: Where Does It Go?
The pooled charges go towards maintaining and upgrading the common areas in the HDB estate. Notably, much of your service and conservancy fee will go to cleaning maintenance, including cleaning common areas such as multi-purpose halls, void decks, and staircases. In early 2017, it was announced that about 20% of town councils’ annual expenditure is spent on cleaning.
The collected service and conservancy fee are also spent on periodic pest control services. This includes fumigation to get rid of those pesky cockroaches and mosquitoes in your HDB estate.
Apart from that, the money is also spent on maintenance, repairs, and upgrading of lifts. Town councils set aside at least 14% of their service and conservancy funds to replace and upgrade lifts. Over the next 10 years, more than 18,500 lifts in HDB estates will be upgraded under the Lift Enhancement Programme, equipping lifts with features like high-tech sensors and emergency communication.
Additionally, the service and conservancy charges are used to cover the costs for these:
- Maintenance of water pumps, switch rooms, lighting, and lift rescue services
- Landscaping works
- Repainting and re-roofing
- Replacement of water pipes and automatic refuse chute-flushing systems
Service and Conservancy Charges: What Are the Service and Conservancy Charges in 2022?
Depending on your flat type, the service and conservancy charges of HDB flats typically range from $20 to $101 per month for Singapore citizens, factoring in the reduced rates for Singapore citizens.
If none of the occupiers of the flat is Singaporean, the charges will be at the normal rate of between $54 and $110. For executive apartments and maisonettes, these charges are higher than normal HDB flats.
Do note that you’ll also need to pay the normal rate if you fall under one of the following:
- None of the owners/tenants/authorised occupiers is Singapore citizens
- Own a private property/industrial/commercial property beside the HDB flat
- Own the HDB flat as a corporate body
- Rent the HDB flat to a corporate body
- Leave the house vacant
The service and conservancy charges also differ according to the location of your HDB estate, and you can check the exact amount on your town council’s website.
As an example, here are the service and conservancy charges for Ang Mo Kio, payable to the Ang Mo Kio Town Council.
| Flat Type | Normal Rate | Reduced Rate |
| 1-room flat | $55.50 | $21.00 |
| 2-room flat | $59.00 | $31.00 |
| 3-room flat | $67.00 | $47.50 |
| 4-room flat | $72.50 | $63.00 |
| 4-room Design & Build or Design Plus flat | $77.00 | $67.00 |
| 4-room Design, Build and Sell Scheme flat | $82.00 | $72.00 |
| 5-room flat | $85.00 | $78.00 |
| 5-room Design & Build or Design Plus flat | $89.00 | $83.00 |
| 5-room Design, Build and Sell Scheme flat | $90.00 | $90.00 |
| Executive apartment or maisonette | $100.00 | $100.00 |
| Executive Design & Build or Design Executive flat | $102.00 | $102.00 |
These are the following ways in which you can pay for service and conservancy charges:
- Cash, NETS, or credit card at your town council
- Cash or NETS at any HDB branch office
- Cheque or Money Order (to be mailed to your town council)
- AXS and SAM machines
- Post office
- Internet banking (DBS, OCBC, UOB, and Standard Chartered)
- Credit Card (Visa and Mastercard)
- Interbank GIRO
Do note that you’ll need to pay your conservancy charges by the first day of each month, or you’ll incur a penalty fee that will accumulate from the following month until you pay it in full.
Similar to the conservancy charges, the penalty fee varies according to the flat type and location. Generally, it ranges from $0.50 for a 1-room flat per month, to $7 for an executive flat.
How Much Has the Service and Conservancy Fee Increased Over the Past Few Years?
Over the years, HDB town councils under PAP have increased the service and conservancy charges a few times, with the first increase happening in 2014. Aljunied-Hougang Town Council, which is under the Workers’ Party, has also increased its service and conservancy charges in 2014. In 2017, another increase was announced for PAP town councils, which was phased over 2 years to ease the impact on HDB residents.
More recently, the National Environmental Agency (NEA) has stated that rubbish collection prices for residents living in HDB flats and private apartments will be increased.
The hike in the service and conservancy fee varies across HDB estates, depending on flat type as well as location. For example, if you were living in a 3-room flat, charges were subject to a lower increase compared to if you were living in an executive condo.
In 2018, the increase was about $0.50 to $8 per month. This was a smaller increase compared to the 2017 hike, which was between $0.50 and $9.
In addition, service and conservancy charges were also increased for markets and food stalls. In 2017, the increase ranged from $2.70 to $23.00 per month. In 2018, the increase in charge was between $2.50 and $17.50, depending on floor size.
Service and Conservancy Charges: Who Is Eligible for the S&CC Charges Rebate?
To help residents cope with the increase in service and conservancy charges, the Government has been giving out rebates since April 2022.
First announced during Budget 2019, around 930,000 households are eligible for the rebate. Similarly, it was mentioned during the Budget 2022 announcement that around 950,000 Singaporean families would receive reimbursements ranging from 1.5 to 3.5 months’ worth of S&CC charges. The reimbursements will be given out in four instalments beginning in April to Singaporean households that live in HDB flats.
Related article: Budget 2022 Property Tax in Singapore: Higher Property Taxes, Doubled GST Vouchers and U-Save Rebates, and More
Service and Conservancy Charges: S&CC Rebate in 2022
The S&CC Rebate will now become a permanent part of the GST Voucher scheme from 2022 onwards.
Here’s a table to illustrate how the rebate is being disbursed every 3 months, starting from April 2022:
| HDB flat type | Service and conservancy charges starting from financial year 2022 (Number of months) | ||||
| April 2022 | July 2022 | October 2022 | January 2023 | Total for financial year 2022 | |
| 1- and 2-room | 1 | 1 | 1 | 0.5 | 3.5 |
| 3- and 4-room | 1 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 2.5 |
| 5-room | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | 2.0 |
| Executive/Multi-Generation | 0.5 | 0.5 | 0.5 | – | 1.5 |
Eligible households will receive their S&CC Rebate in April, July, October 2022 as well as January 2023. Be sure to check your mailbox!
Households that own a private property, have any stake in a private property, or have rented out their HDB flat, are not eligible for the S&CC Rebate.
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