While wealth is intrinsically more complex to quantify than income, Singapore’s first official household wealth statistics, published by the Ministry of Finance on 9 February 2026 and derived from the household expenditure survey (with the next cycle scheduled for 2028), indicate a distribution pattern broadly comparable to other advanced economies but marked by materially higher dispersion than income. It also marked the first official release of a wealth inequality metric by the Government.
The release, cited by Second Minister for Finance Jeffrey Siow, estimates that the wealthiest 5% of households control 33% of total household wealth, while the top 1% hold 14%, indicating concentration.
On an average basis, the top 20% of households are estimated to hold S$5.3 million in total wealth, whereas the bottom 80% average S$3.5 million.
This spread is shaped by differences in real estate equity, Central Provident Fund balances, and other financial holdings.
Singapore’s owner-occupation rate, together with regulated housing supply and mortgage underwriting norms, tends to embed asset value in illiquid residential property, aligning household balance sheets with the domestic property cycle.
Inequality metrics reinforce the distributional gap. The wealth Gini coefficient is estimated at 0.55, exceeding the post-tax-and-transfer income Gini of 0.38, and consistent with the pattern in advanced economies where wealth is more unequally held than annual earnings.
For context, wealth Gini estimates in the United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany are placed in the 0.6–0.7 range, and Singapore’s top-1% share is materially below the United States at about 35% and below Australia, Japan, and South Korea where estimates exceed 20%.
A corrected 2025 income Gini of 0.452 implies a 6% deterioration from reporting.
The Ministry cautioned that sample size constraints, under-reporting at both distribution tails, and the technical difficulty of valuing overseas and unlisted assets may understate dispersion, and the published Gini measures do not decompose results by age cohort or asset class. Wealthy families globally employ structures such as dynasty trusts and family limited partnerships to shield fortunes from taxation and facilitate intergenerational wealth transfer.
Policy discussion has emphasised monitoring trends, improving evidence for calibrated measures, maintaining the existing disclosure regime, and considering, in an ageing society, a greater reliance on taxes linked to less mobile assets such as property or vehicles, including structured deferrals for asset-rich, income-poor seniors in later life. The Government also said it has no plans to seek additional powers solely to compel more detailed asset disclosures for inequality measurement.
