Your next Singapore property costs 30% before you own it.

Singapore's ABSD schedule is deliberately punitive at the top end. A citizen pays nothing on a first property, 20% on a second and 30% on a third or subsequent. A permanent resident pays 5%, then 30%, then 35%. Those rates have been unchanged since 27 April 2023.

Most buyers work around it once — decoupling, or buying under a spouse's or child's name. The problem is that it only works until you run out of names. After that the 30% is simply the price of participating.

An Australian purchase sits outside that schedule entirely, because ABSD applies to Singapore residential property. You will pay Australian costs instead — FIRB application fees, foreign purchaser duty surcharge, and annual land tax surcharges that vary by state — and those are real. But on the numbers they rarely approach 30%, and unlike ABSD a good deal of it is deductible against rental income.

The articles below work through the comparison honestly, including the cases where staying in Singapore is the better answer.