Who Pays Stamp Duty on a Tenancy Agreement — Landlord or Tenant?
Short version: the tenant pays, by default. IRAS applies the Stamp Duties Act's Third Schedule when a tenancy agreement is silent on the point, and that Schedule assigns liability for a lease to the lessee — the tenant. But this is a default, not a fixed rule. The agreement can assign the cost to either party, or split it, and IRAS will hold both sides to whatever the document says.
Landlords and tenants both get this wrong in the same direction: assuming it's automatically the tenant's problem and never writing it down. Here's the actual rule, what it costs, and what happens when nobody put it in writing.
Who pays stamp duty on a tenancy agreement?
By default, the tenant. This is a Singapore-wide convention with a legal backstop: when a lease document doesn't state who is liable, IRAS applies the Third Schedule of the Stamp Duties Act, which assigns the liability to the lessee.
That's a default position, not a mandatory one. Singapore law doesn't stop a landlord and tenant agreeing that the landlord pays instead, or that the cost is split. What matters is that the agreement actually says so — because if it's silent, the legal default takes over regardless of what either party assumed going in.
You can work out the exact amount with our free stamp duty calculator, which also shows the filing deadline for your lease.
How much is the stamp duty, and who calculates it?
0.4% of the total rent for the lease period. Total rent is the Average Annual Rent (AAR) multiplied by the number of chargeable years.
On a one-year lease at S$3,000 a month, the annual rent is S$36,000 and the duty is S$144. On a two-year lease at the same rent, it's S$288.
Two details change the number for most people:
AAR includes more than rent. Service charge, maintenance, and payments for furniture and fittings all count as consideration paid to the landlord. Paying S$3,000 rent plus S$200 a month for a furnished package puts your AAR at S$38,400, not S$36,000.
Long leases are capped at four years. Leases longer than four years, and leases that are indefinite or renewable, are charged on four years regardless of the actual term — a ten-year lease pays the four-year equivalent.
Whoever is liable does the paying, but either party can calculate the figure — it's a fixed formula, not a negotiation.
Can the landlord and tenant agree the landlord pays instead?
Yes. There's no rule against it, and it happens — most often when a landlord is competing for a tenant in a slow rental market and offers to absorb the cost as an incentive, or when a corporate tenant's relocation package covers it.
The only requirement is that the agreement says so explicitly. "The Landlord shall bear the stamp duty" is enough. Leaving it to a verbal understanding is what creates the dispute — one party assumed the other was handling it, nobody stamped the lease, and the deadline passed while they were arguing about whose job it was.
What if the tenancy agreement doesn't say who pays?
Then the tenant is liable, by the Third Schedule default described above. If a dispute reaches IRAS, that's the position they'll apply.
In practice, this rarely gets tested — most standard tenancy agreements in Singapore already name the tenant as the paying party, precisely because that's the convention everyone expects. The risk isn't really "who does IRAS chase" so much as "the agreement never got stamped because both sides assumed it was the other person's step to take."
What's the deadline, and does it change based on who's paying?
No — the deadline is the same regardless of who's liable. 14 days from signing if the agreement was signed in Singapore, 30 days if signed outside Singapore. The clock starts at signing, not at move-in and not at the start of the tenancy term.
If a tenant signs from overseas — common with an incoming expat hire — the 30-day window applies, not the 14-day one. Whoever is paying needs to know which deadline they're working against.
What happens if the liable party doesn't pay?
The agreement can't be used as evidence in court until it's stamped, and there's a late-stamping penalty. Neither of those outcomes changes because of who was supposed to pay — an unstamped lease is unstamped regardless of whose name was on the obligation.
This is the part that makes "who pays" worth settling upfront rather than after a dispute breaks out. If a tenant stops paying rent, damages the unit, or refuses to leave, the tenancy agreement is what establishes what was agreed. An unstamped one can't be relied on — and by the time that matters, it's too late to argue about who should have filed it.
Does this work differently for HDB flats versus condos?
No. Stamp duty liability follows the Stamp Duties Act, not the property type. The same Third Schedule default and the same 0.4% rate apply whether the lease is for an HDB flat, a condo unit, or a landed property.
How do landlords avoid the argument altogether?
Name the paying party in the agreement, and don't leave it as an assumption. Beyond that, the more reliable fix is removing the manual step entirely — the deadline gets missed not because either side refuses to pay, but because it's a separate action on a portal neither party otherwise uses, two weeks after the part everyone actually cared about (signing) was already done.
Rentora files it as part of the lease. When a tenancy agreement is signed on the platform, the duty is calculated at 0.4%, the paying party is set explicitly in the agreement, and the stamping is filed with IRAS through a direct integration — not left as a step someone has to remember to do separately.
Quick answers
Who pays stamp duty on a tenancy agreement in Singapore — landlord or tenant? The tenant, by default, unless the agreement says otherwise.
Is it a legal requirement that the tenant pays? No. It's the default under the Stamp Duties Act's Third Schedule when the agreement is silent — but the parties can assign it to either side.
Can the cost be split between landlord and tenant? Yes, if the agreement states the split explicitly. It isn't the default position, so it has to be written in.
Does the deadline change if the landlord is paying instead of the tenant? No. It's 14 days from signing in Singapore, or 30 days if signed overseas, regardless of who's liable.
What if we forgot to specify who pays and the lease is already signed? The tenant is liable by default. Get the agreement stamped before the deadline regardless of who ends up covering the cost — settle the payment between yourselves separately if needed.
Does the paying party affect how much stamp duty is owed? No. The amount is fixed at 0.4% of the total rent for the chargeable period, calculated the same way no matter who pays it.
Rate, cap, exemption threshold and filing deadlines checked against IRAS's stamp duty for leases guidance and cross-checked against Rentora's own stamp duty calculator. Default liability confirmed against IRAS's "Who Should Pay Stamp Duty" guidance, which states that where a document does not name the liable party, liability follows the Third Schedule of the Stamp Duties Act. Checked 11 August 2026. This is general information, not tax or legal advice.