GST Calculator Singapore

Setting it out

Singapore's GST rate is 9%, following increases from 7% to 8% in 2023 and to 9% in 2024. Gross = net × 1.09; net = gross ÷ 1.09.

Exports of goods and international services are zero-rated with full input credit. The main exemptions are financial services and the sale and lease of residential property.

The same thing with real figures

A net price of S$53.21 gives S$58.00 gross and S$4.79 of GST.

The rate history matters for anyone reconciling older records: the same S$58 gross contained S$3.79 of GST at 7% and S$4.30 at 8%. Applying today's rate to a prior-period figure misstates both the tax and the revenue.

For a business that raised prices across the transitions, the net retained also moved, holding S$58 through all three rates meant giving up S$1 of net revenue per unit between 2022 and 2024.

The catch

The registration threshold is S$1 million of taxable turnover, which is far higher than in comparable systems and means many small businesses never register at all. That makes voluntary registration a more significant decision here than elsewhere.

Voluntary registration also comes with conditions, including a commitment to stay registered for a minimum period and to comply with GIRO payment arrangements, so it is less easily reversed than in most jurisdictions.

Applying it

Track taxable turnover on both a retrospective and a prospective basis. Registration is required if turnover exceeded S$1 million in the past calendar year, or if it is reasonably expected to exceed it in the next twelve months, and the forward test binds first for a growing business.

Then check whether reverse charge applies to your imported services. Since 2020 GST-registered businesses must account for GST on imported services under reverse charge where they cannot claim full input credit.

Zero-rating, and the schemes for exporters

Because exports are zero-rated, an export-oriented Singapore business typically pays GST on imports and inputs while charging none on sales, producing a persistent refund position and a genuine cash flow cost between filings.

The Major Exporter Scheme addresses exactly this: it suspends GST on imports for qualifying businesses, so the cash never leaves in the first place. For an importer-exporter of any scale the benefit is substantial and directly proportional to import volume.

The Overseas Vendor Registration regime covers the other direction, requiring overseas suppliers of digital services and, since 2023, low-value goods to register once they cross both a global turnover and a Singapore sales threshold. As elsewhere, the obligation attaches to sales rather than presence, and it accrues gradually enough that businesses cross it without noticing.

Rate changes carry specific rules about which rate applies when the invoice, the payment and the supply fall either side of the change date.

Singapore published detailed transitional guidance for both the 2023 and 2024 increases, and businesses that applied the new rate from the invoice date alone frequently got it wrong on supplies that straddled the boundary.

Any future rate movement will carry the same structure, which makes it worth knowing that the answer depends on three dates rather than one.