Singapore Households Net Wealth Rises 6.7% but Liabilities Grow Faster at 8.2% in Q1 2026

Financial and residential property assets held by households increased year on year by 6.8 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, although at a slower pace than the 7.3 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2025. Notably, households are accumulating debt at a faster clip than they are building wealth.

Lee Wei Neng, senior country risk analyst for the Asia-Pacific region at BMI, a unit of Fitch Solutions, told The Straits Times: “While household liabilities have grown faster than assets, the sheer scale of household wealth means systemic risks remain very low.” Household net wealth continued to expand in the first quarter to $3.3 trillion, while total liabilities rose to $445 billion.

SingStat’s report released on May 26 also showed that household net wealth as a percentage of personal disposable income held steady at 868.3 per cent in the first quarter of 2026. This means the net worth of all households is about 8.7 times their annual aggregate take-home pay. Excluding illiquid property assets, financial assets as a percentage of personal disposable income fell 0.5 percentage point to 557.3 per cent. At 5.6 times take-home pay, this means households collectively have a reserve that can sustain them for around five to six years if they lose their jobs.

The pick-up in household liabilities in the first quarter of 2026 was due to faster growth in mortgage and personal loans, noted SingStat. Mortgage loans grew 5.8 per cent year on year, following 5.4 per cent growth in the fourth quarter of 2025. A home loan is typically the biggest debt for a Singapore family, making up at least 70 per cent of total liabilities.

Personal loans, which make up the remaining 30 per cent of total liabilities, grew for nine straight quarters since the first quarter of 2024 to $188.6 billion. Such loans include secured car loans, outstanding balances on credit and charge cards, and other unsecured loans like education loans, overdrafts and renovation loans. Car loans and other unsecured loans drove the increase in personal loans in the first quarter.

A separate quarterly report from Credit Bureau Singapore showed that home buyers in the 21 to 29 age group had the highest average home loan balances of $523,199 in the first quarter of 2026, but one of the lowest delinquency rates of 0.14 per cent. Borrowers in the 40 to 54 age bracket had some of the highest average balances of $6,741 to $7,237 for unsecured credit card debt, and their delinquency rates of 3.39 to 3.77 per cent were among the highest.

Despite household liabilities as a percentage of personal disposable income rising 0.5 percentage point to 107.9 per cent in the first quarter of 2026, this remains below the 10-year historical average of 132 per cent. BMI’s Lee noted that despite the rise in borrowing, “liabilities accounted for just 11 per cent of household assets in the first quarter of 2026, broadly in line with around 10 per cent throughout 2025.”

Lee added that Singapore’s rules on borrowing and loans provide a strong safeguard against over-leveraging by households. She cited measures such as the total debt servicing ratio (TDSR) and loan-to-value (LTV) limits to ensure that additional borrowing remains prudent and sustainable. TDSR caps a borrower’s total monthly debt obligations to no more than 55 per cent of gross monthly income, while LTV limits the maximum amount a borrower can take for secured loans, typically at a percentage of the asset’s value.

Unsecured loans, like credit card debt and personal loans, do not use asset to value. Instead, MAS caps a borrower’s total outstanding unsecured credit at 12 times their monthly income. If a borrower exceeds this limit for three consecutive months, he will not be able to obtain new credit facilities and his existing credit lines will also be suspended.

Given the safeguards in place, Lee surmised that the recent pick-up in liabilities growth is more likely to be driven by the wealthier households who have surplus cash. The debt build-up does not reflect a rise in financial vulnerability across the population, she added.