What is the Proximity Housing Grant (PHG)?

Key takeaways

• The PHG is for buyers of an HDB resale flat who are buying it to live with or near their parents or child; CPF Board describes it as a CPF housing grant designed to encourage families to live closer together and support multi-generational living. Under the PHG (Families), the applicant must be a Singapore Citizen aged at least 21 and include at least 1 other Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident, and the couple or family must not have taken the PHG before. HDB directs a single aged 35 or above buying a flat to live with their parents to the PHG (Singles), and parents buying over their child’s flat are not eligible for the PHG.
• For families, the PHG is SGD 30,000 to live with parents or a child and SGD 20,000 to live near them, within 4 km. The PHG (Singles) is SGD 15,000 and SGD 10,000; it covers Singapore Citizens aged 35 or above buying a resale flat on their own, with other single citizens or with their parents, and those aged 21 or above buying with a non-resident spouse, and applies only to those who have not taken the PHG before. Singles living with their parents or child, or buying with a non-resident spouse, may buy any flat type; singles living near them, a 2- to 5-room flat. Both PHG pages require a remaining lease of more than 20 years.
• To live with: the parents or child must be included in the HFE letter and resale flat application and must physically live in the flat, with their names not removed, during the minimum occupation period (MOP); anyone listed in the application who owns or has an interest in an HDB flat must dispose of it within 6 months of completing the purchase. To live near: the parents or child must live in an HDB flat or private residential property within 4 km of the resale flat, their NRIC must show that address, and they must keep living within 4 km during the MOP. The parents or child must be at least Singapore Permanent Residents; parents (married, widowed or divorced) and a married child have no age condition, while a single child (unmarried, widowed or divorced) must be 35 or above.
• HDB’s income ceiling for CPF housing grants and the HDB housing loan does not apply to the PHG, and HDB’s eligibility pages say households that have taken housing subsidies before may apply for the PHG if eligible. For families, the grant is credited to the CPF Ordinary Accounts of the Singapore Citizen and Permanent Resident members of the core family nucleus, by eligible share; under the PHG (Singles), to the Singapore Citizen members. HDB says the PHG received by core applicants can be used to offset the purchase price or reduce the housing loan; occupiers cannot use their CPF savings, including any housing grant, for the purchase or the loan.
• Families eligible for the PHG may also receive the CPF Housing Grant for resale flats, the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant (EHG) and the Step-Up CPF Housing Grant if they meet each grant’s eligibility conditions. HDB’s 19 August 2024 release raised the EHG and marked the PHG “No change”; for resale applications from 20 August 2024 it put the most an eligible first-timer family buying a resale flat can receive at SGD 230,000, up from SGD 190,000, and a first-timer single at SGD 115,000, up from SGD 95,000. The current amounts match those in MND and HDB’s release of 19 February 2018, which raised the live-with PHG to SGD 30,000 from SGD 20,000 for families and to SGD 15,000 from SGD 10,000 for singles aged 35 and above, kept the live-near PHG for families at SGD 20,000, added a SGD 10,000 PHG for singles living near their parents, and replaced the “within 2 km or the same town” test with “within 4 km”. That release applied the enhanced PHG to eligible resale flat applications received on or after 3.30 pm, 19 February 2018.