Land Betterment Charge

Singapore's Land Betterment Charge (LBC) is a development-charge schedule organised by geographical sector and development use group. The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) reviews and publishes the rates in consultation with the Chief Valuer; the rate schedule is not a single island-wide amount. The schedule effective from 1 September 2026 to 28 February 2027 raised rates for commercial (A), landed residential (B1), non-landed residential (B2), industrial (D), and place-of-worship/civic-and-community-institution (E) uses, while hotel/hospital (C) and groups F, G and H were unchanged (SLA, 31 August 2026).

September 2026 rate changes

For the 118 geographical sectors in the published schedule, SLA reported average increases of 1.7% for commercial A, 3.5% for landed residential B1, 3.4% for non-landed residential B2, 3.9% for industrial D, and 2.9% for group E. The increases were not uniform: for example, 46 of 118 sectors rose for A, 108 for B1, 70 for B2, and all 118 for D and E. These are average changes across the stated sector populations, not a rate applicable to every site (SLA, 31 August 2026).

Use groups and units

Use groups A-E cover commercial, landed residential, non-landed residential, hotel/hospital, industrial, and place-of-worship/civic-and-community-institution purposes; F-H cover open space/nature reserve, agriculture, and drains, roads, railways, cemeteries and transit routes. Group D also includes uses such as warehousing, science parks, business parks, transport depots, ports, utilities and telecommunications infrastructure; group E includes community, sports-and-fitness, educational, institutional and government buildings. The published rates for A-E are quoted per square metre of gross floor area, while F-H are quoted per square metre of land area (SLA, 31 August 2026).

Which cases use the revised schedule

The revised rates take effect on 1 September 2026 and apply to cases granted Provisional Permission (PP), or second and subsequent extensions to PP, on or after that date. The date is therefore an application/permission trigger, not a rule that all developments receive the same treatment. To identify the applicable sector and rate, users should consult SLA's published table together with the Use Groups Table and the OneMap sector maps; the exact charge depends on the site's sector, use group and applicable development particulars (SLA, 31 August 2026).