Life Insurance Tax Relief for foreigners in Singapore

If you're like me, working in Singapore, you may be wondering what sort of deductions you can have as a foreigner living and working in Singapore.

Life Insurance Tax Relief for foreigners in Singapore

One deductions that I came across recently is Life Insurance Tax Relief for foreigners in Singapore.

This Life Insurance Tax Relief only applies if you are:

• Working in Singapore with your CPF contribution less than $5,000 SGD (normally the case for foreigners and expats)
• Paying for insurance premiums on your own life insurance policies or on insurance (of which you are the policy holder) bought on your wife's life; and
• Insured with a life insurance company that has an office or branch in Singapore

These are detailed on Singapore's Inland Revenue Authority (IRA)'s website.

Now, this only applies if it is a life insurance policy and not a medical/ health or investment insurance policy.

I found this information when I reached out to the IRA and asked them to clarity this further. They shared the following information.

This Life Insurance Tax Relief only applies for life insurance only:

The life insurance relief will be accorded to you if you had met the following conditions:

• its on your life, i.e. it must not be a medical/health or investment insurance policy (Premiums paid on medical and critical illness policies are not allowable as claim under Life Insurance Relief. Only premiums paid on life policies can be claimed). 
• the provider must have a branch and license to carry out insurance related activities in Singapore 
• amount allowed will be capped to 7% of the sum insured or the actual premiums paid whichever is lesser. 

So what this means is, if your is medical/health or investment purposes, then we regret to income you that you are not eligible to claim for life insurance relief for any given Year of Assessment.

I hope this helps provide some clarity to you if you were looking to understand this Life Insurance Tax Relief further. Please be sure to check in with the IRA directly if you do have a unique question for them. Like most Singaporean Government bodies, they are generally very efficient, you just need to reach out to them and ask.