How to calculate your net worth in Singapore
Short answer: To calculate your net worth in Singapore, add up everything you own in Singapore dollars, including cash, investments, CPF, SRS and property at today's market value. Then subtract everything you owe, such as the outstanding mortgage, car loan and any credit card balance carried over. Count your home at its full value and the mortgage as a separate debt, so the loan is counted only once.
Net worth is the simplest idea in personal finance and one of the most annoying to actually compute. The formula is just everything you own minus everything you owe. The difficulty in Singapore is that "everything you own" is scattered across CPF, a brokerage or two, some cash, maybe an HDB flat, and "everything you owe" is mostly one large mortgage. Get the pieces and the treatment right and you land on a single Singapore-dollar figure that means something. Here is how to do it cleanly.
Step 1: Add up your assets
List everything of value, in Singapore dollars. For most people in Singapore the buckets are:
- Cash. Bank balances, fixed deposits, Singapore Savings Bonds and T-bills, and any money-market holdings.
- Investments. SGX stocks and REITs, foreign shares and ETFs, robo-advisor portfolios, and crypto if you hold it. Foreign holdings are converted to Singapore dollars at the current rate.
- CPF. Your Ordinary, Special and MediSave balances, or if you are 55 or older, your Ordinary, MediSave and Retirement Account balances (the Special Account closes at 55). This is your money and it counts, even though access is restricted.
- SRS. Your Supplementary Retirement Scheme balance, including anything invested inside it.
- Property. Your home and any investment property, valued at what it would realistically sell for today, not what you paid.
- Other. The surrender value of endowment or investment-linked insurance policies, and physical assets like gold if they are material.
Step 2: Add up your liabilities
Now everything you owe, at the outstanding balance today rather than the original loan amount:
- Mortgage. The remaining balance on your home loan, and on any investment property loan.
- Other loans. Car loan, renovation loan, education or personal loans.
- Short-term debt. Any credit-card balance you are carrying rather than clearing each month.
Net worth is then simply the first total minus the second. That is the whole equation. The rest is getting three Singapore-specific pieces right.
The CPF question: does it count?
Yes. Your CPF is an asset you own, so it belongs in your net worth. What it is not is liquid: you cannot spend your MediSave on groceries, and your Retirement Account is locked to its purpose. A useful habit is to include CPF in the total but keep it visible as its own bucket, so you can always see how much of your net worth is money you can touch today versus money working for a later stage of life. Counting it is correct; forgetting that it is restricted is the mistake.
The property trap: count it once
This is where net-worth sums most often go wrong. Your flat is an asset at its full market value, and your mortgage is a liability at its full outstanding balance. The temptation is to net them in your head, "my place is worth S$600,000 but I owe S$300,000, so call it S$300,000", and then also list the mortgage as a debt. That double-counts the loan and understates you.
The clean way is the way a bank would do it: put the property in at its gross value, S$600,000, and put the mortgage in as a separate liability, S$300,000. The S$300,000 of equity falls out of the subtraction on its own. One entry on each side, counted once.
A Singapore wrinkle: CPF accrued interest. If you used your CPF to help buy your home, then on a sale you must return what you withdrew plus the interest it would have earned, back into your CPF. It does not reduce your net worth, the money moves from property equity back into your CPF, but it does mean the cash that reaches your bank on a sale is smaller than the raw equity suggests. Worth knowing when you plan around a property, even though the headline figure is unchanged.
Do it in one currency, and repeat it
Two last things make the number trustworthy. First, resolve everything to Singapore dollars, the currency you spend and plan in, converting foreign holdings at a current rate rather than a stale one. Second, a net-worth figure is far more useful as a line than as a dot. One number today tells you where you stand; the same number captured every month tells you whether you are actually moving forward, and which part, investments, CPF, cash or debt, is doing the work.
Let the arithmetic run itself. Merlio adds up your CPF, SRS, investments, cash, property and loans into one Singapore-dollar net worth, converts foreign holdings for you, keeps property and mortgage counted correctly, and snapshots the total over time so you see the trend, not just today. Start a free 60-day trial and see your whole picture in one place.
Common questions
Does CPF count towards net worth?
Yes. CPF savings belong to you, so your CPF account balances count as assets in your net worth. They are not liquid, because withdrawals are restricted, so many people keep CPF as its own line within the total.
Is my HDB flat part of my net worth?
Yes. A home counts as an asset at what it would realistically sell for today, not the price paid. The outstanding mortgage goes in separately as a liability, and the difference between the two is your home equity.
Do I subtract CPF accrued interest from my net worth?
No. When a home bought with CPF is sold, the CPF used plus accrued interest is refunded to your CPF account, so the money moves from property equity into CPF and total net worth stays the same. It does reduce the cash you receive from the sale.
How do I include foreign stocks in my Singapore net worth?
Convert each foreign holding to Singapore dollars at a current exchange rate, then add it to your other assets. An old exchange rate makes the total drift out of date as currencies move.
How often do I need to update my net worth?
There is no fixed rule. Recording the figure at a regular interval, such as monthly, turns one number into a trend that shows whether net worth is rising and whether investments, CPF, cash or debt is driving the change.
Merlio is a tracker and calculator, not a licensed financial adviser. This is a general method for measuring net worth, not advice on what to own or owe. For personalised guidance, speak to a MAS-licensed financial adviser.