Changes To How Self-Employed Contribute To Central Provident Fund

This is going to be a relatively short post, as this is just to share what I have learnt from Central Provident Fund (CPF) staff regarding some updates on the way how self-employed individuals can contribute to their CPF accounts.  Kindly note that the changes only affects self-employed individuals who contribute more than their Medisave liabilities to their CPF.  If you are self-employed and only contribute the required percentage of Net Trade Income (NTI) to your Medisave Account (MA), this change will affect you.

Just for context, it is not a must for self-employed persons to contribute their monthly income to CPF Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account (SA), but it is mandatory for them to fulfil their Medisave liabilities as determined by Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), which is a percentage of the annual NTI generated by the self-employed person, based on their age group, as shown below:

I am a self-employed person as of late 2015, and since then till prior to June 2024, I will contribute to all my 3 accounts, namely OA, SA and MA via e-cashier.  When I contribute to all my 3 CPF accounts as if I am an employee, which is 37% of my monthly income, CPF will allocate the amount based on the following allocation rates to all 3 accounts respectively.

As mentioned at the beginning, do note that if you are a self-employed individual who just contribute to your MA only and not to OA and SA, then there is no changes to the way you contribute to your CPF account.  However, if you are like me who wants to contribute to all 3 CPF accounts, do note that there are some changes to CPF payment methodology starting mid-May 2024.  From now on, cash top-ups to all three accounts will no longer fulfil Medisave liabilities as it did previously.  Now, they need to be done separately.

As shown in the screenshot above, to fulfil your Medisave liabilities, you will have to go to e-cashier in CPF website and click on (A), and follow the instructions in subsequent pages.  To make additional contributions to OA and SA (and also to MA if BHS has not been met) following the allocation rates above, click on (B) and follow the instructions in subsequent pages.  

For example:

If you are 40 years old, self-employed with annual NTI of SGD 96K (or on average SGD 8K per month), and you want to contribute 37% of monthly NTI to CPF (with 9% Medisave liability), you will have to

1)     Click (A), follow instructions on subsequent pages and pay SGD 720.00 to fulfil monthly Medisave liability, and

2)     Click (B), follow instructions on subsequent pages and pay SGD 2,240.00 to top up all 3 accounts, of which SGD 1,271.65 goes to OA, SGD 423.58 goes to SA and SGD 544.77 goes to MA.  If Basic Healthcare Sum (BHS) of SGD 71.5K (for 2024) has been met, the amount to MA will flow to SA.  If Full Retirement Sum (FRS) of SGD 205.8K (for 2024) has been met, the amount to MA will flow to OA.

Hopefully this can help to answer some doubts of the self-employed, if you contribute to CPF accounts in the way like I do.  If there are further doubts, do contact CPF Board and arrange for a phone appointment with their staff.  This is definitely easier than queuing at CPF branch, and faster than emailing them.  Barista FIRE, here I come...!