Who really pays the agent

Who pays the property agent’s commission in Singapore depends entirely on what you are transacting, and the honest answer surprises most people. Sellers usually carry it. Buyers in a private resale typically pay nothing directly. HDB buyers who engage their own agent commonly pay that agent separately, around 1%. New launch buyers pay nothing at all, because the developer foots the bill. None of this is fixed by the Council for Estate Agencies, which sets no commission rate for any transaction type and leaves the figure entirely to negotiation. What follows is the actual mechanics, by transaction type, with the GST most people forget to ask about.

So, who pays the property agent’s commission in Singapore?

It depends on the deal, not on a rule. The seller carries the commission in almost every resale transaction, whether HDB or private, and the buyer’s liability ranges from nothing at all to a separate fee paid to their own agent, depending on how the sale is structured. New launch buyers are the one group who never pay anything, because the developer settles the bill from its own marketing budget. The table below sets out the full picture, with worked figures at typical rates so you can see what each arrangement actually costs in dollars, not just in percent.

Who pays when you sell an HDB resale flat?

The seller pays, at a market rate that typically runs around 2% of the resale price. On a $700,000 flat that works out to roughly $14,000, or about $15,260 once 9% GST is added, if the agency is GST-registered. If the buyer engages their own agent rather than dealing directly with yours, that agent’s fee is commonly paid separately by the buyer, often around 1%, rather than shared out of your commission. Confirm which model your agent is using before you list, because it changes what your net proceeds actually look like.

This is worth getting right before you commit to an agent at all. We set out the full vetting process, including the questions that separate an advisor from a salesperson, in how to choose a property agent in Singapore. Commission is one line item in that engagement, not the whole decision.

Who pays when you buy or sell a private resale condo?

The seller pays, and most buyers pay nothing directly at all. Standard practice in the private resale market is co-broking: the seller’s agent charges around 2% of the transaction price, and if the buyer has engaged their own agent, that agent is paid out of the seller’s commission through an agreed split, commonly close to 1% each side. On a $1,800,000 condo, that is roughly $39,240 including GST, carried entirely by the seller. The buyer only pays separately if they have agreed, in writing, to pay their own agent a fee on top, which does happen for harder searches but is the exception rather than the rule.

If you are the one selling, the commission is only one line in a much longer list of costs and decisions. We walk through the full sequence, from pricing to completion, in how to sell your condo in Singapore.

Do you pay any commission on a new launch condo?

No. On a new launch, the developer pays the buyer’s agent directly, typically 2% to 3% of the purchase price, funded from the project’s own marketing budget rather than from anything you hand over. It is illegal for an agent to pass any part of that commission back to you as a cashback or discount, so treat an offer like that as a red flag, not a bargain. This is one of the clearest differences between a new launch and a resale purchase, alongside the pricing and holding-period trade-offs we cover in new launch versus resale condo.

How much commission do you pay on a rental?

The landlord pays, at a convention of one month’s rent for a two-year lease or half a month’s rent for a one-year lease. On a $4,500 monthly rent that is about $4,905 including GST for a two-year lease, or roughly $2,452.50 for a one-year lease. The market is shifting, though: on lower-value rentals, tenants are increasingly asked to pay their own agent’s fee directly rather than have it shared from the landlord’s side, so clarify who pays before you engage anyone, on either side of a tenancy.

Does CEA fix these commission rates?

No, and it says so explicitly. CEA sets no commission rate for any transaction type, HDB or private, sale or rental, and states plainly that commission is a matter for negotiation between agent and client. Every percentage in this article is market convention, observed and reported by property portals, not a regulated fee. That cuts both ways: you can negotiate down from 2%, and an agent can reasonably ask for more if the assignment is genuinely harder, an awkward stack, a thin buyer pool, a tenanted unit that needs vacant possession. Whatever you agree belongs in CEA’s prescribed estate agency agreement before any work begins, not in a text message after the fact.

Where does GST fit in, and who actually pays it?

GST applies on top of the commission, at the prevailing rate of 9%, but only if the agency is GST-registered, which is mandatory once annual turnover exceeds $1 million and optional below that threshold. The client, not the agent, ultimately bears the GST unless the agent has specifically agreed to absorb it, so a quoted “2%” and a quoted “2% plus GST” are not the same number. On a $36,000 commission the gap is $3,240, real money that is easy to miss if you do not ask the question directly.

None of this changes what actually determines whether the sale or purchase was a good one, which is how the property performs against its exit, not what you paid to transact it. That is the same lens we bring to every engagement, and it is why we built BuySafe, our in-house analysis engine, to give a size- and floor-adjusted read on how a project has actually performed across more than 140,000 publicly available URA transactions and 3,000-plus private condo projects. Commission is a cost you negotiate once. The exit is the number that follows you for as long as you own the place.

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