What Do Singapore’s Population Statistics Show in 2026?
Singapore’s population story in 2026 is one of the clearest case studies in the world of a wealthy, hyper-dense city-state managing an extraordinary demographic transition in real time. According to the Singapore Department of Statistics (SingStat), the total population stood at 6.11 million as at June 2025 — the most recent official benchmark published in the Population in Brief 2025 report by the National Population and Talent Division (NPTD) — and continues to climb steadily in 2026, with the United Nations medium-fertility projection placing Singapore’s mid-2026 population at approximately 5.91 million residents within the narrower national boundary definition, while broader estimates incorporating the full non-resident workforce put the total figure closer to 6.12 million. Singapore is now the 115th most populous nation on Earth, representing roughly 0.071% of the global population, yet packed into just 700 square kilometres of land, giving it a population density of approximately 8,437 people per square kilometre — making it the third most densely populated sovereign country in the world, trailing only Monaco and a handful of other microstates.
What makes Singapore’s population statistics in 2026 genuinely remarkable is not simply the scale, but the structural composition beneath the headline number. Singapore’s population is officially divided into three tiers: citizens, permanent residents (PRs), and non-residents — and the relative growth rates of each tier tell strikingly different stories. The citizen population grew 0.7% to 3.66 million, the PR population held essentially flat at 0.54 million, while the non-resident population surged 2.7% to 1.91 million, driven overwhelmingly by Work Permit Holders supporting major infrastructure projects like Changi Airport Terminal 5 and an accelerated national housing programme. Beneath this growth lies one of the most severe demographic ageing trajectories of any developed nation: Singapore’s total fertility rate has fallen to a historic low of 0.97 — and SingStat’s most recent 2025 preliminary figure shows it has fallen even further, to 0.87 — while the proportion of citizens aged 65 and above has nearly doubled in a decade, from 13.1% in 2015 to 20.7% in 2025. Understanding these intertwined dynamics — growth through immigration, collapse in native fertility, and rapid population ageing — is essential to understanding Singapore’s economic and social policy choices in 2026 and beyond, and forms the foundation for every government planning decision from healthcare financing and pension adequacy through to housing supply, school enrolment forecasting, and long-term workforce strategy.
Interesting Facts About Singapore’s Population in 2026
| # | Fact | Key Figure / Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Singapore’s total population stood at 6.11 million as at June 2025 — the most recent official SingStat benchmark | SingStat / NPTD Population in Brief 2025 (September 29, 2025) |
| 2 | The UN medium-variant projection places Singapore’s mid-2026 population at 5.905,748 within the national resident-plus boundary definition used by the UN | Worldometer / UN World Population Prospects (2024 Revision), 2026 |
| 3 | Singapore ranks 115th globally by population and 36th among 51 countries and territories in Asia | StatisticsTimes.com, 2026 |
| 4 | Singapore’s population represents just 0.071% of the world’s total population | Worldometer, April 2026 |
| 5 | Singapore’s population grew 1.2% year-on-year from June 2024 to June 2025 — driven mainly by non-resident growth | SingStat / NPTD Population in Brief 2025 |
| 6 | Singapore has a land area of just 700 km², giving it a population density of approximately 8,437 people per km² — the 3rd most densely populated country in the world | Worldometer Demographics, 2026 |
| 7 | 100% of Singapore’s population lives in urban areas — the country has no rural population whatsoever | Worldometer, 2026 |
| 8 | Singapore’s median age reached 43.7 years for citizens as at June 2025 — among the oldest in Asia, behind only Japan, Hong Kong, and South Korea | NPTD Population in Brief 2025; Malay Mail, September 2025 |
| 9 | Singapore’s overall population median age is approximately 36.8–37.8 years, compared to the global average of 31 years | Worldometer / World Population Review, 2026 |
| 10 | Singapore’s total fertility rate (TFR) fell to a record low of 0.87 in 2025, down from 0.97 in 2023 and 2024 | SingStat homepage live statistics, June 2026 |
| 11 | Singapore’s life expectancy at birth reached 83.9 years (preliminary) in 2025 — among the highest in the world, 4th in Asia | SingStat live data, 2026 |
| 12 | Citizens aged 65 and above now make up 20.7% of the citizen population, up sharply from just 13.1% in 2015 | NPTD Population in Brief 2025; Malay Mail |
| 13 | The number of citizens aged 80 and above reached 145,000 in 2025, up roughly 60% from 91,000 in 2015 | NPTD Population in Brief 2025 |
| 14 | Singapore’s old-age support ratio has fallen to 2.4 working-age citizens for every senior aged 65+ — down from roughly 7.4 in 2010 | NPTD Population in Brief 2025; Malay Mail, September 2025 |
| 15 | In 2024, Singapore granted 22,766 new citizenships and 35,264 new permanent residencies | NPTD Population in Brief 2025 |
Source: Singapore Department of Statistics (SingStat) / National Population and Talent Division Population in Brief 2025 (September 29, 2025); Worldometer Singapore Demographics (2026); StatisticsTimes.com Singapore Population (2026); World Population Review (2026); Malay Mail (September 29, 2025); SingStat live homepage statistics (June 2026)
The 15 facts above establish Singapore in 2026 as a nation defined by extremes: extreme population density, extreme longevity, and — most consequentially for long-term planning — an extremely low and still-declining birth rate. The 6.11 million total population figure confirmed by SingStat’s official September 2025 release represents Singapore’s all-time population high, and the 1.2% annual growth rate masks a critical internal dynamic: nearly all of that growth came from the non-resident category, which expanded by 2.7% to reach 1.91 million people, while the core citizen population — the group whose long-term wellbeing, retirement security, and intergenerational continuity Singapore’s policymakers are most concerned with — grew by a comparatively modest 0.7%. This divergence is not accidental; it reflects Singapore’s explicit reliance on a managed immigration and foreign workforce system to sustain economic growth and infrastructure delivery in the face of structurally insufficient natural population replacement.
The fertility collapse to 0.87 in 2025 — the lowest rate ever recorded in Singapore’s history and a sharp decline even from the already-alarming 0.97 recorded in both 2023 and 2024 — is arguably the single most important demographic statistic in this entire report. To put that number in context: a replacement-level fertility rate of approximately 2.1 children per woman is required for a population to sustain itself across generations without relying on immigration. At 0.87, Singapore’s native-born population is replacing itself at less than half the rate needed for generational stability — among the lowest fertility rates ever recorded by any country in human history, rivaling or exceeding the lows seen in South Korea. Combined with the old-age support ratio collapse from roughly 7.4 working-age citizens per senior in 2010 to just 2.4 in 2025, the data paints an unambiguous picture: Singapore’s demographic foundation is undergoing one of the most rapid ageing transitions ever observed in a modern economy, compressed into roughly fifteen years.
Singapore Population by Residency Status in 2026 | Citizens, PRs & Non-Residents
Singapore Population by Residency Status — June 2025 Official Data (Millions)
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Total Population ████████████████████████████████████████ 6.11M
Citizens (Singaporeans) ████████████████████████████████ 3.66M (59.9% of total)
Permanent Residents (PRs) █████ 0.54M (8.8% of total)
Total Residents (SC + PR) █████████████████████████████████████ 4.20M (68.7% of total)
Non-Residents (work/study) ███████████████████ 1.91M (31.3% of total)
Overseas Singaporeans █ 221,600 (separate count)
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Scale: Each █ ≈ approx. 150,000 people
| Population Segment | June 2025 Figure | YoY Change | Share of Total Population |
|---|---|---|---|
| Total population | 6.11 million | +1.2% | 100% |
| Citizens (Singapore Citizens, SCs) | 3.66 million | +0.7% | 59.9% |
| Permanent Residents (PRs) | 0.54 million | ~0% (stable) | 8.8% |
| Total residents (SC + PR combined) | 4.20 million | +0.6% | 68.7% |
| Non-residents (Work Permit, S Pass, EP, dependants, students) | 1.91 million | +2.7% | 31.3% |
| Overseas Singaporeans (separately tracked) | 221,600 | Tracked separately | Not counted in resident total |
| New citizenships granted (2024) | 22,766 | Annual flow | Excludes children by descent |
| New PRs granted (2024) | 35,264 | Annual flow | Five-year average (2020–24): ~33,000/year |
| Five-year average new citizenships (2020–24) | ~21,300 per year | Annual average | Steady inflow supporting citizen base |
Source: SingStat / NPTD Population in Brief 2025 (September 29, 2025); Malay Mail (September 29, 2025); Wikipedia Demographics of Singapore (citing Population in Brief 2025); E&H Immigration analysis of DOS Population Trends 2025
The residency breakdown is the single most important structural lens for understanding Singapore’s population in 2026, because it reveals how much of the country’s demographic and economic story is actually being written by people who are not citizens. With non-residents now comprising 31.3% of the total population — nearly one in three people physically present in Singapore on any given day — the country operates a fundamentally different demographic model from almost any other nation of comparable wealth and development. The non-resident population’s 2.7% growth, explicitly attributed by NPTD to Work Permit Holders supporting major infrastructure projects such as Changi Airport Terminal 5 and the ramping up of housing supply, illustrates how directly Singapore’s population figures are tied to discrete, plannable national infrastructure decisions rather than organic demographic drift — a level of demographic steering that few democracies attempt as openly.
The citizenship and PR grant data reveals the second pillar of Singapore’s population management strategy: a steady, deliberately calibrated annual intake of new citizens and permanent residents designed to partially offset the native fertility shortfall. With 22,766 new citizens and 35,264 new PRs granted in 2024 alone, and five-year averages of roughly 21,300 citizenships and 33,000 PRs annually, Singapore has effectively built immigration into the core architecture of its population replacement strategy — not as an emergency measure, but as a steady-state policy tool operating continuously alongside (and substantially exceeding) what natural increase from citizen births alone could deliver. This is precisely why the citizen population’s 0.7% growth rate, while modest, still represents meaningful expansion despite a record-low fertility rate — the gap between births and deaths among citizens is being actively bridged by sustained naturalisation policy.
Singapore Age Structure & Ageing Population Statistics in 2026
Singapore Citizen Population — Age Structure Trend (2015 vs. 2025)
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Citizens 65+ (2015) █████████████ 13.1%
Citizens 65+ (2025) ████████████████████ 20.7%
Citizens 80+ (2015: 91,000) ██████████ 91,000 persons
Citizens 80+ (2025: 145,000) ████████████████ 145,000 persons (+60%)
Citizens aged 20–64 (2025) ███████████████████████████████████████ 59.8%
Old-age support ratio (2010) ████████████████████████████████████████ ~7.4 workers per senior
Old-age support ratio (2025) ████████████ 2.4 workers per senior
Median age — citizens (2025) ████████████████████████████████████████ 43.7 years
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Scale: Each █ ≈ relative proportional change
| Age / Demographic Metric | 2025 Figure | Comparison / Trend |
|---|---|---|
| Citizens aged 65 and above (% of citizen population) | 20.7% | Up from 13.1% in 2015 — a 7.6 percentage-point jump in a decade |
| Citizens aged 80 and above (absolute number) | 145,000 | Up ~60% from 91,000 in 2015 |
| Citizens aged 20–64 (% of citizen population) | 59.8% (as at June 2025) | Core working-age base; shrinking as a share over time |
| Median age — citizens | 43.7 years | One of the oldest national populations in Asia |
| Median age — total population (resident-inclusive) | 36.8–37.8 years | Compares to global average of 31 years |
| Old-age support ratio | 2.4 working-age citizens per senior (65+) | Down from approximately 7.4 in 2010 and 3.3–3.5 in recent years — a structural collapse |
| Resident population age 0–14 | 13.60% | Shrinking cohort due to low birth rates |
| Resident population age 15–64 | 67.62% | Working-age population, still majority but declining share |
| Resident population age 65+ | 18.78% | Resident-wide figure (broader than citizen-only 20.7%) |
| Projected average resident age by 2050 | Just under 51 years | Statista / demographic projection modelling |
| Largest single age cohort (residents, June 2025) | Ages 35–39 (approx. 320,130 people) | Reflects the bulge of Singapore’s “sandwich generation” |
| Life expectancy at birth (2025, preliminary) | 83.9 years | Among the highest in the world; female 85.6 yrs, male 81.2 yrs (2024 data) |
Source: NPTD Population in Brief 2025; Malay Mail (September 29, 2025); E&H Immigration analysis of DOS data (October 2025); SingStat live homepage data (June 2026); Statista Population Breakdown H1 2025; Wikipedia Demographics of Singapore
The ageing data for Singapore in 2026 describes one of the steepest demographic transitions documented anywhere in the developed world, and the old-age support ratio collapse — from roughly 7.4 working-age citizens supporting each senior in 2010 to just 2.4 in 2025 — is the statistic that most starkly captures its fiscal and social implications. A ratio of 2.4 means that for every Singaporean aged 65 or older, there are now fewer than two and a half citizens of working age available to generate the tax revenue, healthcare capacity, and informal family caregiving that an ageing population requires. This is a more than threefold deterioration in just fifteen years, and it sits at the core of why Singapore’s government has progressively raised the retirement and re-employment age, expanded the Pioneer and Merdeka Generation healthcare subsidy packages, and continued to lean on calibrated immigration to replenish the working-age base even as it simultaneously invests heavily in eldercare infrastructure, active ageing programmes, and healthcare system capacity.
The growth of the 80-and-above cohort by 60% in a decade — from 91,000 to 145,000 citizens — represents the leading edge of a demographic wave that will only intensify through the late 2020s and 2030s as Singapore’s large Baby Boom-era cohorts, now concentrated in their late 50s through 70s, continue ageing into their 80s and beyond. With the largest single resident age cohort in 2025 being the 35–39 age group at approximately 320,130 people — often described as Singapore’s “sandwich generation,” simultaneously raising young children and caring for ageing parents — the demographic pressure on this particular cohort is acute and growing. Combined with life expectancy at birth reaching a preliminary 83.9 years in 2025 (placing Singapore 12th globally and 4th in Asia, behind only Hong Kong, Japan, and South Korea), the convergence of exceptional longevity and collapsing fertility means Singapore’s population pyramid is inverting at a pace that gives policymakers a genuinely narrow window to adapt healthcare financing, pension adequacy, and workforce participation policy before the most severe phase of the transition — projected to push the average resident age to just under 51 by 2050 — fully arrives.
Singapore Ethnic Composition, Households & Family Statistics in 2026
Singapore Resident Ethnic Composition — June 2025 (% of Citizens)
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Chinese ████████████████████████████████████████ 75.5%
Malay ████████████████ 15.1%
Indian ████████ 7.6%
Eurasian & Others ██ 1.8%
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Singapore Household & Family Trends 2025 (Resident Households)
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Total resident households ████████████████████████████████████████ 1,487,100
Avg. household size ████████ 3.06 persons
Citizen marriages (2024) ████████████████████ 22,955
Citizen births (2024) ████████████████████ 29,237
Total fertility rate (2025) ███ 0.87
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| Demographic Category | 2025 Figure | Key Detail |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese (ethnic group, citizens) | 75.5% | Largest ethnic group; consistent share over recent years |
| Malay (ethnic group, citizens) | 15.1% | Recognised as the indigenous community of Singapore |
| Indian (ethnic group, citizens) | 7.6% | Third-largest group |
| Eurasian and Others | 1.8% | Smallest officially tracked CMIO category |
| Inter-ethnic citizen marriages (2024) | ~19% of all citizen marriages | Up from roughly 1 in 6 in prior years |
| Total resident households (2025) | 1,487,100 | Up 21.4% over the past decade (2015–2025) |
| Average household size (2025) | 3.06 persons | Declining steadily year-on-year since 2015 |
| Total marriages (2024, all types) | 26,328 | SingStat live data |
| Citizen marriages (2024) | 22,955 | Down 5.7% from 24,355 in 2023 |
| Citizen births (2024) | 29,237 | Up 1.2% from 28,877 in 2023 |
| Total fertility rate (2025) | 0.87 | Record low; down from 0.97 in 2023–2024 |
| Median age of citizen mothers at first birth (2024) | ~31.6 years | Continuing upward trend; was 31.4 in 2023 |
| Average monthly household expenditure (2023) | S$7,118.70 | Among resident households; SingStat official figure |
| Average government transfers per household member (lowest decile, 2025) | S$16,519 | More than double the average across all resident households |
| Owner-occupied households | ~87.9% | Among the highest homeownership rates in the world |
| Households living in HDB flats | ~78.7% | Public housing remains the dominant dwelling type |
Source: NPTD Population in Brief 2025; Wikipedia Demographics of Singapore; SmartWealth.sg Housing & Household Statistics (February 2026); SingStat Key Household Income Trends 2025 (February 9, 2026); SingStat live homepage data (June 2026); SingStat Census of Population 2020 (housing baseline)
The ethnic composition data confirms that Singapore’s CMIO (Chinese, Malay, Indian, Others) demographic framework — formalised since independence — has remained remarkably stable in its broad proportions even as the country’s total population has grown substantially and diversified through immigration. The 75.5% Chinese, 15.1% Malay, 7.6% Indian, and 1.8% Eurasian/Others breakdown among citizens in 2025 closely mirrors the proportions recorded a decade earlier, suggesting that Singapore’s naturalisation and PR policies have been deliberately calibrated to preserve this demographic balance even as overall population composition shifts. The rising share of inter-ethnic marriages — now approaching 1 in 5 citizen marriages — is one of the more socially significant trends within this otherwise stable ethnic picture, reflecting increasing social integration across communities over successive generations, even as the formal CMIO categorisation system itself remains largely unchanged in government policy and data collection.
The household and family formation statistics for 2025 round out the demographic picture with data that directly explains the fertility collapse documented elsewhere in this report. With average household size having fallen to just 3.06 persons and the proportion of married couples without children, plus one-person households, both rising sharply over the past decade, Singapore is experiencing the same household fragmentation trend seen across most high-income East Asian societies — but compressed into an even shorter timeframe. The 5.7% year-on-year decline in citizen marriages to 22,955 in 2024, combined with a rising median age of first-time mothers at 31.6 years, illustrates a clear pattern of marriage and parenthood being increasingly delayed or foregone altogether — a trend that NPTD’s own reporting explicitly links to “economic uncertainty” and shifting life priorities among younger Singaporeans. With homeownership remaining extraordinarily high at 87.9% and 78.7% of households still living in HDB public housing, Singapore’s housing model continues to provide broad-based residential stability even as the underlying family structures occupying those homes grow smaller, older, and increasingly diverse in composition. Government transfer data adds a further dimension to this picture: households in the lowest income decile received an average of S$16,519 in government transfers per household member in 2025 — more than double the all-household average — reflecting Singapore’s heavily targeted, means-tested approach to social support, in contrast to the broader universal welfare models common in many Western economies, and an approach policymakers are increasingly relying on to cushion the financial pressures associated with an ageing, slower-growing native population.
Singapore Population Growth Trends & Future Projections in 2026
Singapore Total Population Growth Trajectory (Millions, Selected Years)
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2015 ███████████████████████████████ 5.54M
2020 ████████████████████████████████████ 5.69M
2024 ████████████████████████████████████████ 6.04M
2025 ████████████████████████████████████████ 6.11M
2026 (mid-year, UN proj.) ████████████████████████████████████████ 5.91M (resident-bounded)
2031 (IMF/UN forecast) ████████████████████████████████████████ ~6.2–6.3M (trend-based)
5-yr annualised growth ████████████████████████████████ 1.5% (2020–2025)
Prior 5-yr growth (15–20) ████████ 0.5% (2015–2020)
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Scale: Each █ ≈ approx. 0.16M people
| Growth Metric | Figure | Context / Driver |
|---|---|---|
| Annualised population growth (2020–2025) | 1.5% per year | Higher than the 0.5% recorded over 2015–2020 |
| Primary driver of 2020–2025 acceleration | Increase in Work Permit Holders in Construction sector | Supporting Changi Terminal 5 and major housing supply ramp-up |
| Net population change (daily, 2026 estimate) | ~91 people per day | Comprising ~138 births, ~84 deaths, and net immigration of ~37/day |
| Projected births (2026, full year) | ~51,000 | 133rd highest globally; ~139/day |
| Projected deaths (2026, full year) | ~31,000 | 129th highest globally; ~84/day |
| Net migration rate (2023, most recent estimate) | +26,996 | Confirms continued positive net migration trend |
| Singapore’s global population ranking | 115th of 237 countries/territories | Stable ranking position |
| Singapore’s regional ranking (Asia) | 36th of 51 countries/territories | Mid-tier by population size despite outsized economic profile |
| Projected average resident age by 2050 | Just under 51 years | Reflects compounding effect of low fertility + rising longevity |
| Population growth rate (2026, annual) | ~0.561%–0.7% | Multiple estimates converge in this range for current year |
Source: SingStat / NPTD Population Trends 2025 and Population in Brief 2025; Worldometer Singapore Demographics (2026); StatisticsTimes.com (2026); PopulationToday.com (June 2026); World Population Review (2026)
The long-run growth trajectory of Singapore’s population reveals a deliberate and significant policy acceleration that becomes visible only when the data is viewed across a longer time horizon. The jump from an annualised growth rate of just 0.5% between 2015 and 2020 to 1.5% between 2020 and 2025 — a threefold acceleration — was not the product of any sudden change in birth or death rates, both of which continued moving in their established directions (fertility falling, life expectancy rising). Instead, NPTD’s own analysis directly attributes this acceleration to a deliberate expansion of the Work Permit Holder intake, specifically to support delivery of major national infrastructure projects including Changi Airport’s Terminal 5 expansion and an intensified public and private housing construction programme designed to address Singapore’s tightening property market. This is a clear illustration of how, in Singapore’s governance model, population size itself functions as a managed economic input — adjusted up or down in response to specific, identifiable national project requirements rather than left to organic demographic drift.
The daily-level granularity available in 2026 population data — approximately 138 births, 84 deaths, and net immigration of 37 people every single day, producing a net daily population change of roughly 91 people — offers a uniquely precise window into the demographic engine driving one of the world’s most carefully monitored population systems. Even at this granular daily level, the underlying imbalance is visible: natural increase (births minus deaths) contributes roughly 54 people per day, while net migration contributes a further 37 — meaning immigration now accounts for more than two-fifths of Singapore’s daily population growth, a share that is expected to keep rising as the fertility rate continues its decline toward and potentially below the 0.87 mark recorded in 2025. Looking toward the 2031 horizon, trend-based projections from UN and IMF data suggest Singapore’s population could reach approximately 6.2 to 6.3 million, assuming current immigration policy settings and infrastructure-linked Work Permit allocations remain broadly consistent — though any economic downturn, shift in foreign workforce policy, or acceleration in the fertility decline could materially alter that trajectory in either direction.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
