CPF withdrawal rules in Singapore

Central Provident Fund or CPF is the mandatory retirement savings that all employers are required to pay their employees along with their salary every month. Employees are also required to contribute a certain percentage of their income into their CPF account. The money in the CPF account keeps on accumulating over the period of a person’s employment. Ideally, an employee is supposed to withdraw the money from the CPF account only after he/she retires, but under certain conditions, he/she can withdraw money from the CPF account early.
Here, we will take a detailed look at the various rules and regulations when it comes to withdrawing money from the CPF account.

Rules of withdrawal as per your year of birth

You can withdraw a part of your CPF savings when you become 55 years old. However, there are a few conditions for that.

• You can withdraw your Ordinary Account (OA) and Special Account (SA) savings after keeping aside the required Basic Retirement Sum (BRS) or Full Retirement Sum (FRS) with enough CPF property pledged in your Retirement Account.
• If you were born before 1954, and you have not set aside your BRS or FRS, you are eligible to withdraw 50% of your Special Account and Ordinary Account savings.
• If you were born in 1954, the Special Account and Ordinary Account savings that you can withdraw will reduce to 40% if you have not set aside BRS or FRS.
• The withdrawal amount will reduce by 10 percentage points every subsequent year after that until 1957.
• If you were born after 1957, you can withdraw only up to $S5,000 from your Ordinary and Special Account savings when you are 55 years old.

Rules of withdrawal of CPF on medical grounds

If you want to withdraw your CPF money on medical grounds, you can apply for it under the following conditions:

• You are terminally ill.
• Your life expectancy is severely reduced.
• You lack mental capacity as per the Mental Capacity Act which is likely to be permanent.
• You are mentally or physically disabled and cannot continue to work.

If your application to withdraw CPF on medical grounds under conditions 2 to 4 is approved, you will be able to withdraw money from your Ordinary, Special and Retirement Accounts after keeping aside a reduced retirement sum or S$5,000, whichever is higher. On the other hand, if your application is approved because of terminal illness, you will be able to withdraw the entire savings from all your CPF accounts, except the Medisave Account. 

If you are mentally incapacitated under the Mental Capacity Act, any one of your close family members can send an application to the court to be chosen as your deputy. Subsequently, your deputy will be entitled to send an application to the CPF Board for the withdrawal of your CPF savings. However, the deputy will have to bring the original Order of Court and your latest medical report that states your lack of mental capacity which is expected to be perpetual, and the original trust bank account passbook.

To apply for the withdrawal, you can login to your ‘my cpf’ account with your SingPass and submit the online application form along with the medical certification form. You can also send the hard copy of your application to CPF headquarters via mail. 

Rules of withdrawal on account of leaving Singapore permanently

If you are planning to leave or have already left Singapore and/or West Malaysia permanently and have no intention of coming back either to work or to reside, you can withdraw your entire CPF savings. You can also withdraw saved money from all your investment schemes that are part of the CPF. Once your CPFIS (Central Provident Fund Investment Scheme) investments are withdrawn, the cash balance in your CPF Investment account will not be protected.

• If you are covered under CPF LIFE Basic or Standard Plan and your application to withdraw CPF is approved, you will have two choices:
• End your policy and collect a refund of the premium that has not been used.
• Retain the policy under the LIFE Scheme. Afterwards, you will start getting monthly payouts until the time of your death. You must have a Singapore personal bank account to receive your monthly payouts.

To apply for the withdrawal under this condition, you will have to download and fill up the application form and mail it to the Central Provident Fund Board.