LBC rates adjustments reflect upward demand in the land market

 Increases are not expected to harm the overall land market.

The Singapore Land Authority (SLA) made adjustments to the Land Betterment Charge (LBC) rates for the period 1 September 2025 to 28 February 2026.

Upward adjustments were made to the average LBC rates across commercial, landed and non-landed residential, and industrial properties. LBC rates were also increased for places of worship/civic, and community institution use groups.  

Places of worship/civic and community institutions saw the highest increase of 2.9%, followed by industrial properties at 1.6%, and non-landed residential at 0.7%. Landed residential and commercial properties saw marginal increases of 0.4% and 0.1% respectively. Hotel/Hospital saw no change in rates.

Dr Chua Yang Liang, Head of Research & Consultancy, Southeast Asia at JLL, said these latest changes “echo the shift in tempo in the Singapore land transaction market.”

“The Chief Valuer would have captured the strong transactional evidence, especially from the government sale of sites program, for this market assessment. Persistent strong upward pressure on the landed housing market has motivated the Chief Valuer to increase LBC rates across 11% of the sectors island-wide,” Chua said.

“The recent increase in non-landed LBC rates can be attributed to the competitive bids from developers, especially for the Bayshore Road site.  However, the housing market is showing some signs of slower price growth due to the government’s calibrated cooling measures, such as the revision of the Seller Stamp duty in July this year,” said Nicholas Ng, Senior Director, Capital Markets, JLL.

Tricia Song, CBRE Head of Research in Southeast Asia, noted that the LBC rates for commercial properties have risen by 0.1%, slower than the 0.6% rise in the previous cycle. Four out of 118 sectors saw an increase of 3.3% while the remaining 114 sectors were flat.

“Office-dominant sectors such as those in the CBD remained flat, while sectors in the main shopping belt, such as Orchard, were flat after increases in the previous round,” according to Song.

CBRE also noted that the increase in the LBC rates for industrial properties “could be attributed to multiple large transactions at benign valuations as investors continued to be drawn to the asset class due to its attractive yields.”