Preschool fees in Singapore: the caps today, and the S$150 target for 2030

A full day of childcare at a government-supported preschool in Singapore is capped at S$610 a month at an Anchor Operator centre and S$650 at a Partner Operator centre, before GST, the goods and services tax, and before any subsidy (as of August 2026). Full-day infant care is capped at S$1,235 and S$1,290. Those caps are the ceiling on what the centre may charge, not the bill you pay.

Subsidies come off the top. A Singapore Citizen child in full-day childcare draws a Basic Subsidy of S$300 a month if the main applicant is working, and up to S$467 more if the family is means-tested into it, meaning assessed on what the household earns. For infant care the same figures are S$600 and up to S$710.

At the 2026 National Day Rally the Government said full-day childcare fees at government-supported centres will come down to S$150 a month, and infant care to S$300. Those numbers are not in force. The reductions start in 2028, and the target levels are expected by 2030.

In brief: As at August 2026, full-day childcare at an Anchor Operator or Partner Operator centre is capped at S$610 or S$650 a month, and infant care at S$1,235 or S$1,290, both excluding GST. Where the main applicant works at least 56 hours a month, a Singapore Citizen child draws S$300 of Basic Subsidy for childcare or S$600 for infant care, plus up to S$467 or S$710 more if the family is means-tested into it, meaning assessed on what the household earns. Every family pays a minimum co-payment, so the fee never reaches zero. The S$150 and S$300 fees announced in August 2026 are 2030 targets, phased from 2028, and are not in force.

The fee caps in force today

Preschool fees in Singapore sit under a cap at centres on either of two government schemes. A fee cap is a limit ECDA sets on what an operator may charge, in return for that funding. The Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) runs two funding schemes that carry fee caps, the Anchor Operator Scheme and the Partner Operator Scheme, and the cap depends on which one your centre is on. Our guide to what ECDA does covers the agency’s wider role.

The caps exclude GST. ECDA states both schemes’ figures that way, and the Strategy Group’s own fee table sets the S$610 Anchor Operator childcare cap against S$665 with tax added, and the S$1,235 infant care cap against S$1,346. So the number a centre quotes you may sit about 9 per cent above the cap.

ECDA states the caps for Singapore Citizen children. If your child is a permanent resident or a foreign citizen, ask the centre what it charges rather than reading the cap as your number.

Being government-supported is not by itself what fixes the fee. ECDA sets the caps as a condition of the funding it gives operators on the two schemes, so the figures above describe what a scheme centre may charge. If your centre is on neither scheme, ask what governs its fees. The Ministry of Social and Family Development (MSF) says the commitment that eight in ten preschoolers can have a place in a government-supported preschool was met by the end of 2025.

What changed, and what did not

The childcare caps came down on 1 January 2026. The infant care caps did not, and reading a news summary quickly is how the two get spliced together.

So the family that felt no change in 2026 was probably the family with a baby in infant care. MSF’s own framing of the childcare cut is that it brings full-day childcare at an Anchor Operator centre to roughly what primary school fees plus after-school student care cost, before means-tested subsidies.

Anchor Operator and Partner Operator: which is which

Both schemes buy the same thing with public money, which is a fee ceiling plus quality requirements. What differs is who runs them, and what ECDA publishes about each.

The Anchor Operator Scheme (AOP) started in 2009 and was enhanced in 2014. Five operators are on it: PCF Sparkletots Preschool, led by the PAP Community Foundation; My First Skool, led by NTUC First Campus; My World Preschool, led by Metropolitan YMCA; Skool4Kidz, led by Kinderland Educare Services; and E-Bridge Pre-School, led by EtonHouse International. ECDA describes the scheme as widening access to good quality, affordable early childhood care and education, especially for children from lower income or disadvantaged backgrounds. It carries the lower caps of the two, and it is the only one of the two whose ECDA page publishes a kindergarten cap.

The Partner Operator Scheme (POP) started in 2016 and runs in fixed terms. The current term began on 1 January 2026 and runs to 31 December 2030, and ECDA has appointed 380 childcare centres run by 33 commercial and not-for-profit operators to it. Its childcare cap sits S$40 above the Anchor Operator one, and its infant care cap S$55 above. The scheme page publishes a downloadable list of operators and centres, which is the thing to check before you commit to a waitlist.

Neither label tells you whether a particular centre suits your child. It tells you what the centre may charge. Curriculum, distance from home and whether you can get a place at all still decide the choice, and our guide to childcare in Singapore works through those.

What you actually pay: the two subsidies

Every Singapore Citizen child at an ECDA-licensed infant or childcare centre is eligible for the Basic Subsidy. Some families are eligible for an Additional Subsidy on top. The subsidies are paid straight to the preschool, so what you see is a fee already net of them.

“Working” has a published meaning here, and it is looser than it sounds: at least 56 hours a month, which ECDA says includes full-time, part-time and freelance arrangements. About 14 hours a week clears it in every month of the year.

The Strategy Group has published what the Basic Subsidy leaves a family paying, which is the figure the fee cap on its own does not give you.

The Additional Subsidy is means-tested, which means the amount depends on what your household earns. To qualify, the main applicant must be working at the point of application, and the family’s gross monthly household income must be S$12,000 or below (as at August 2026), or per capita income S$3,000 or below for households of five or more related people sharing an address.

That ceiling is moving. From 1 January 2027 the gross monthly household income ceiling for the Additional Subsidy and for the Kindergarten Fee Assistance Scheme (KiFAS) rises to S$15,000, and MSF says the income thresholds for all subsidy tiers will be updated at the same time. MSF expects more than 60,000 families with children in preschool to benefit.

The floor underneath the subsidy

Subsidy never takes the fee to zero. Every family pays a minimum co-payment, and ECDA says it increases progressively as household or per capita income rises.

ECDA publishes the arithmetic. A working mother with a gross monthly household income of S$3,000 or below, with a child in full-day childcare, is eligible for S$300 of Basic Subsidy and may be eligible for S$467 of Additional Subsidy, which is S$767. If the programme fee is S$740, the fee payable does not become zero. The minimum co-payment for that income tier is S$3, so the subsidy actually paid is S$737 and the family pays the S$3.

One more condition worth knowing: your child must attend preschool for at least one day in a month to draw subsidy for that month.

ECDA’s subsidy overview page carries the full tier tables, and the preschool handles the application at enrolment. You can also search preschools with estimated fees after subsidy on LifeSG by logging in with Singpass. ECDA says the actual amount is determined on verified details such as screened income, so treat any number you work out at home as an estimate.

If the main applicant is not working

This is where today’s rules bite hardest, and where the announced changes will matter most.

A non-working main applicant draws S$150 of Basic Subsidy for either programme, and no Additional Subsidy. On the Strategy Group’s published figures that leaves full-day infant care at S$1,196 a month at an Anchor Operator centre and S$1,256 at a Partner Operator centre, against S$746 and S$806 for a family whose main applicant works.

ECDA’s pages set out two routes around it. Since 9 December 2024, a family with a Singapore Citizen child in a childcare programme and gross monthly household income of S$6,000 or below, or per capita income of S$1,500 or below, qualifies for full childcare subsidies whatever the main applicant’s working status. ECDA sets that route out for a childcare programme; a child in infant care goes through Special Approval instead.

Special Approval grants higher subsidies for a limited period where the main applicant cannot work for a stated reason. ECDA’s list includes looking for a job, studying or training for at least 56 hours a month, pregnancy, being medically unfit for work, caring for a child with special needs, caring for a sick family member who needs a full-time carer, caring full-time for a younger child aged 24 months and below who is not in preschool, and incarceration. Supporting documents are usually required, and how long the higher subsidy lasts depends on the circumstances.

Families renting under HDB’s Public Rental Scheme, or receiving ComCare Short-to-Medium-Term or Long-Term Assistance, get maximum preschool subsidies under Special Approval until the next fixed point of assessment.

What the 2026 National Day Rally announced, and when it starts

On 23 August 2026 the Government announced that fees at government-supported childcare and infant care centres will be cut substantially. The figures being quoted are real, and the dates attached to them matter as much as the numbers.

Full-day childcare fees for Singapore Citizen children at government-supported centres are to come down to S$150 a month, and full-day infant care to S$300 a month, both before means-testing. The Strategy Group publishes those figures in a table beside three current ones for each programme: the fee before any subsidies, the fee after the Basic Subsidy where the main applicant works, and the fee after the Basic Subsidy where they do not. For Anchor Operator childcare those three are S$665, S$365 and S$515, GST included. The page does not say which of them the S$150 is measured against; it says only that the new fees will be less than half of today’s fees (as at August 2026), and that lower income families will continue to pay less again.

The roll-out is progressive from 2028, with the target levels expected to be reached by 2030. Implementation timelines are due to be shared in early 2027.

A change that is arguably larger for the families in the section above sits alongside it. Full childcare and infant care subsidies are to be extended to families with Singapore Citizen children regardless of the subsidy applicant’s working status. The Strategy Group’s own framing of today’s position is that full preschool subsidies go only to families where the main applicant works; the two routes in the section above are the exceptions ECDA publishes, and this change would remove the working-status link altogether. Details are due in early 2027.

The network of government-supported operators is to be expanded, with support offered to eligible operators outside the network to join it, more infant care places, and a larger infant educator workforce.

None of this is in force. The Strategy Group’s page on the announcement is the source to watch. Neither it nor the Made For Families recap of the announcement gives a start date more specific than 2028.

Should you wait for the cheaper fees?

Waiting to enrol is not a strategy anyone can price today, so do the arithmetic on your own child’s age rather than on the headline. A child who is 18 months old in August 2026 turns six in 2031, so the reductions would begin when that child is about three, and the target levels would land in their last two years of preschool. A baby born in 2030 or later is the first who could spend the whole of preschool at the target levels.

The reductions are described as progressive, which means a schedule rather than a switch, and the size of each step is not in either page.

KidSTART, for families who need more than a subsidy

Fee caps and subsidies handle cost. KidSTART handles the rest of the support a family may need, and it is worth knowing about because it is easy to miss.

Introduced in 2016 and run by KidSTART Singapore Limited, a non-profit organisation, the programme supports children aged 0 to 6 from low-income families, and pregnant mothers, by working with parents and carers on early childhood development. It monitors children’s developmental progress from birth and pulls together other services where a family needs them. ECDA’s KidSTART page is the place to start.

What to do next

Find out which scheme your shortlisted centres are on, because that is what fixes their ceiling. Then log in to LifeSG with Singpass and pull the estimated fee after subsidy for each one, since a S$40 difference in cap can be swamped by a subsidy tier.

Apply for subsidy through the preschool at enrolment, and reapply if your circumstances change during the year. If the main applicant stops working, check the Special Approval reasons before assuming the subsidy is gone.

Fees are only part of getting a child through the door. Our preschool starter checklist covers what to buy before term starts, what your centre already has to provide, and which starter-pack charges ECDA’s Code of Practice says are optional.

Then leave the 2030 figures where they are, in 2030. More of our writing on the preschool years is in the preschool section.

Wei Chun

Founder & Editor

A Singapore parent writing the guide he wished he'd had — practical, calm, and grounded in what actually works.

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