MAS Relaxes Singapore Family Office Tax Incentive Conditions From 1 August 2026

The Monetary Authority of Singapore has loosened several operating conditions attached to its flagship family office tax incentive schemes, giving new single family offices more breathing room on hiring and reporting while tightening requirements for the largest funds.

TL;DR

• MAS's Circular FDD Cir 05/2026, issued 31 July 2026, refines the tax incentive conditions for Singapore single family office (SFO) funds under Sections 13O, 13OA and 13U of the Income Tax Act, with changes taking effect from 1 August 2026.
• New SFO applicants get more time to hire the required investment professionals, simpler reporting on assets under management, and a streamlined capital deployment framework; the 5% cap on physical precious metals investments has also been scrapped.
• The changes land against a backdrop of continued growth: more than 2,000 single family offices held MAS tax incentives as at end-2025, part of an asset management industry MAS says grew 10.1% in 2025 to a record S$6.7 trillion.

What did MAS actually change?

On 31 July 2026, the Monetary Authority of Singapore issued Circular FDD Cir 05/2026, updating the tax incentive schemes for funds under Sections 13D, 13O, 13OA and 13U of the Income Tax Act 1947. The circular covers both non-single-family-office funds and single family office (SFO) funds, but the SFO-specific changes are the ones that matter most to Asia Family Office Hub's readers, according to detailed analyses published by law firm Baker McKenzie and accounting firm RSM Singapore, both of which reviewed the circular in the weeks after its release.

For new SFO applications approved on or after 1 August 2026, the required number of qualifying investment professionals (IPs) no longer all need to be in place at the point of application. An S13O or S13OA applicant can now apply with just one qualifying IP and hire the second by the end of the first year of the award; an S13U applicant can apply with two and hire the third within the same window. Previously, the full quota of IPs had to be employed before the incentive was granted.

What else got easier, and what got harder?

Reporting on assets under management in Designated Investments (AUM in DI) has also been simplified: SFO funds now only need to confirm they meet the minimum AUM in DI threshold at the point of application and at each financial year-end, rather than continuously throughout the year. The capital deployment requirement (CDR) — the rule requiring funds to actively invest a portion of their assets in Singapore-linked instruments — has been streamlined from six eligible investment categories down to three broader ones, with a simplified 2x weighting for investments that count double.

Not everything loosened. The local business spending (LBS) thresholds that scale with a fund's AUM have shifted: funds with S$100 million or more in AUM in DI previously needed S$1 million in tiered thresholds now apply at S$250 million and S$2 billion respectively, meaning the largest funds face a higher AUM bar before the top-tier spending requirement kicks in, while funds in the newly-created middle band face a different spending mix. Separately, the 5% cap that previously limited how much of a fund's portfolio could sit in physical investment precious metals like gold has been removed entirely from 1 August 2026, a change MAS has linked to its broader push to position Singapore as a hub for gold vaulting and clearing.

Why now?

Baker McKenzie's analysis frames the circular as a refinement of conditions MAS first introduced in October 2024 and revised again in July 2023 — in other words, this is MAS's third iteration of SFO operating conditions in under three years, suggesting the regulator is actively calibrating the scheme rather than treating it as settled. RSM Singapore's analysis notes that funds granted incentives before 18 April 2022 are unaffected, while funds under the 2023 conditions will see the revised AUM, spending and deployment rules apply from the financial year in which their basis period ends on or after 1 August 2026 — meaning the practical impact will roll out gradually across the SFO population rather than all at once.

Why it matters

For family offices weighing where to locate, the changes make Singapore's SFO scheme marginally easier to enter (lower upfront hiring bar) while asking established, larger funds to meet a different local-spending and deployment mix. That balance matters because Singapore's family office count has grown from roughly 400 in 2020 to more than 2,000 by the end of 2025, according to a written parliamentary reply from Deputy Prime Minister and MAS Chairman Gan Kim Yong on 5 August 2026, alongside broader growth in Singapore's asset management industry to a record S$6.7 trillion in 2025. Easing entry conditions while tightening large-fund spending requirements reads as MAS trying to keep new formations coming without loosening the substantive presence rules that have underpinned Singapore's pitch as a jurisdiction for genuine, not shell, family offices.

Not yet confirmed: Neither Baker McKenzie nor RSM Singapore's analyses, nor Asia Family Office Hub, have independently verified MAS's underlying circular text against the original document beyond what both professional-services summaries report; the two accounts are consistent with each other and with the LBS table figures, but Asia Family Office Hub has not itself accessed MAS's Circular FDD Cir 05/2026 directly. No figures on how many existing SFOs will be affected by the tighter LBS bands, versus benefit from the relaxed IP hiring rule, have been published.

FAQs

When do the new MAS family office tax rules take effect?

The refined conditions apply to new SFO awards approved on or after 1 August 2026. Existing awards are affected from the year of assessment in which their financial year ends on or after 1 August 2026, with the exact impact depending on which set of prior conditions (pre-2022, 2022, or 2023) applies to that fund.

Do family offices now need fewer staff to qualify?

Not fewer overall, but the timing has relaxed. An S13O/13OA applicant can now apply with one qualifying investment professional and hire a second within a year; an S13U applicant can apply with two and hire a third within a year. The final headcount requirement (two for S13O/13OA, three for S13U, including at least one non-family member) is unchanged.

What happened to the cap on gold and precious metals investments?

MAS removed the previous 5% portfolio cap on physical investment precious metals (IPMs) from 1 August 2026, giving family offices more flexibility to hold gold as part of their Designated Investments, as part of a wider push to build out Singapore's gold vaulting and clearing infrastructure.

Sources and Method

This article was compiled primarily from two independent professional-services analyses of MAS Circular FDD Cir 05/2026: Baker McKenzie's "Singapore: Tax Incentives Changes for Funds and Family Offices" (18 August 2026) and RSM Singapore's "MAS Updates on Tax Incentive Schemes for Single Family Office Funds in Singapore" (19 August 2026), both of which independently summarised the same circular, issued by MAS on 31 July 2026, with matching figures on the AUM, investment-professional, local-spending and capital-deployment changes. Growth figures (2,000+ SFOs, S$6.7 trillion asset management industry, 10.1% growth in 2025) are drawn from reporting on Deputy Prime Minister Gan Kim Yong's written parliamentary reply on single family offices, dated 5 August 2026. This article did not independently access MAS's original circular text; where the two professional-services sources agreed, their figures are reported as verified, and this is noted above.