HDB MOP: when your minimum occupation period ends

How long the MOP is

• Flats bought from HDB and resale flats bought on the open market: 5 years for unclassified and Standard flats, 10 years for Plus and Prime flats.
• Unclassified flats are flats sold before the October 2024 sales exercise and not classified as Standard, Plus or Prime. Prime flats include Prime Location Public Housing (PLH) flats sold before that exercise.
• Flats bought from a developer under the Design, Build and Sell Scheme (DBSS): 5 years.
• Flats bought under the Fresh Start Housing Scheme: 20 years.
• Replacement flats under the Selective En bloc Redevelopment Scheme (SERS): 5 years from collecting the keys for sites announced on or after 7 April 2022. For earlier sites, a flat at the designated replacement site can be sold after 7 years from selecting it or 5 years from collecting the keys, whichever is earlier.
• Executive condominiums: 5 years, or 10 years for projects whose land sales tender closed on or after 8 May 2026, counted from the Temporary Occupation Permit (TOP) date.

When the MOP starts and what pauses it

The MOP starts on the day your purchase legally completes: when you collect the keys to a new flat, or at resale completion for a resale flat. Any time you do not physically live in the flat is left out, such as when the whole flat is rented out with HDB’s approval or the lease is infringed, so your MOP ends later by that much. Your own date is in MyHDB under My Flat > Purchased Flat > Flat Details and Minimum Occupation Period (MOP).

What you cannot do during the MOP

• Sell the flat on the open market.
• Rent out the whole flat.
• Buy private residential property in Singapore or overseas. This covers you, your spouse and everyone listed in the flat; it includes exercising an Option to Purchase or signing a sale and purchase agreement for a home still being built, and holding property on trust.
• Apply for, or be listed in, an HDB Flat Eligibility (HFE) letter to buy another HDB flat or an EC from a developer.
• Remove the core members who helped you qualify for the flat. They must stay in the flat and live in it throughout the MOP.

What you can do during the MOP

• Rent out spare bedrooms in a 3-room or bigger flat, with HDB’s approval. Owners of 3Gen flats cannot rent out any bedrooms during the MOP.
• EC owners can rent out bedrooms without HDB’s approval, but must register the rental with HDB within 7 days.

After the MOP

• Sell on the open market, as long as the sale keeps your block and neighbourhood within the Ethnic Integration Policy and Singapore Permanent Resident quotas.
• Rent out the whole flat with HDB’s approval. Owners of Plus and Prime flats can never rent out the whole flat.
• Buy private residential property, with no limit on how many. You can keep the flat, but you must keep living in it unless HDB approves renting it out. If every owner is a Singapore Permanent Resident, you must tell HDB before buying a private home in Singapore and sell the flat within 6 months of acquiring it.
• Sell without Seller's Stamp Duty. It applies only to homes sold within at most 4 years of purchase, and the shortest MOP is 5 years.

Questions

Sources

• HDB: Eligibility for selling a flat
• HDB: Conditions after buying a new flat
• HDB: Conditions after buying a resale flat
• HDB: Acquiring private property
• HDB: Conditions after buying an executive condominium
• IRAS: Seller's Stamp Duty for residential property

Rules and fees change. Check the linked official pages before you commit, and ask a lawyer about your own sale or purchase.

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