Quick answer
If your employer requires you to work from home and does not reimburse you, you can claim the additional running costs against your employment income. IRAS accepts a before-and-after comparison: the increase in your electricity and telecommunication bills after you start working from home is the deductible amount. WiFi is only claimable if it was set up specifically to enable working from home.
Are home office expenses tax deductible in Singapore?
Yes, within limits. An employee who is required to work from home, and whose costs are not reimbursed by the employer, can deduct the additional running expenses incurred for work against employment income. The key word is additional: you claim the increase in your costs caused by working from home, not your whole household bill.
A self-employed person running a business from home deducts the business-use portion of running expenses on a reasonable basis. See the wider Singapore expense rules for how this fits with GST and other deductions.
How much can you claim?
IRAS accepts practical proxies rather than an exact apportionment:
| Cost | What you can claim |
|---|---|
| Electricity | The increase, comparing the bill before and after working from home |
| Telecommunications | The increase, on the same before-and-after basis |
| WiFi subscription | Monthly fee only if the WiFi was set up to enable working from home |
| Installation or one-time fees | Not claimable (capital in nature) |
Worked example. An employee required to work from home sees her monthly electricity charge rise from $50 to $80 and her mobile bill from $40 to $55. She can claim the $30 and $15 increases, $45 a month, for the months she worked from home. If her flatmate also works from home, IRAS accepts an equal split of the shared electricity increase, so each claims half.
Record-keeping requirements
Keep the utility and telecommunication bills for the months before and after you started working from home, so the increase can be shown. Keep evidence that your employer required you to work from home and did not reimburse the cost. Where costs are shared between people working from home, keep a note of the equal apportionment basis you used. Records must be kept for five years, and IRAS may ask to see the underlying bills.
How to claim, step by step
- Confirm your employer required you to work from home and did not reimburse you.
- Gather your electricity and telecommunication bills from before and after you started.
- Claim the increase in each bill for the months you worked from home.
- Claim a WiFi subscription only if it was set up specifically to enable working from home.
- Apportion shared costs equally if more than one person in the household works from home.
- Keep the bills and apportionment notes for five years.
Common mistakes
- Claiming the whole electricity or telecom bill instead of only the increase.
- Claiming WiFi that was already set up before working from home began.
- Claiming one-time installation or connection fees, which are capital in nature.
- Claiming when the employer reimbursed the cost, or did not require working from home.
- Not keeping the before-and-after bills that prove the increase.
Software that helps
A working-from-home claim depends on having the before-and-after bills in one place.
- IRAS myTax Portal is where employees enter the deduction at filing time.
- ExpenseFlow captures your electricity, mobile, and broadband bills as they arrive, codes them, and syncs them to Xero or QuickBooks, so the before-and-after comparison behind a home office claim is easy to produce.
- Xero stores the bills against the period so the increase is simple to calculate.
FAQ
See the answered questions above for the eligibility test, the before-and-after method, WiFi, shared households, and the self-employed.