Outside central, tenants pay the biggest shoebox premium. In the core central region, they pay the smallest.

Tenants pay more per square foot for a small unit everywhere in Singapore. How much more depends sharply on where it is: about 47% in the core central region (CCR), 51% in the rest of central region (RCR), and 58% in the outside central region (OCR). That ordering has held in every one of the last nine years without once crossing. The rest of what we found about shoebox units in Singapore is on the shoebox units guide.

We reported the market-wide shoebox rent premium at roughly 52%, flat since 2017. That was an average across three quite different markets. Split by region, the premium runs from 47% to 58%, and the gap between them has never closed.

Key takeaways

• The shoebox rent premium is smallest in the CCR and largest in the OCR, and the ordering held in all nine years. The three regions
• CCR shoebox rents are the highest in dollars, at $7.02 per square foot against $5.60 in the OCR. The premium is lowest there because CCR family rents are higher still. Reading the tables
• All three premiums drifted down modestly (three to four points over nine years) with no convergence between them. What moved
• Read against the regional price finding, CCR shoebox stock is the weaker half of the return on both measures. Against the price picture

Three regions, nine years

Median monthly rent per square foot, measured across the same projects at both ends of the period. Shoebox is URA's 40–50 sqm band, which ends at the same 538 sqft line as its shoebox definition. Family-sized is the 90–130 sqm bands, 969–1,399 sqft.

Core Central (CCR)

Year	Shoebox	Family	Premium	Projects (S / F)
2017	$5.16	$3.44	+50.0%	63 / 295
2018	$5.16	$3.44	+50.2%	67 / 312
2019	$5.16	$3.44	+50.1%	70 / 326
2020	$4.95	$3.36	+47.4%	70 / 322
2021	$5.16	$3.47	+48.6%	70 / 323
2022	$6.19	$4.11	+50.8%	70 / 318
2023	$7.43	$4.95	+50.0%	70 / 320
2024	$7.01	$4.76	+47.3%	69 / 311
2025	$7.02	$4.78	+46.9%	70 / 315

Rest of Central (RCR)

Year	Shoebox	Family	Premium	Projects (S / F)
2017	$4.10	$2.65	+54.6%	146 / 381
2018	$4.03	$2.65	+51.7%	154 / 387
2019	$4.10	$2.65	+54.6%	162 / 413
2020	$4.13	$2.61	+58.2%	159 / 397
2021	$4.23	$2.69	+57.2%	156 / 406
2022	$5.11	$3.19	+60.4%	159 / 390
2023	$6.19	$3.94	+57.4%	156 / 390
2024	$5.99	$3.89	+54.0%	155 / 391
2025	$6.09	$4.04	+50.8%	153 / 375

Outside Central (OCR)

Year	Shoebox	Family	Premium	Projects (S / F)
2017	$3.72	$2.30	+61.5%	109 / 377
2018	$3.61	$2.32	+55.6%	111 / 390
2019	$3.72	$2.30	+61.5%	123 / 406
2020	$3.72	$2.30	+61.5%	118 / 393
2021	$3.92	$2.42	+61.9%	121 / 411
2022	$4.75	$2.91	+63.3%	118 / 394
2023	$5.99	$3.63	+64.8%	119 / 408
2024	$5.63	$3.54	+59.0%	118 / 377
2025	$5.60	$3.55	+57.5%	114 / 386

Reading the tables

The premium column and the dollar columns say different things, and it is easy to read one as the other.

CCR shoebox rents are the highest in Singapore. $7.02 per square foot in 2025, against $6.09 in the RCR and $5.60 in the OCR. A small unit in the CCR rents for more per square foot than a small unit anywhere else.

Its premium is nonetheless the lowest. That is because CCR family-sized units rent for $4.78 psf, well above the $3.55 an OCR family unit fetches. Both CCR lines are high; the gap between them is proportionally narrower.

So "the CCR premium is lowest" is a statement about the ratio inside that region, not about the rent a landlord collects.

What moved, and what did not

All three premiums are lower in 2025 than in 2017: CCR by 3.1 points, RCR by 3.8, OCR by 4.0. Modest, and roughly equal.

What did not move is the ordering. OCR sits above RCR sits above CCR in every single year. The lines never touch, let alone cross. Whatever sets the shoebox rent premium in each region has been stable for nine years, through a pandemic, the sharp rise in rents in 2022 and 2023, and two rounds of cooling measures.

Rents rose steeply in 2022 and 2023, lifting all six lines (CCR shoebox rent went from $5.16 to $7.43 in two years), and then all six flattened. Ratios barely noticed.

Against the price picture

Our regional price article found the opposite ends of the market a long way apart: a CCR shoebox is worth 4.5% less per square foot than in 2017, while an OCR one gained 26%.

Put the two together and they point the same way. CCR shoebox stock has the weakest capital performance and the smallest rent premium. OCR shoebox stock has the strongest capital performance and the largest rent premium. On both halves of what an owner earns, the same ordering appears.

That is a coherent picture rather than a contradiction, and it makes the regional finding harder to dismiss as a quirk of the sales data. Two independent datasets, collected differently, agree on which end of the market has held up.

What this does not tell you

• Rental yield. Rent premium is not rental yield. Rental yield needs a price as well, and we cover it market-wide in the rental yield article. A regional rental yield breakdown requires both a rental panel and a sale panel in each cell and is a separate piece of work.
• Net income. These are gross rents. Maintenance, property tax, agent commission, vacancy and income tax all come out first.
• Why tenants pay it. Rental contracts record the rent, not the tenant's reasoning. Anything about who rents small units and why would be inference.
• Your unit. Medians across dozens to hundreds of projects. Individual buildings, stacks and lease terms vary widely.

Method and data notes. Rental data to February 2026.

URA non-landed rental contracts, 2017 to 2025. Market segments are URA's: CCR is the core central region, RCR the rest of central, OCR outside central.

URA reports rental floor area in 10 sqm bands rather than exact areas, so rent per square foot uses the midpoint of each band. Shoebox uses the 40–50 sqm band, which converts to 431–538 sqft and shares its upper boundary with URA's 50 sqm shoebox threshold. Family-sized uses the 90–130 sqm bands, 969–1,399 sqft. Because both sides use midpoints, the ratio between them is more reliable than either level on its own.

Each band runs on its own fixed panel: projects with at least three rental contracts in that band in both the 2017–2019 and 2023–2025 windows, so every column describes the same projects at both ends. Medians are taken across projects rather than pooled across contracts, which would let the changing mix of what was leased masquerade as a change in rent.

Coverage was checked before use: all twelve months are present in every year, and 96.5% of rental records in these bands carry a market segment. 2026 is excluded: only two months of rental data exist.

Rental data to February 2026.

30 October 2026. This note placed homes in market segments by postal district. URA places them by planning area, which moves about one in seven private sales between regions. The figures by region here use the earlier segments and differ from what the same records give now. How regions are set: How we measure prices and sales.