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Child & Adult Care

Financial assistance available to support persons with disabilities.

Subsidies - Means-tested

This is a common term that caregivers and persons with disabilities will come across when applying for social supports, be they assistance schemes, subsidies, care services, etc.

A means-test is a way to determine the amount of subsidy a person will receive. Please be aware that:

  • Different means-tests are used in different schemes and services
  • Even if the same means-test is used, depending on the scheme or service, you could end up with different subsidy levels – or no subsidy, if your means-tested income exceeds the stated income ceiling

Household Income (HHI) is one form of means-test. Per Capita Income (PCI) is another. PCI is computed by dividing the gross household income by the number of members in the household.

Useful information:


Early childhood

Actions To take

  • Check your eligibility for subsidies when enrolling your child in an ECDA-licensed child care centre.


Subsidies for infant and child care

All parents with Singapore Citizen children enrolled in child care centres licensed by the Early Childhood Development Agency (ECDA) are eligible for subsidies.

The Basic Subsidy, which is not means-tested, is for everyone. There is also the Additional Subsidy, which is means-tested and for mothers or single fathers working 56 hours or more per month. The subsidy calculator helps you to compute your subsidy eligibility. More information can be found in ECDA's website.

Low-income families can apply for ComCare Child Care Subsidies for further assistance.

  • The child needs to be a Singapore Citizen and placed in “affordable” child care centres
  • Both parents should be working at least 56 hours per month, or have valid reasons for not working. These include: being certified as a full-time caregiver for a dependent, being on medical leave, looking for work, or incarcerated

Eligible families can approach their respective child care centre for information and application.

All government-funded centres that offer the Early Intervention Programme for Infants & Children (EIPIC) have subsidies in to help families defray EIPIC fees. There is also another subsidy scheme, Early Intervention Programme for Infants and Children – P (EIPIC-P), for parents with children enrolled in selected private intervention centres (PICs). Both EIPIC and EIPIC-P subsidies are means-tested.

Information on EIPIC fees payable after means-testing can be found below:

Singapore Citizens may also tap the government's Baby Bonus scheme, to offset EIPIC and EIPIC-P fees.


Subsidies for kindergarten fees

ComCare Kindergarten Subsidies – also known as the Kindergarten Financial Assistance Scheme (KiFAS) – provide means-tested fee assistance to families with Singapore Citizen children attending kindergarten, nursery or pre-nursery (K2, K1, N or pre-N) programmes run by Anchor Operators or the Ministry of Education.


Care 

Actions to take

Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Concession (FDWLC)

A person with disabilities employing a foreign domestic worker (FDW), or a person employing an FDW to look after a young child or elderly person, may be eligible to pay a concessionary rate of $60 a month for the FDW Levy, instead of $265. FDWLC is not means-tested.

There are three schemes:

  • Young child or grandchild scheme (for care recipients aged below 16)
  • Aged person scheme (for care recipients aged 65 and above)
  • Persons with disabilities scheme

General criteria:

  • The care recipient must be a Singapore Citizen (with exceptions under the Aged Person Scheme)
  • The care recipient must be the employer of the FDW OR a relative of the employer
  • Where the care recipient is the employer’s relative, he must live at the same address as the employer

A “relative” refers to a spouse, child/ child-in-law, grandchild/ grandchild-in-law, sibling/ sibling-in-law, parent/ parent-in-law, grandparent/ grandparent-in-law.

The Young Child Or Grandchild Scheme and the Aged Person Scheme support care recipients regardless of whether they have a disability.

For the former, the Ministry of Manpower will grant the concession automatically if the eligibility criteria are met. For the latter, the concession is granted automatically if the employer has submitted all the relevant information in the FDW employment application.

The Persons with Disabilities Scheme, as its name suggests, is dedicated to persons with disabilities. Subject to the general criteria, a person with disabilities can apply for this scheme if he employs an FDW. A person can also apply if he is employing an FDW to look after a relative with disabilities.

There is no age criterion. But the care recipient has to be assessed for functional needs, so the Young Child or Grandchild and Aged Person Schemes may be more relevant options if the care recipient meets the respective age criteria.

For this scheme, the care recipient needs to be certified by a qualified assessor as being permanently unable to perform at least one activity of daily living (ADL) i.e. eating, bathing, dressing, transferring, toileting, and walking or moving around. Persons with ASD or ID can also choose to be assessed using the Client Assessment Form (CAF).

This scheme is administered by Agency for Integrated Care (AIC). More information on eligibility and application are found below:

 

Home Caregiving Grant (HCG)

 (The Home Caregiving Grant replaces the Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW) Grant from October 2019)

The Home Caregiving Grant (HCG) is a $250 or $400 monthly cash payout to help families support their loved ones with permanent moderate to severe disabilities.

This grant can be used to defray expenses relating to caregiving, such as the costs of eldercare and caregiver support services in the community, or hiring of a Foreign Domestic Worker (FDW).

To be eligible for HCG, the care recipient must:

  • Be a Singapore Citizen or Permanent Resident (with a parent, child or spouse who is a Singapore Citizen) living in Singapore
  • Have a household monthly income of $2,800 or less per person, or an annual value of property less than $13,000 for households without income
  • Not reside in a residential long-term care institution (e.g. nursing home)
  • Be assessed to require support with at least 3 Activities of Daily Living (ADLs) via the Functional Assessment Report (FAR) or Client Assessment Form (CAF)
    • Care recipients with intellectual disabilities or autism can choose to be assessed for their level of needs support for ADL via CAF.

HCG is administered by Agency for Integrated Care (AIC) – For more information and application, click here.

Use this employment agencies and personnel search service from MOM to find employment agencies for foreign workers, foreign domestic workers or confinement nannies that match your needs.

Caregivers Training Grant (CTG)

The grant is a $200 annual subsidy for approved courses that caregivers wish to attend to better care for their loved ones. However, the subsidy is tied to the care recipient, i.e. if multiple caregivers of the same care recipient wish to attend the training, the subsidy will need to be shared among the caregivers.