Job changes are common for expats, but they come with financial consequences people rarely think about. Here are the three things every expat must review before making a career move.
1. Insurance & Medical Coverage
Your employer-sponsored health insurance often ends the day you resign.
Before you move: Check if your hospitalisation coverage is tied to your employer Review any exclusions or loading on personal plans Consider securing your own independent cover before leaving
Changing jobs is the worst time to discover a coverage gap.
2. SRS & Bonus Timing
How and when bonuses are paid impacts: • SRS contribution timing • Tax relief • Investment planning
If your bonus arrives early in the new year, you might miss the chance to use it for this year’s SRS contributions.
3. Employer Benefits & Retirement Schemes
Consider: • Loss of corporate benefits • Loss of employee stock options • Changes in tax exposure • Opportunities to consolidate investments • Need to adjust your portfolio risk
Job changes should trigger a full financial review.
A smooth career move includes financial clarity. Review these three areas before signing any new contract, and you’ll protect yourself from unexpected gaps and missed opportunities.
One of the biggest mistakes expats make is treating Singapore as a temporary “financial side quest.” But your time here, whether it’s two years or ten, forms a crucial chapter in your long-term wealth story.
Here’s how to integrate Singapore into your global plan seamlessly.
1. Start With Your Anchor Country
Where do you imagine your long-term roots? UK? Australia? Malta? Your anchor country determines: • Tax residency • Currency exposure • Retirement structures • Property strategy • Investment allocations
You need to plan Singapore around that destination, not in isolation.
2. Align Currencies With Future Goals
If your long-term life will be in GBP, you can’t build a portfolio that is 100% SGD. If your dream retirement is in Portugal, EUR matters.
A well-designed global plan ensures assets match future liabilities.
3. Coordinate SRS With Offshore Investments
SRS shouldn’t sit alone. It should be coordinated with: • UK pensions • Offshore investment accounts • Property plans • Currency exposure • Retirement timelines
When planned correctly, SRS becomes a powerful tax-efficient component of a global portfolio.
4. Manage Your Cross-Border Tax Exposure
Expats often accidentally: • Trigger tax residency • Pay unnecessary tax on foreign gains • Withdraw pensions at the wrong time • Mix investment structures badly across borders
A coordinated plan prevents friction between jurisdictions.
5. Avoid Overconcentration in a Single Country or Currency
Living in Singapore doesn’t mean investing everything in SGD. Equally, being British doesn’t mean overloading GBP assets.
Balance is key.
6. Review Your Global Plan Yearly
Life changes, your plan should too.
A global financial plan gives you control, clarity, and confidence. Your money stops being “here and there”, and becomes a unified strategy built around your future.
Life as an expat in Singapore is extraordinary, but your finances can quietly leak in places you don’t notice until it becomes expensive. These hidden costs don’t show up on a bank statement; they show up as lost opportunity, currency erosion, and financial instability later on.
Here are the key wealth drains expats routinely overlook.
1. Currency Erosion — the Silent Wealth Killer
Expats often underestimate how much currency volatility affects long-term wealth.
Common mistakes: • Holding too much GBP or EUR when your life is in SGD • Sending money home “when it feels right” instead of strategically • Investing in GBP assets when your retirement is elsewhere • Ignoring natural currency exposure
A currency-smart plan can add tens of thousands to long-term wealth, without changing your income.
2. Leaving SRS Money in Cash
This is one of the biggest and most avoidable mistakes expats make. Cash inside SRS earns almost nothing, which means you lose purchasing power every single year.
Without investing, you’re missing the entire point of the scheme.
3. “Set and Forget” Investing
Expats move countries, change jobs, and open accounts across continents. But their portfolios rarely get updated.
Consequences: • Wrong risk profiles • Outdated investment allocations • Exposure mismatched with your life stage • Poor diversification
A yearly portfolio review solves this immediately.
4. Paying Too Much in Fees Overseas
Many expats unknowingly hold products back home with unnecessary fees or tax drag. This is common with: • UK pensions • Old workplace schemes • Bank-managed portfolios • Property management companies
A cross-border audit usually reveals easy wins.
5. Insurance Gaps
Expats often assume: “My company covers me.”
But employer policies in Singapore can be removed instantly when you resign, or if the company restructures.
Gaps are common in: • Hospitalisation coverage • Critical illness • Income protection • Life insurance
Replacing cover after a health issue is far more expensive… or impossible.
6. Cross-Border Tax Inefficiencies
Your assets across countries may unintentionally trigger: • Double taxation • Unnecessary reporting • Incompatible product structures
A global financial plan stops tax leakage before it happens.
The hidden costs aren’t dramatic, but they compound over years. Addressing these areas early is the difference between “I earned well” and “I built wealth.”
As an expat in Singapore, your financial life is more global, more complex, and frankly, more full of blind spots, than you realise. The end of the year is the perfect time to take stock, optimise taxes, review investments, and tighten up the loose ends most people ignore until it’s too late.
Here are the key year-end money moves every expat should make before 31 December.
1. Maximise Your SRS Contribution Before the Deadline
The Supplementary Retirement Scheme is one of Singapore’s most underrated tax planning tools.
Why it matters: • Contributions made before 31 December count towards this year’s tax relief. • High-income earners gain the biggest advantage. • It’s one of the few tax optimisation tools available for non-PR, non-citizen expats.
To review now: How much have you contributed this year? Should you top up further to reduce your taxable income? Is your SRS money invested, or sitting idle in cash?
2. Audit Your Investment Portfolio
Year end is the perfect time to tighten your portfolio: • Rebalance after market volatility • Consider adding to your investments • Reallocate based on new income, currencies or life changes • Check if your risk profile has shifted
Most expats don’t rebalance, they simply “add and forget”. That’s where returns quietly slip away.
3. Review Global Assets and Cross-Border Exposure
Your life isn’t contained in one country, your money shouldn’t be either.
Year end is the time to review: • UK pensions • UK property or AU property • Offshore accounts • Existing insurance policies • FX exposure between SGD, GBP, USD and EUR • Future moves or repatriation plans
A global review helps ensure nothing clashes; tax, currency, retirement timelines, and liquidity all need to be aligned.
4. Clean Up FX Leakage
If you send money home frequently, year end is a good moment to: • Compare FX providers • Reduce unnecessary transfers • Consolidate currencies • Align assets with future goals (e.g., don’t hoard GBP unless you need GBP)
Many expats lose thousands a year in poor FX decisions without realising it.
5. Review Your Insurance and Health Cover
Especially critical if you changed jobs or incomes this year.
Do you still have adequate hospitalisation cover? Is your coverage tied to an employer who could cut it suddenly? Are your personal policies still fit for purpose?
6. Run a Lifestyle & Spending Review
Not glamorous… but a massively effective wealth-builder. • Cut dead subscriptions • Review spending categories • Map expected 2026 major expenses • Set realistic savings goals
7. Book a Professional Year-End Review
This is the ideal time to speak with a financial planner – especially one who understands cross-border planning and expat complexities.
The end of the year is when small tweaks make the biggest difference. These are the money moves that ensure you’re not just earning well…you’re building something meaningful.
Investing for Singapore Expats 