Hawkers, market stallholders to get up to S$1,200 in rental support
The support is in recognition of the social and community role played by hawkers and market stallholders, says the Ministry of Finance.
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SINGAPORE: Hawkers and market stallholders will get rental support under a S$900 million (US$697 million) support package to ease cost pressures from the Middle East crisis.
Hawkers running cooked food stalls will receive S$1,200 in rental support, while market stallholders will get S$600, Senior Minister of State for Trade and Industry Low Yen Ling said on Wednesday (Jul 29).
The support will be disbursed over six months from September this year to February 2027.
The support is for stallholders in hawker centres and markets managed by the government or government-appointed operators, including socially conscious enterprise hawker centres run by private operators appointed by the National Environment Agency (NEA).
The rental relief is expected to benefit 15,200 stalls, comprising 6,900 cooked food stalls and 8,300 market stalls. Stallholders will be informed separately about the eligibility criteria, said Ms Low.
The support is meant to help sustain Singapore’s hawker culture and to show that the government is a “responsible manager” of hawker centres and markets, she said. It will help offset rising costs for raw materials, packaging and utilities, which hawker associations and stallholders have raised with the government.
The higher support for cooked food stalls reflects the wider range of cost pressures they face, such as energy costs for food preparation, Ms Low added.
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The Ministry of Finance (MOF) said the support also recognises the social and community role played by hawkers and market stallholders. These stallholders tend to be self-employed and may not qualify for other government business support, so the rental assistance will help them cope with rising material and energy costs.
Non-cooked food prices have risen faster than overall inflation, MOF noted. Singapore’s food inflation rose to 2.1 per cent in June, driven by faster increases in non-cooked food and food services prices.
This was higher than core inflation of 1.6 per cent and overall inflation of 1.9 per cent for the month.
The median successful tender price for cooked food stalls across NEA-managed hawker centres was about S$1,800 in 2023.
Over the longer term from 2015 to 2023, the median monthly rent for non-subsidised cooked food stalls in NEA-managed hawker centres was around S$1,250.
For market stalls, NEA said in 2024 that the median assessed market rent for non-subsidised market stalls has remained at about S$320 a month since 2019.
Past rental support for hawkers and market stallholders includes a one-off $600 relief as part of SG60 celebrations in 2025.
Various measures were also in place during the COVID-19 pandemic, including rental waivers, subsidies for table-cleaning and centralised dishwashing, and cash payouts.
Source: CNA/cy
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