The billion-dollar religious economy of Singapore

Singapore’s religious organisations brought in over S$1 billion in donations in 2024

There are few sectors in Singapore that receive more than S$1 billion a year without selling a single product.

Religion is one of them.

On any given weekend, tens of thousands of Singaporeans walk into churches, temples, mosques and gurdwaras carrying cash, making PayNow transfers or setting up recurring GIRO donations.

Those individual acts of giving add up quickly, but that money doesn’t simply keep the lights on or fund weekly services. It powers a vast ecosystem spanning schools, childcare centres, nursing homes, healthcare providers, social service agencies, overseas missions and some of Singapore’s most valuable religious properties.

So just how much money flows through Singapore’s religious organisations—and where does it all go?

Taking the largest slice

It’s not really a secret, so much as a scattered one.

Registered charities and Institutions of a Public Character (IPCs), including religious institutions, are required to file annual returns with the Commissioner of Charities, and that data sits in plain view on the Charity Portal (charities.gov.sg) and in the Commissioner’s own annual report.

In FY2024, Singapore’s roughly 2,400 registered charities collected a combined S$29.18 billion in total receipts (donations, government grants and other income), of which S$3.68 billion came from donations alone—up 3.7% on the year before.

Of that S$3.68 billion, religious charities took the single largest slice at S$1.4 billion, accounting for nearly 40% of all charitable donations received that year.

Donations are only part of the picture.

In FY2024, religious charities also reported S$597.5 million in “other income”—a category that includes programme fees and services rendered, investment income, membership fees and merchandise sales, among other sources—as well as S$17.4 million in government grants. Altogether, the sector recorded S$2.02 billion in total receipts for the year.

For some of the larger religious organisations, these additional income streams sit alongside extensive property holdings and affiliated entities, meaning their financial footprint extends well beyond the donations they receive.

Singapore’s biggest religious fundraisers

Christian megachurches are disproportionately visible in these figures, particularly because they are large, urban, well-organised, and required to disclose more than smaller neighbourhood temples or mosque committees.

New Creation Church is the clearest example of scale.

According to its FY2025 filing on the Charity Portal, the church recorded total receipts of S$205,387,076, of which S$154,745,232—about 75%—came directly from tithes and offerings. That puts New Creation’s annual donation income roughly in line with, or ahead of, the totals reported by many local universities and hospitals.

Total expenditure for the year came to S$149,769,323, leaving a surplus on top of already substantial reserves. In its financial reports (income statement and balance sheet), the church has disclosed accumulated funds and reserves of over S$1 billion, held under a stated reserve policy of maintaining at least three months of operating expenses.

Much of the group’s commercial activity is conducted through its wholly owned subsidiary, Rock Productions, which owns and operates The Star Performing Arts Centre and The Star Vista Mall, along with a bookshop and gifts arm, and a travel agency running tour packages, most notably to Israel.

New Creation Church isn’t an outlier within its own tier. Other large congregations—City Harvest Church, Cornerstone Community Church, and Faith Community Baptist Church among them—file similarly substantial numbers.

It isn’t only the churches

The scale isn’t unique to Christianity. It’s simply best documented there, because large independent churches tend to be structured as single, centralised charities with straightforward annual filings.

Singapore’s Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim institutions move comparably large sums.

Major Buddhist institutions such as the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum and large charitable temples like Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple are among the country’s most prolific individual fundraisers, running annual charity drives that rival megachurch tithing totals.

The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum recorded S$24,853,980 in total receipts for FY2025, with an estimated half derived from donations and ceremony-related income. It spent S$18,791,738 during the year and ended the financial period with S$74,533,049 in total funds and reserves.

Meanwhile, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple reported S$35,955,465 in total receipts, of which S$28,787,487 (around 80%) came directly from donations. The temple recorded expenditure of S$19,706,028 and held S$238,290,111 in total funds and reserves.

On the Muslim side, key forms of religious giving are more centralised than in most other faith communities.

Under the Administration of Muslim Law Act (AMLA), all mosques in Singapore are vested in MUIS (the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore), which oversees their governance, requires them to use a common financial accounting system, and subjects them to annual external audits. As a result, financial information about individual mosques is generally disseminated through MUIS’ governance framework rather than through standalone charity filings, making mosque-level donation data less readily available on the Charity Portal.

MUIS administers zakat (compulsory wealth tax) collections and other Islamic religious funds. It also oversees the Mosque Building and Mendaki Fund (MBMF), which is collected through employers using the CPF Board’s contribution system.

MBMF contributions are mandatory for working Muslims by default, although contributors can opt out or vary their contribution levels by applying to MUIS. The fund supports mosque construction and upgrading, religious education, and Yayasan Mendaki’s educational and social programmes.

Every working Muslim in Singapore (including PRs and foreign workers) contributes S$3 to S$26 per month—and the scale of these contributions has grown significantly over the decades. According to MUIS, annual gross MBMF contributions collected through the CPF system increased from S$421,203 in 1975 to S$48.9 million in 2024, while the fund’s accumulated reserves reached S$230.6 million as at end-2024.

Separately, MUIS collected S$73 million in zakat in 2024, highlighting the substantial scale of centrally administered Islamic giving in Singapore.

Not all Muslim charitable giving, however, is channelled through MUIS. Voluntary sadaqah (charitable donations) may be given directly to mosques, charities, individuals or through MUIS, and is not centrally administered.

While there is no official nationwide figure for such donations, Islamic Finance Singapore estimates—based on a sample of audited mosque financial statements—that Singapore’s roughly 70 mosques receive around S$105 million in sadaqah annually.

Hindu institutions have a partially centralised governance structure through the Hindu Endowments Board (HEB), a statutory body that administers the endowments of Sri Mariamman Temple, Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple, Sri Sivan Temple and Sri Vairavimada Kaliamman Temple.

It also has supervisory powers over the accounts of all Hindu endowments in Singapore, including those it does not directly administer.

HEB reported S$19.6 million in total income for FY2025, including S$4.6 million in donations and contributions as well as S$5.5 million in temple service income. It also managed S$92.2 million in total funds, reflecting the accumulated endowments and trust funds. (Do note that these figures represent only the temples under HEB’s administration rather than the Hindu community as a whole.)

Many independent Hindu temples also receive substantial donations and other income. For example, Arulmigu Velmurugan Gnana Muneeswarar Temple reported S$4.16 million in total income for FY2023, while total expenditure amounted to S$1.18 million. Meanwhile, Murugan Hill Temple recorded S$1.73 million in total receipts for FY2025, with S$954,259 in total expenditure.

The other source of wealth

Beyond cash donations and investment portfolios, many religious institutions have accumulated substantial property holdings over decades.

Many historic religious sites established in the 19th and early 20th centuries, such as the Lian Shan Shuang Lin Monastery, Sri Mariamman Temple and Church of St. Joseph, sit on freehold or very long-tenure land. By contrast, new Government Land Sales sites released for Places of Worship in newer housing estates are generally offered on 30-year leasehold terms.

Some newer religious organisations have also acquired substantial commercial property assets directly. Rock Productions, the wholly owned subsidiary of New Creation Church, invested close to S$500 million to acquire The Star Performing Arts Centre and The Star Vista Mall.

The property is not merely a venue but also a revenue-generating asset. Rental income made up 17.2% of New Creation Church’s FY2025 total income (amounting to about S$35 million), second only to its largest income stream, which is its tithes and offerings.

Large property portfolios and sizeable donation income naturally raise another question:

How are religious institutions taxed?

Religious organisations in Singapore benefit from two distinct layers of tax relief.

1. Income tax exemption
   Registered charities, including most established religious organisations, are generally exempt from income tax on income applied towards their charitable purposes, including the advancement of religion. But if a charity operates a commercial business through a separate legal entity—as New Creation Church does through Rock Productions—that subsidiary is generally subject to corporate income tax like any other company.
2. Property tax exemption
   Under Section 6(6) of the Property Tax Act, the Comptroller may exempt a building, or part of one, that is used exclusively as a place of public religious worship, for charitable purposes, or for purposes conducive to social development. Buildings used only partly for such purposes may instead receive a partial exemption.

On top of this, charities with Institution of a Public Character (IPC) status (many church, temple and mosque-linked charities qualify) can issue tax-deductible receipts, meaning individual and corporate donors get a tax deduction for what they give, encouraging philanthropic giving.

None of this is automatic or permanent. IPC status, tax exemption and charity registration all come with ongoing compliance obligations and can be revoked.

The safeguards

Singapore’s regulatory scrutiny of religious finances tightened after the City Harvest Church scandal—still the country’s most consequential case of religious-charity misconduct.

The Commissioner of Charities opened a statutory inquiry into City Harvest Church in 2010 following complaints about the management of its Building Fund. The inquiry ultimately uncovered a scheme involving about S$50 million, including S$23 million channelled into sham bond investments used to finance the music career of Sun Ho—wife of founder Kong Hee—as part of the church’s “Crossover Project,” and a further S$26.6 million in transactions intended to conceal the earlier misuse.

The criminal proceedings that followed became one of Singapore’s longest-running trials, running well over a hundred trial days. Kong Hee and five other church leaders were convicted of criminal breach of trust and/or falsifying accounts in 2017. Separately, exercising its powers under the Charities Act, the Commissioner of Charities permanently disqualified the six individuals from holding governance or management positions in charities.

While Singapore’s core charity laws were already in place before the City Harvest scandal, the case reinforced the importance of strong governance and more active regulatory oversight.

Annual financial disclosures and statutory enforcement powers under the Charities Act had long existed, but the years that followed saw governance expectations progressively strengthened through successive revisions to the Code of Governance for Charities and IPCs in 2011, 2017 and 2023. These updates placed greater emphasis on board independence, conflict-of-interest management, internal controls, risk management and financial accountability.

A billion-dollar ecosystem

Singapore’s religious sector moves hundreds of millions of dollars each year, supported by sizeable donation streams, investment portfolios, valuable property holdings and, in many cases, favourable tax treatment. Yet, reducing these organisations to their balance sheets would miss the broader picture.

While worship remains their core mission, a significant share of these resources is channelled into wider public and community purposes.

New Creation Church, for example, reported providing S$265,600 in financial assistance to members in financial distress in FY2025, alongside education bursaries for students from lower-income families, appreciation events for migrant workers, and outings and activities for senior citizens.

Similarly, Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple has channelled part of its donations towards broader social causes. According to its FY2025 annual report, the temple pledged S$1 million each to Nanyang Technological University and Singapore Management University towards bursaries for financially disadvantaged students, and contributed S$50,000 to support caregivers of needy beneficiaries through a local charity.

These examples are far from exhaustive. Across Singapore, religious organisations collectively support a wide range of initiatives.

In the end, the question is not whether religious organisations are wealthy—they often are. The more meaningful question is how that wealth is governed, where it comes from, and how it is used.

• Read other articles we’ve written on Singaporean businesses here.

Featured Image Credit: Chinatown Singapore/ Visit Singapore/ St Andrews Cathedral/ ICCS