Am I spending more on travel than other Singaporeans?

For many Singaporeans, overseas travel is rarely a single large annual expense. Instead, we make several smaller expenses throughout the year.

• A flight to Bangkok
  
• A family holiday to Japan there.
• A quick weekend across the Causeway in between.

Which makes it slightly more difficult to track exactly how much you really spending on holidays per year.

But perhaps the more interesting question is: are you spending more than other Singaporeans? The latest data gives us a useful place to start.

The headline figure: Singapore households spent an average S$3,558 a year on overseas travel

According to the last Singapore Department of Statistics (SingStat) Household Expenditure Survey (HES) done in 2023, households in Singapore spend an average of S$297 a month on overseas travel, or about S$3,558 a year.

SingStat conducts this survey once every five years, with the next report due in 2028.

Two definitions matter before you compare yourself with it:

• What counts: Air, coach and ferry fares, accommodation, package tours, travel insurance and out-of-pocket expenses such as food and transport abroad. The trip must last at least 24 hours or include an overnight stay overseas.
• What does not count. Business trips are excluded. So are day trips, like driving or taking the train across to Johor Bahru.

Why S$3,558 is probably much lower than what most travellers actually spend

There is another arguably more important caveat to this figure: The S$297 monthly average is calculated across all households in Singapore, regardless of whether they travelled or not.

In 2023, only 55.3% of resident households recorded overseas travel expenditure. Extrapolating both these data points, we get: S$297 ÷ 55.3% × 12 = approximately S$6,445 a year spent on average by Singaporean households on travel. (This is a Lifepedia calculation based on SingStat figures, rather than a separately published SingStat statistic.)

Additionally, given the circumstances surrounding travel prior to the HES, it is reasonable to predict this number could be higher in the present day.

SingStat itself notes that the survey's 12-month recall period covered travel spending during 2022 and 2023, when international travel was still recovering from COVID-19 restrictions.

Singaporeans are also travelling more often

The 2023 spending figures need to be viewed alongside another change: Singaporeans are travelling more frequently.

As at the end of June 2025, 84.1% of Singapore citizens had made at least one overnight overseas trip during the preceding 12 months, according to newer SingStat data.

• Among those who travelled, the median number of overnight trips was four, up from three in 2015.
• The proportion making six or more overnight trips rose from 22.8% to 33.5% over the same decade.

This matters because your travel expenses rise even if none of your holidays are particularly extravagant. For instance, four S$2,000 trips will add up to S$8,000.

Add a couple of short regional breaks to one major family holiday and your travel budget can move into a five-figure sum without any individual booking feeling especially expensive.

That is why an annual travel budget is more useful than asking whether your most recent holiday costs too much.

These numbers should be treated as indicative only, but they do hold an interesting observation: Higher-income households appear to be able to spend considerably more money on holidays while using a smaller proportion of their income to do so.

• The highest-income travelling households spent around S$10,000 a year, almost three times the amount spent by travelling households in the lowest income quintile.
• Yet the indicative expenditure-to-income ratios move in the opposite direction.

That is why comparing your S$10,000 travel budget with somebody else's S$5,000 budget tells you very little about which household is stretching its finances further.

How much of your income should you spend on holidays?

There is no official guideline on how much you spend on your holidays relative to your income.

However online reports, quoting financial experts, generally list 5% to 10% of take-home income for holidays as a starting point. These reports also stress that the appropriate amount is still highly dependent on your own present financial wellbeing (Do you have any existing debts? Will you have to save money for an upcoming major expense?).

If we were to do a simple calculation: If your household takes home S$8,000 a month, or S$96,000 a year,

• 5% = S$4,800 a year for travel
• 7.5% = S$7,200
• 10% = S$9,600

For a household taking home S$12,000 a month:

• 5% = S$7,200
• 7.5% = S$10,800
• 10% = S$14,400

This does not mean 10% is a maximum, or that spending less than 5% is automatically financially prudent. It is simply another way to put the number into context.

Think about what travel is competing with

Rather than prescribing an annual holiday budget, what could be more useful is to look at your finances as a complete picture.

The 50/30/20 budgeting rule offers a simple framework. It divides take-home income into three broad buckets:

• 50% for needs, such as housing, groceries, utilities and transport
• 30% for wants, such as dining out, entertainment, shopping and holidays
• 20% for savings and financial goals, such as emergency savings and retirement

This provides a useful way to put holiday spending into perspective.

• Suppose your household takes home S$10,000 a month.
• Under the 50/30/20 rule, around S$3,000 a month, or S$36,000 a year, would be available for all your wants.
• If you spend S$12,000 a year on holidays, travel alone will use up one-third of your discretionary budget.
• That may be perfectly reasonable if travelling is important to you, but it also means you get to spend significantly less on eating out, shopping, entertainment or other wants.
• If a large travel budget comes on top of significant spending in all those other areas, you may find yourself dipping into the money intended for needs or savings.

This also helps put the commonly cited 5% to 10% of take-home income for holidays into context.

• Spending 10% of your income on travel does not necessarily mean you are spending too much.
• But under a 50/30/20 framework, it would use up around one-third of your entire 30% wants budget.

The more useful question is therefore not simply whether you spend 5%, 8% or 10% of your income on holidays, but how much of your discretionary spending you want travel to take up, while still leaving enough for your essential expenses, savings and other financial priorities.

Crucially, you should also know that the 50/30/20 rule is more of a “rule-of-thumb” rather than an actual principle. Housing costs, children, debt repayments and other commitments can easily change the required split for your household.

Nonetheless, the key lesson here is: fund the holiday from the part of your budget meant for wants, rather than “borrowing” from the money you need for today or are setting aside for tomorrow.