Foreigners, permanent residents and new citizens now make up over 40% of Singapore’s population

The annual Population in Brief report, that was released by the Prime Minister’s Office Strategy Group yesterday, shows that foreigners, permanent residents and new citizens now make up over 40 per cent of the population in Singapore, as of June 2018.

Latest figures show that the population rose by 0.5 per cent to 5.64 million from 2017 to 2018.

The report shows that there are about 3,471,900 citizens in Singapore as of June 2018, compared to about 3,439,000 from June 2017.

In 2017, the Government granted citizenship to 22,076 foreigners of permanent residents. In the decade between 2007 and 2017, about 219,000 new citizens joined Singapore’s population.

The Prime Minister’s Office said that Singapore citizenship is granted to “individuals who are committed to making Singapore their home…They either share family ties with Singaporeans, or have studied, worked or lived here for some time.”

As at June 2018, there are about 1.6 million foreigners – comprising of foreign students, employment pass holders, S pass holders, work permit holders, foreign domestic workers, and dependents of citizens, PRs and work pass holders – in Singapore. The number of foreigners, or non-residents as the report refers to them, was about the same a year ago.

The permanent resident figures over the past few years are curious. In 2017, 31,849 foreigners were granted permanent residency in Singapore. This number is similar to the number of people who are granted PR status for the past eight years – every year since 2010, about 30,000 foreigners are granted permanent residency.

Despite approximately 30,000 foreigners receiving PR each year, the number of permanent residents in Singapore has remained consistent at about 530,000.

This could mean that the same number of people who receive PR status in each year choose to give up their permanent residency each year.

Calculating the total number of foreigners, permanent residents and new citizens over the past year against the citizen population shows that foreigners, permanent residents and new citizens comprise over 40 per cent of the Singapore population.

Read the full population report here.