Singapore wills and estate planning statistics 2026
A sourced reference on how many Singaporeans have a will, CPF nomination rates, un-nominated monies held by the Public Trustee, the ageing population and the wealth set to change hands. Every figure links to its named source.
Estate planning in Singapore is widely encouraged yet thinly practised. Below is a sourced snapshot for 2026, drawn from official Singapore data and named industry research. Each statistic is third-party data, attributed inline and listed in full under sources. None of it is Afterlife AI™'s own data, and none of it is legal or financial advice.
How many Singaporeans actually have a will
More than half of Singaporeans surveyed, 56 per cent, do not have a will, and only 28 per cent have a completed will, according to a Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) survey of 495 people reported by WealthBriefing Asia.
The same STEP research found that 80 per cent of respondents have no life insurance, a striking gap given how often insurance underpins a family's finances after a death.
Incapacity planning lags as well: 39 per cent had no directives such as a Lasting Power of Attorney in place should they lose mental capacity, per the STEP survey.
For business owners the picture is similar. 62 per cent of those who own a business have no succession plan, according to the STEP survey, leaving the continuity of family enterprises exposed.
CPF nominations: the most common gap
CPF savings do not pass under a will. They are distributed by nomination, and without one they go to the Public Trustee. Around 64 per cent of CPF members aged 16 to 65 have not made a CPF nomination, the Ministry of Manpower stated in a written parliamentary answer in February 2025.
The risk is not just theoretical for the elderly. About 2 in 5 members who died before the age of 65 in 2023 had not made a nomination, the same parliamentary answer noted, showing the gap reaches people of working age.
When there is no nomination, the savings are handed to the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office and distributed under intestacy law, for a fee. The Public Trustee charges 2.4 per cent on the first S$1,000, 1.5 per cent on the next S$9,000 and 0.75 per cent on the next S$240,000 of un-nominated CPF monies, per the Ministry of Law.
Money left unclaimed with the Public Trustee
Un-nominated and unclaimed sums build up. As at 31 December 2023, the Insolvency and Public Trustee's Office held about S$272 million in unclaimed monies, of which roughly S$178 million was un-nominated CPF monies, per the Public Trustee's Office statistics published by the Ministry of Law.
This is money that belongs to families but has not reached them, often because no nomination was made and beneficiaries are hard to trace. A nomination, made free of charge during a person's lifetime, removes most of this friction.
An ageing population raises the stakes
Singapore is ageing quickly, which sharpens the case for planning ahead. The share of citizens aged 65 and above rose from 13.1 per cent in 2015 to 20.7 per cent in 2025, according to the National Population and Talent Division and the Department of Statistics Singapore.
Looking ahead, around 1 in 4 citizens, about 23.9 per cent, will be aged 65 and above by 2030, per the same official population trends data. A larger older population means more estates, more nominations and more end-of-life planning decisions every year.
Deaths registered each year
The scale of estate administration is set by mortality. In 2024, 22,927 registered deaths in Singapore were of people aged 60 and above, making up 86.7 per cent of all deaths registered that year, according to the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority's Report on Registration of Births and Deaths 2024. Each death potentially sets off a process of probate, nomination payouts or intestate distribution.
The wealth about to change hands
The sums involved across the region are large and rising. McKinsey estimates that ultra-high-net-worth and high-net-worth families in Asia Pacific will transfer about US$5.8 trillion between 2023 and 2030, as reported in coverage of its Asia-Pacific family office research.
Singapore sits at the centre of this shift. The Republic's single-family office count has grown from around 400 in 2020 to more than 2,000, per figures cited in 2025 wealth-industry reporting, reflecting one of the fastest concentrations of private wealth in the world.
Globally, Knight Frank's Wealth Report 2024 charts a rising ultra-wealthy population across Asia-Pacific, with the region projected to lead the creation of new high-net-worth individuals through the latter half of this decade. More wealth, held by an ageing cohort, means succession and estate planning move from optional to essential.
What the numbers point to
Read together, the data describes a consistent gap. Most people intend to plan, comparatively few complete a will, a majority have not nominated their CPF, and hundreds of millions of dollars sit unclaimed, all while the population ages and wealth grows. The numbers also point the same way regardless of how much someone owns. A CPF nomination matters as much for a modest balance as for a large one, and the unclaimed sums held by the Public Trustee show that small, untraced estates are part of the problem too. The practical takeaways are modest and free or low cost: make a CPF nomination, write or update a will, set up a Lasting Power of Attorney, and keep your wishes and key contacts somewhere your family can actually find them.
That last point, leaving something findable and personal, is where Afterlife AI™ fits, quietly and alongside (not in place of) proper legal documents.
Where Afterlife AI™ fits
Afterlife AI™ is an Australian company, Australian-hosted, that helps you build a living Persona: your memories, your stories and your wishes, captured while you are here. It is not a will, a CPF nomination or legal advice, and it does not replace any of them. Think of it as the human layer beside the legal paperwork.
You can also create a consent-based, governed voice of yourself while you are alive. Consent is captured up front and explicitly covers playback after you are gone, then it is locked at Executor Lock™ and never changed after death. Nothing autoplays in a moment of grief; a family member always chooses to tap and listen. Creating your Persona and voice is free for everyone, with a one-time build budget of 60 memories and 100 conversations, no card and no expiry. Listening is the paid experience, on Legacy at $14.99 a month or Eternal at $29.99 a month, and the time you have paid for is inherited by your family.
None of the statistics on this page are Afterlife AI™'s data. They are published by the named sources below, and this page is general information only, not legal or financial advice.
Frequently asked questions
See the questions below for quick answers on Singapore wills, CPF nominations and the sources behind these figures.