· SOUTHEAST ASIA ·
How Expensive is Singapore? A Four-Day Layover Budget
Scribbled by Claire ◊ 01 Sep 2024
Are you considering a stopover in Singapore, but are put off by how expensive it might be? We were concerned too, but we also couldn’t pass up the opportunity to spend a few days exploring this fascinating little country. So here is our exact budget, including how much things cost, and how to save money!
A Singapore trip budget, on paper, is prohibitively expensive.
Singapore’s accommodation and alcohol prices alone made us really uncomfortable! The city-state, with one of the highest-ranking GDPs in the world and exceptional quality of living standards, costs more than many Western countries, which comes as a surprise to many people who expect it to be comparable to neighbouring Indonesia and Malaysia.
After our four-day trip, we definitely wouldn’t be able to say that Singapore is a budget destination. However, we managed to keep our spending down, to the point where it didn’t ruin our backpacking budget! Here, our post details everything we spent (with alternatives to keep it cheaper where we messed up).
We hope it helps you plan your budget trip to Singapore!
IN THIS GUIDE //
Is Singapore Expensive?
THE CURRENCY IN SINGAPORE
TOTAL SINGAPORE TRIP BUDGET
SINGAPORE TRIP BUDGET
– TRANSPORT COSTS
– ENTRANCE ATTRACTION FEES
– FOOD AND DRINK COSTS
– ALCOHOL COSTS
– ACCOMMODATION
– MISCELLANEOUS
HOW TO REDUCE YOUR SINGAPORE BUDGET
CASH OR CARD IN SINGAPORE?
FINAL THOUGHTS
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The Currency in Singapore
All the trip costs in this post are quoted in Singapore dollars (SGD or $). This is a moderately strong currency, which means some visiting nationalities will not find the exchange rate particularly favourable.
Here are some common exchange rates in 2024. For others, check XE.com (or Google).
GBP to SGD | 1 : 1.77
EUR to SGD | 1 : 1.45
USD to SGD | 1 : 1.31
MYR to SGD | 1 : 0.30
The Singapore dollar is split into 100 cents and the notes range from $2 to $10,000 (although the $1000 and $10,000 notes have been discontinued).
Our Total Singapore Budget
The total spend during our four-day stopover in Singapore was $697.64 (£429). This is a cost per person of $87.21 (£53) per day travelling as a pair.
The amount includes everything mentioned in the sections below (minus some miscellaneous stuff that we mention later). As citizens of the United Kingdom, we also did not have to pay any visa costs for our trip.
So, Singapore is definitely expensive, considering we did absolutely nothing glamorous at all!
Our (Inexpensive) Singapore Trip Budget
We’ve split our Singapore trip budget above into six categories: transport, attractions, food/drink, alcohol, accommodation and miscellaneous. Below are some comments about what we spent in each.
Transport Costs in Singapore
Our transport budget in Singapore consisted entirely of MRT costs. Unless you are visiting somewhere really obscure, you’ll almost certainly be in within walking distance to an MRT station at all times. For a stopover in Singapore, the places most tourists visit are all easily connected and so for our trip, it was easy to avoid taxis and buses.
Getting to and from Changi airport is easy via MRT too. There are several routes and lines that you can use, plus Changi has a dedicated MRT station. It is extremely economical compared with a taxi and exceptionally fast too. Our journey from Changi to Raffles Place cost £1.60 each (which is about $2.60 in Singapore dollars).
Tip | you can use a contactless credit card or a prepaid pass for access – both cost the same per journey. If you choose the prepayment route, consider getting the Ezlink pass instead of one of the ‘tourist’ cards. We calculated that the tourist card would have been far more expensive that the amount we paid on Ezlink.
We have more useful tips for using the MRT on our post on things to know about backpacking Singapore.
If you do need a taxi (the heavens have been known to open occasionally in Singapore!), then use the Grab app. This is just like Uber and is used commonly across Asia, in Singapore, Vietnam, Thailand, Malaysia and more. It’s cheap, you can track your journeys (great for solo traveller safety) and you can pay on your credit card so no need for cash.
Did I mention that it is really, really affordable?
Attraction Fees
This one could be a big chunk of your Singapore trip budget depending on what you decide to do. There are food tours, bike tours, the Singapore Flyer, Marina Bay Sands, Universal Studios, Raffles cocktails and loads more. A bunch of these activities would absolutely destroy the average Singapore backpacker budget!
We personally think that a trip to Singapore does not need a visit to any of these (often slightly gimmicky) attractions. They really, really are expensive.
It’s kind of like visiting California and only going to the theme parks; it’s not really what the place is about. Sure, Singapore wants to sell itself as flashy and glitzy, but the charm of the country lies in the neighbourhoods, food and people, which cost next to nothing to experience.
Having said all this, we did go to the viewing platform at the top of Marina Bay Sands in the evening (it was gifted to us). This normally costs $26 dollars per person, but if you sign up to be a Marina Bay Sands member, you can save 30 percent.
If you have any spare cash, we recommend a trip up Marina Bay Sands for the views, but don’t buy the drinks! Small spirits cost $15, champagne is $33 and wine is $18 for a small red or white. They all looked really tiny! A beer is $13.
Food and Drinks Costs
This is where most of our spending money in Singapore went!
Singapore is known as a foodie destination. The greatest thing about this though is that quality food doesn’t need to be the pricey, high-end options.
Hawker centres, the immense food courts situated all across the neighbourhoods of Singapore, are a bargain and have some of the best food you will find anywhere. Even traditionally expensive places like airports and posh malls have surprisingly affordable, high-quality meal options.
We exclusively ate in food court style places and never in any actual restaurants with proper service. Honestly, there were loads of beautiful-looking restaurants, but the prices were prohibitively expensive. Here are some examples of the food we ate and the associated costs (in Singapore dollars):
Two huge noodle soups | $8 total near Boat Quay
Indian vegetable curry and rice (shared because it was massive) | $2.90 in Lau Pa Sat hawker centre, near Chinatown
Curried egg | $1 in Little India
Chickpea curry, lentil dhal, large naan and some ‘carrot cake’ | $7 at the Tekka Centre, Little India
Thali vegetable curries and rice for two | $10.50 in the Marina Bay Sands food court
Custardy-type filled bao buns, plus carrot cake | $6.20 in Marina Bay Sands food court
Chocolate barfi snack and masala chai tea | $3 in little India
The only time we caved and had anything in somewhere with service, we ordered a mango lassi and a smoothie which cost $16.24. The was nearby Arab Street and I maintain that it was so hot that this pricey purchase was essential.
We also bought a bunch of stuff from 7-11, but it’s not that cheap there when compared to places like Thailand. Here are some examples (please don’t judge my extreme reliance on diet coke, I don’t drink coffee):
◊ 2 onigiri, 2 vanilla coffee cans, large coke zero bottle | $9.90
◊ 2 onigiri, 1.5 litre coke zero, coffee can | $9.30
We often eat cheap noodle pots when travelling on a budget, but in Singapore it was more affordable to get a meal out. Often the price for a pot would be $3 or more. If you want a snack or any kind of beverage, expect to pay above the odds. We chose the onigiri because they were the best of the expensive, crap options.
Alcohol Costs in Singapore
We didn’t drink a drop of alcohol during our stopover in Singapore. This wasn’t intentional, it’s just every time we saw the price of (the often pretty shitty) beer or wine, it made our travel budget quiver in fear and put us off!
Even in the 7-11s, the price of beer was crazy high. Bottles of wine started around $15 for some dubious quality stuff.
Some typical costs in bars and restaurants:
◊ Glass of beer: $10-17
◊ Cocktail: $20-28
◊ Wine: $22 and up
These are the prices we saw advertised when walking around the various neighbourhoods. There were some happy-hour deals, but even they didn’t seem good enough to justify the cost. We were heading onwards to Vietnam where beer is 15p, so we decided to wait!
Accommodation Costs
This was our biggest expenditure in Singapore and probably the reason most people don’t stay for very long! Hotels are very, very expensive and the room sizes are seriously small.
We paid just under £100 a night ($160) between us for our private room with bathroom and breakfast which we ended up being really happy with. It was that or a capsule hotel, for not a huge amount less.
Some of the capsule hotel/hostels look pretty nice and classy in Singapore too. They have double beds, privacy screens and decent looking shared bathrooms. This is definitely the best option for a lower-cost Singapore trip. However, we didn’t fancy this after a 583372-hour, long-haul flight, so opted for the cheapest last-minute private room we could find.
Our Singapore hotel room was tiny but super-functional, modern and clean with Netflix in an amazing location right next to Clarke Quay. We would definitely consider staying there again on our next visit to Singapore. Check out the hotel if you are interested.
Miscellaneous Costs
There wasn’t a lot of miscellaneous costs as this was only a four-day stopover. Normally, for any other journey we’d have a bunch of stuff in here, like things we forgot and weird purchases.
The only item we bought outside of the categories listed above (and sim cards) was a replacement part for our camera tripod. This was a bit random and so we haven’t included it in this Singapore budget. If it’s of any help, the replacement part was very reasonably priced and we found it in a mall.
Singapore sim cards | these were bought from the Travelex on the basement level of Changi terminal 3. They cost $12 each on the Singtel network and were valid for seven days. This gave us 100gb of 4G data with free social media, plus 500 minutes of local calls and 100 local texts. It’s way more than you need in Singapore when Wi-Fi is decent everywhere.
WiFi | you could technically get away without having a sim card at all for a short, budget stopover in Singapore – it depends on how much you use your phone! There are loads of places with free, fast Wi-Fi, including the MRT stations. Download the Wireless@SGX app then you will be auto connected to any hotspots.
Budget | Travelex offered significantly cheaper deals than the other offers in the airport – do not buy from the first business you see in arrivals. You could also purchase an esim for Singapore if your phone permits them – we’ve used Airalo hundreds of times now and they’re always good. Currently, data for a week in Singapore is around $5, which is a steal.
How to Save Money in Singapore
Cut the Soft Drinks
So, my immediate thought about reducing the budget is just don’t drink as much diet coke as me! They are not that cheap.
Also, maybe don’t order $8 smoothies just because you’re feeling a little warm.
The best option is just to drink water – it’s safe to drink in Singapore.
Be Less Fussy With Sleeping
There are far cheaper accommodation options available than the one we chose, such as capsule hotels and hostels.
You should also definitely book far earlier than we did (we booked only a few days before we left). The prices shot up enormously nearer the time of departure.
Marina Bay Sands
Okay, so as cool as the views were, just don’t bother going up to the top of Marina Bay Sands if you’re on a budget.
It’s super pretty, but it’s full of people, feels like a zoo and there are long queues for the elevators. It’s a lot of money for a view without drinks. Just walking around the bay front from Boat Quay to Marina Bay, especially at night, provides incredible views of the surrounding area and towering skyline.
Make the Most of Free Stuff
There are tonnes of free things to do in Singapore, especially if you just like wandering about and photography.
Check out Chinatown, Boat and Clarke Quay, Little India, the Arab Quarter and the Gardens by the Bay in Marina Bay Sands. Head to Sentosa Island (but not by the cable car – this is expensive so take the MRT instead). These activities alone can fill up several days.
For more details, have a look at our two-day Singapore itinerary.
Avoid Alcohol
Definitely stay well away from alcohol in Singapore, if that is an option for you.
In particular, a Singapore Sling at the Raffles hotel is a famous, but pretty crap cocktail – save yourself $20 each plus the queues and go some place else.
Honestly, there’s really no decent way to save money in Singapore and also drink. Have a few drinks on your flight and then wait until you reach your final destination (it’s almost certain to be cheaper!).
CASH OR CARD FOR A STOPOVER IN SINGAPORE?
We didn’t use much cash during our visit to Singapore. Everywhere in the country takes card, including the MRT (underground transport), buses, attractions, restaurants and taxis (use the Grab app if you need a taxi, it’s cheap and you price you pay by card is determined in advance).
The only places that did not accept credit and debit cards were some hawker centres. These immense food courts still trade mostly in cash, so withdraw a little money from an ATM to cover your time there.
Tip | the only money we took out was at Changi Airport, from a UOB cash machine in Terminal 3. There were no transaction charges.
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RELATED POST | 21 THINGS TO KNOW BEFORE VISITING SINGAPORE
Final Thoughts – Is Singapore Expensive?
So, is Singapore expensive?
Well, yes, it is. That’s why it is known as a layover destination! Honestly, if it were cheaper, we would have stayed a few weeks – it’s a fantastic destination and we absolutely loved it.
We kept our costs down by basically avoiding all bars and restaurants – however at no point did we really feel like we were missing out on much. This country has epic food, architecture, cultural attractions and more that never cost very much to experience!
So, despite the budget, we fully recommend a visit and hope you have a fantastic time! Let us know if you think we overspent!
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Thank you, Claire + Nick
Nice read, and totally agree 🙂 It’s quite difficult to cut down accomodation expenses!
My wife pointed out the onigiri prices at the 7-11s are almost ‘numerically the same’ (like 4-5 MYR vs 2-3 SGD) in both Malaysia and Singapore, despite the exchange rates. The kopis from the kopitiams and hawker markets would be the most convenient option for take-away drinks (plus keeping your own flask to refill water) Oh, and we had those juice vending machines which were around Chinatown, giving out freshly pressed orange juice for 2 SGD (apple ones were 2.80 SGD). That was probably the best value for money.
The entire country is also probably like 70-80% sheltered with well-maintained pavements, so walking is a pleasure – if you can withstand the heat and humidity, that is – but then you have an airconditioned mall or outlet on your way to pop into to cool down 🙂
We stayed at the Heritage Collection in Chinatown which was priced somewhere mid-way between a mid-range hotel and a back-packer capsule hotel, and this was comfy with a fridge and a microwave for small meal preps. Capsule hotels would be indeed better, if you’ve not got a lot of luggage and if you’re traveling solo.