Community Care Apartments 2026: Prices by Lease, the Service Fee, and Who Can Buy From 55

A Community Care Apartment (CCA) is a small HDB flat built for seniors who want to live on their own but with help close at hand. HDB describes it as a joint offering by MND, MOH and HDB that "integrates senior-friendly housing with care and social services". Every resident must subscribe to the Basic Service Package (BSP), run by Vanguard Healthcare, a wholly-owned subsidiary of MOH Holdings.

The first CCAs were launched in 2021 at Harmony Village @ Bukit Batok. On HDB's block record (our copy, September 2026) its 169 flats were completed in 2024. You can see a CCA showflat at HDB Hub, Biz Four, 3rd storey, 470 Lorong 6 Toa Payoh.

A CCA is a home with care attached, not an investment. You are buying years of living in it, and the price and the rules are set up that way.

A CCA has two prices: the flat, which HDB prices by the lease you choose, and the Basic Service Package, a monthly fee for as long as you live there. HDB's indicative prices for the 207 CCAs at Fernvale Plains (Sengkang), launched in October 2025, set against the operator's estimate of the service package over the same lease:

Flat prices: HDB, Annex A of the October 2025 BTO exercise, before grants and excluding the service package. Service package: Vanguard Healthcare's illustrative estimate of the cash over the lease at the fees that apply from Q2 2027, before GST and any subsidy, allowing for inflation, and assuming you live there for the whole lease. The per-year and combined columns are PropKaki's arithmetic.

Three things to read from it:

• You pay the flat upfront. HDB takes the price in full, from CPF and/or cash; CPF's guide for buyers above 55 says a short-lease flat such as a CCA does not qualify for a housing loan. You pay $500 at booking (it forms part of the downpayment) and a 10% downpayment at the Agreement for Lease; eligible buyers can defer the downpayment to key collection. If you are selling a flat to pay for the CCA, HDB's Temporary Loan Scheme can lend you the price until your sale proceeds come in.
• Grants can shrink it sharply. Eligible first-timers can use the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant. In HDB's February 2026 sale, CCAs on a 30-year lease started at $79,000 before the grant and "From $4,000" after an assumed $120,000 grant, because a buyer whose grant exceeds 95% of the price still pays 5% of it.
• Some buyers pay an extra amount, pro-rated to the lease you choose: nothing for first-timer families with at least two citizens; $10,000 for a first-timer family with a PR member; $15,000 for first-timer singles earning up to $8,000 and $30,000 above that (both built into the price); the lower of the resale levy or $30,000 for second-timer families; and $30,000 for second-timer singles and anyone who owned or sold a private home in the 30 months before applying for the HFE letter. Anyone who has had a housing subsidy before pays it in cash, and gets no grant.

Right-sizing from a bigger flat? Selling it and buying a CCA can also qualify you for the Silver Housing Bonus, and the Property Financial Planner lets you run your own sale proceeds, CPF and cash against the price.

Over a 35-year lease the service package costs about as much as the flat itself, in cash paid over the years, before GST and any subsidy. Budget for both.

HDB's eligibility conditions for a CCA (seniors page, as of September 2026, verify on HDB):

Before the November 2026 exercise the age was 65. HDB is updating the HFE letters of people who were already 55 when they applied; if you applied for your letter before you turned 55, you need a fresh one that shows your CCA eligibility. For the November 2026 exercise HDB asked applicants to submit their HFE documents by 25 September 2026, and if your letter does not show CCA eligibility on or after 1 October 2026, HDB asks you to write in. Read how the letter works in our HFE letter guide.

Priority for care needs. At a BTO launch, some CCAs are set aside for households where someone needs permanent help with at least one Activity of Daily Living (washing, toileting, dressing, eating, moving around or transferring). You apply for it in the flat application and send a disability assessment to Vanguard Healthcare before the application period closes. This priority does not apply at Sale of Balance Flats exercises. HDB also says CCAs may not suit seniors who need high medical and nursing care, or who have been diagnosed with severe mental illness or loss of mental capacity: the services are meant for residents with relatively low care needs.

Joint balloting. You can pair your application with a family member or friend who is also applying for a CCA in the same BTO exercise; if both are successful, you book together.

Age is not a bar to owning an HDB flat. What changes is the lease you can take and how you pay:

• From HDB, on a short lease. CCAs and short-lease 2-room Flexi flats are open to buyers aged 55 and above, and the lease you choose must last every buyer and spouse to at least age 95. So the shortest lease you can pick is 95 minus the age of the youngest of you, rounded up to the next 5-year step and never under 15: 25 years at 70, 15 years at 80. At 55 it is 40 years: short-lease 2-room Flexi flats already come in 40- and 45-year leases, while CCAs offer them only from the November 2026 BTO.
• On the open market. A resale flat is bought under the usual eligibility rules; at 70 the catch is financing. An HDB housing loan runs for at most 25 years, or 65 minus the average age of the applicants if that is shorter, so it is not an option for buyers in their late 60s and 70s. Short-lease flats and CCAs take no housing loan at all.
• With CPF. CPF can pay for a CCA or short-lease flat together with cash; for a short-lease 2-room Flexi flat, CPF says you must set aside your Basic Retirement Sum before using the excess Ordinary Account savings.

If you are 70 and weighing a CCA against a short-lease 2-room Flexi flat, the difference is the care package, not the price (see the comparison further down).

Every CCA resident must subscribe to the BSP. Under the scope revised in July 2026, CCA staff help with simple home fixes, reading letters and understanding bills, respond to emergencies 24 hours a day, and help you arrange add-on care such as shared caregiving, day care or housekeeping, which cost extra. Social activities are moving to Active Ageing Centre touchpoints at or near the CCAs, and the emergency alert device is being made optional; both are part of why fees are falling.

The operator's monthly fees for the five existing projects, before GST and subsidy:

Source: Vanguard Healthcare's Basic Service Package page, read 25 September 2026. HDB puts the cut for residents of CCAs launched before 2026 at 18% to 75%, subsidy included. CCAs launched from 2026, starting with Toa Payoh, will have lower fees again; those have not been published.

Subsidy. From Q2 2027 MOH subsidises the parts of the BSP that national long-term care schemes already cover (the CCA staff support and the 24-hour emergency response), for applicants assessed as unable to perform at least one Activity of Daily Living. It is means-tested on monthly per-capita household income: for a Singapore Citizen born in 1969 or earlier it runs from 95% at $900 or below down to 35% at $3,601 to $4,800; for a citizen born after 1969, which includes most of the newly eligible 55-year-olds, from 80% down to 20%; nothing above $4,800. The monthly fees are also reviewed from time to time, so treat the table as today's price, not a fixed one.

How you pay. From Q2 2027 you pay a one-year security deposit when the lease starts and monthly fees after that, by GIRO or other electronic means.

HDB publishes how many people apply for each flat type. For CCAs the figures are strikingly low:

HDB's final figures for each exercise. An application rate below 1 means fewer applicants than flats set aside.

Set that against the flats seniors could buy next to them. In the same October 2025 Fernvale Plains project, the 100 2-room Flexi flats drew a seniors' application rate of 4.2. In the February 2026 sale, the seniors' rate for 2-room Flexi flats ran from 5.4 to 31.0 across all 20 towns that offered them, against 0.7 applications a flat for CCAs. One caution: until the November 2026 exercise only seniors aged 65 and above could apply for a CCA, while the 2-room Flexi seniors' quota was open from 55, so the pools of buyers differed.

The one exception is small. Bukit Batok's Harmony Village, the only CCA project in HDB's completed-block record, had 9 flats in the February 2026 sale and an application rate of 6.6.

For a senior who wants a CCA, the ballot has not been the obstacle. Lowering the age to 55 widens the pool, so the November 2026 Toa Payoh launch is the first real test of demand under the new rules.

Start with the floor HDB sets. The lease must last every buyer and spouse to at least 95, so:

PropKaki's arithmetic from HDB's rule: 95 minus the youngest buyer's age, rounded up to the next 5-year step (at 72, 25 years). CCAs from earlier launches were offered on leases of up to 35 years, which covers buyers from 60; HDB has not said whether balance CCAs from those projects will be offered on longer leases.

Then look at the cost per year. On HDB's October 2025 prices, a longer lease is cheaper for each year you get: the flat costs $3,933 to $5,067 a year of lease on 15 years and $2,686 to $3,486 on 35 years. The service package is a separate bill that does not depend on the lease: at Fernvale Plains it is $111 to $121 a month from Q2 2027, or $1,332 to $1,452 a year, before GST and subsidy, for as long as you live there.

Leaving early is cushioned, not free. If you no longer wish to live in the CCA, or stop being eligible, you return it to HDB, which refunds the residual value of the balance lease on a straight-line basis; within the first 12 months, the refund is the lower of the pro-rated purchase price or 95% of it. So a longer lease is not money thrown away if plans change, but the refund is fixed by the calendar, not by the market.

The trade-off is cash upfront, not value. Because HDB refunds the unused lease on a straight line, each year you live in the flat costs the price divided by the lease, whenever you leave; a longer lease lowers that figure but ties up more of your cash at the start. HDB's rule only sets the minimum.

Seniors right-sizing usually weigh these three homes. On HDB's own prices for the same project, the CCA is not the expensive option; the service package is the difference.

New-flat prices: HDB, Annex A of the October 2025 BTO, before grants. Resale: PropKaki analysis of HDB resale records, national median, 2026 H1; a resale flat's price reflects its town, age and remaining lease.

You pay a little more for the flat, which comes with the senior fittings; the real difference is the monthly care fee. If you want the help, the CCA bundles it at a published fee that HDB and the operator review from time to time. If you don't, the short-lease 2-room Flexi flat gives you a home of about the same size for a little less, with no monthly fee (HDB offers senior-friendly fittings for it as a paid option). Our 2-room Flexi guide covers those flats in full.

The cheapest homes HDB sells are short-lease flats for buyers aged 55 and above, because the price follows the lease. In the October 2025 BTO exercise:

• Short-lease 2-room Flexi (Type 1), 15 years: from $46,000 to $58,000 at Yishun Glade, the lowest price in HDB's annex for that exercise. HDB's June 2026 BTO list also started at $46,000 for a 15-year short lease.
• Community Care Apartment, 15 years: $59,000 to $76,000 at Fernvale Plains, the last CCA launch, plus the monthly service package. Balance CCAs can start lower: HDB's February 2026 sale offered 30-year CCAs from $79,000.

Grants change the picture for first-timers: when the Enhanced CPF Housing Grant exceeds 95% of the published price, HDB still collects 5% of it. At the February 2026 sale that took the starting price of a 30-year CCA from $79,000 to $4,000 in HDB's own illustration.

If buying is out of reach, HDB's public rental flats are cheaper again: a 1-room rental flat costs $26 to $33 a month for a first-timer household earning $800 or less. A senior who has owned a flat bought from HDB counts as a second-timer and pays $90 to $123 for the same flat, and only households with no other housing options and no family support qualify (see the next question).

There are two ways to rent:

• HDB's Public Rental Scheme is for households with "no family support or other housing options". Singles, including widowed or divorced seniors, apply in pairs under the Joint Singles Scheme: both must be Singapore Citizens, each single, divorced or separated and at least 35, or widowed or orphaned and at least 21. Two people get a 1-room flat. HDB's two pilots that let a single apply alone, with the operator assigning a flatmate or a private room, were closed to applications when we checked in September 2026. No one may own property anywhere, or own or live as an essential occupier in an HDB flat; if you sold a property, HDB counts the proceeds from your last one when it assesses your budget, and it reviews income holistically rather than against a fixed ceiling. Rents for a 1-room flat run from $26 to $33 a month for first-timer households earning $800 or less, up to $150 to $205 for second-timers earning $801 to $1,500.
• The open market. You can rent a whole HDB flat or a room from an owner, as long as you meet HDB's tenant rules; there is no age limit. It costs far more than public rental.

Owning a flat rules out public rental, which is why a senior who owns a bigger flat usually right-sizes by buying, not renting. Our guide to public housing sets out every scheme by stage of life.

Official rules and figures. Eligibility, the lease rule, the buying process, the rules after purchase and the additional amounts are from HDB's CCA page (updated 27 August 2026) and its seniors eligibility page; the age change, the five projects and the fee cut are from HDB's release of 13 July 2026 and its annexes; CCA and 2-room Flexi prices are from Annex A of HDB's October 2025 BTO exercise, the June 2026 short-lease starting price from Annex A of its June 2026 exercise, the February 2026 starting prices from HDB's release of 4 February 2026, and application figures from HDB's application-rate pages for both exercises; service package fees and estimates are from Vanguard Healthcare's page; rental rules and rents are from HDB's Public Rental Scheme pages; the loan and CPF points are from HDB's housing-loan page and CPF's guide for buyers above 55. All read between 18 and 25 September 2026.

Proprietary figures. The per-year and flat-plus-service-package columns, the application rates across all four February 2026 towns and the lease-floor table are PropKaki's arithmetic on those official figures. The 2-room resale median is PropKaki's analysis of HDB resale records (2026 H1, 380 resales, all towns). The completion year of Harmony Village is from HDB's property information dataset as held by PropKaki. How we work: PropKaki methodology.

What we have not claimed: the price of any CCA in the November 2026 Toa Payoh launch, which HDB has not published; the service fee at CCAs launched from 2026; that a CCA suits your care needs, which only you, your family and your doctor can judge; why application rates have been low; or what happens to a CCA when an owner dies, which HDB's CCA page does not cover. This is a practical explainer, not legal or financial advice. Check hdb.gov.sg before you rely on it.