1. From 1 April 2025, the new Shared Parental Leave (SPL) scheme, as well as the additional two weeks of mandatory Government-Paid Paternity Leave (GPPL) will take effect. This follows the announcement by Prime Minister Lawrence Wong at the 2024 National Day Rally and amendments to the Child Development Co-Savings Act passed in Parliament in November 2024.
2. The new SPL scheme underscores the Government’s commitment to provide stronger caregiving support to parents during their child’s infancy stage, where their care needs are the greatest. The SPL also promotes shared parental responsibility and enables fathers to take an active role in caring for their children. With these enhancements, eligible couples will be entitled to 30 weeks of paid parental leave in the child’s first year. Together with other ongoing marriage and parenthood measures, it reflects our collective effort to support Singaporeans in their parenthood journey, to build a Singapore Made For Families.
New Shared Parental Leave Scheme
2. Under the new SPL scheme, eligible working parents will be able to share up to 10 weeks of paid leave between both parents. This will be rolled out in two phases, to allow employers time to adjust their manpower and operational arrangements:
Phase 1: From 1 April 2025 | Eligible working parents of Singapore Citizen children born on or after 1 April 2025 will be entitled to 6 weeks of SPL, to be shared between both parents. |
Phase 2: From 1 April 2026 | Eligible working parents of Singapore Citizen children born on or after 1 April 2026 will be entitled to 10 weeks of SPL, to be shared between both parents. |
4. SPL should be consumed within 12 months of the child’s birth and taken after Government-Paid Maternity Leave or GPPL has been fully consumed. Parents should inform their employers of their planned SPL arrangements as soon as possible when they are expecting a child. This will provide sufficient time for both parties to discuss and mutually agree on leave plans and make the necessary covering arrangements. In the absence of mutual agreement between parents and employers on their leave plans, parents may take SPL in a continuous block within the first 26 weeks of the child’s birth, after providing the minimum notice of four weeks.
Application Process
5. By default, the SPL entitlement will be equally distributed between both parents (that is, three weeks for each parent for Phase 1 and five weeks for each parent for Phase 2). However, parents have the flexibility to decide on the SPL sharing arrangement best suited for their family’s caregiving needs. They can update their preferred SPL sharing arrangement when registering their child’s birth on LifeSG (https://www.life.gov.sg). Thereafter, they may make further changes up to four weeks from the child’s birth via the “Manage SPL sharing arrangement” service on LifeSG.
6. After the four-week period, any change to the SPL sharing arrangement will require mutual agreement between parents and their employers. Parents must submit supporting documents from their employers showing the mutual agreement when applying to change the SPL sharing arrangement on LifeSG via the “Manage SPL sharing arrangement” service.
7. Employers should verify their employees’ SPL sharing arrangement via the Government-Paid Leave portal (https://www.profamilyleave.msf.gov.sg), after the abovementioned four-week period. Employers and self-employed parents can submit their claims for reimbursement, no later than three months after the last day of the SPL taken, via the same portal.
8. For more information, parents and employers may also refer to the respective implementation guides at go.gov.sg/splguide-parents and go.gov.sg/splguide-employers.