Grandparent Caregiver Relief: Who Qualifies and How It Compares With Hiring a Helper

If your mother or mother-in-law looks after your children while you work, the grandparent caregiver relief from IRAS can take $3,000 off your chargeable income each year. It is one of the simplest tax reliefs a working mother can claim, yet we regularly meet families who have never heard of it, or who assume it disappeared along with the old maid levy relief. This guide explains who qualifies, how to claim it, how it sits alongside the Working Mother’s Child Relief, and how it compares with the support available when you hire a helper instead.

Everything below reflects the conditions IRAS publishes for Year of Assessment (YA) 2026. IRAS reviews reliefs from time to time, so check the official page for the year you are filing before you submit.

We are a maid agency, not tax advisers. We have checked each point against IRAS and MOM, and link to them so you can confirm the details for your own situation.

What the grandparent caregiver relief is

Grandparent Caregiver Relief (GCR) is an income tax relief for working mothers whose child is looked after by a parent or grandparent. According to IRAS’s GCR page, you can claim $3,000 per caregiver, subject to the conditions below.

It is a relief, not a cash payout. It lowers the income you are taxed on, so the actual saving depends on your tax bracket.

The caregiver can be on either side of the family. IRAS lists a parent, grandparent, step-parent, step-grandparent, adoptive parent or adoptive grandparent, and includes your husband’s side and an ex-husband’s side.

Who qualifies: the conditions IRAS sets

For YA 2026, IRAS says all of the following must be true.

The person claiming

• You are a working mother who is married, divorced or widowed. Single taxpayers and male taxpayers cannot claim GCR.
• No one else has claimed GCR on the same caregiver.

The caregiver

• The caregiver lived in Singapore in the previous year. IRAS treats this as living here permanently, apart from temporary absences such as short holidays. For a caregiver who is not Singaporean, this generally means staying in Singapore for at least 8 months of that year.
• The caregiver did not earn more than $8,000 in that year from employment, a trade, business, profession or vocation. This threshold was raised from $4,000 to $8,000 from YA 2025. For YA 2023 and earlier, the caregiver could not be working at all.
• A pension does not count as working, so a grandparent who draws a pension can still qualify if the other conditions are met.

The child

• The caregiver looked after your child who was a Singapore Citizen aged 12 or below in that year, or an unmarried child with a disability who is a Singapore Citizen. The age limit does not apply to a child with a disability.

So a grandparent who does a little paid work can still qualify, as long as their earnings for the year stay at or below $8,000.

One caregiver, one claim: how sharing works

• Only one person can claim GCR on any one caregiver. If your sister has already claimed on your mother, you cannot.
• Siblings can each claim on a different caregiver. If your father minds your sister’s children and your mother minds yours, your sister can claim on your father and you can claim on your mother.
• If your mother looks after both your children and your sister’s, only one of you can claim on her.
• If your child has more than one caregiver, such as both grandparents, you can still only claim on one of them, up to $3,000 in total.

Agree within the family who will claim before anyone files. IRAS also notes that if you cannot claim GCR on a caregiver, you may be able to claim Parent Relief on them instead, if you meet that relief’s own conditions.

How to claim on myTax Portal

IRAS sets out the steps for e-filing:

1. Log in to myTax Portal with Singpass.
2. Go to “Individuals”, then “File Income Tax Return”, and select “File”.
3. Open section 4, “Deductions, Tax Reliefs and Rebates”.
4. Select “Add New”, then “Grandparent Caregiver”.
5. Enter the caregiver’s details and select “Update”.

If the relief was granted last year, IRAS prefills it and grants it again automatically. You only need to go in if something has changed, for example the child has turned 13, the grandparent has started earning more than $8,000, or a different family member now claims on that caregiver. Leaving an outdated claim in place is your responsibility, so review it every year.

If you have already e-filed and forgot to claim, IRAS allows you to re-file once by 18 April, and the new return replaces the old one. After you receive your tax bill, you can use the “Amend Tax Bill” service within 30 days of the bill date.

How it fits with the Working Mother’s Child Relief

GCR is often claimed alongside the Working Mother’s Child Relief (WMCR), which many people search for as working mother child relief. They are separate reliefs with different purposes: WMCR recognises that you are a working mother maintaining a Singapore Citizen child, while GCR recognises who is looking after that child. Parents may also qualify for the Parenthood Tax Rebate for each qualifying child.

According to IRAS’s WMCR page, how WMCR is calculated depends on when your Singapore Citizen child was born or adopted:

• Born or adopted on or after 1 January 2024: a fixed $8,000 for the first child, $10,000 for the second and $12,000 for the third and each later child.
• Born or adopted before 1 January 2024: 15%, 20% and 25% of your earned income for the first, second and third and later children.

WMCR is capped at 100% of your earned income across all your children, combined child reliefs are capped at $50,000 per child, and all personal reliefs together are capped at $80,000 per YA.

What changed for families who hire a helper

For many years, a working mother who employed a helper could claim Foreign Domestic Worker Levy (FDWL) Relief, worth twice the levy paid on one helper. That has ended. IRAS confirms that FDWL Relief was discontinued with effect from YA 2025, and the last year it could be claimed was YA 2024. If you see older articles telling you to claim it, they are out of date.

The support for families with helpers now comes through the levy itself rather than through tax. Under MOM’s levy concession rules, a household with a Singapore Citizen child below 16 can pay the concessionary levy of $60 a month instead of the normal $300 for a first helper. If you are the parent, the concession runs from the child’s birth. If you are not the parent, for example grandparents employing a helper for a grandchild who lives with them, it runs from the date the child is added as a household member in FDW eService.

The concession is applied automatically once the conditions are met and the household details are updated. The lower rate normally appears within the next two levy bills and is backdated. Our guide to maid levy rates, concessions and how to pay covers the details.

Grandparent care or a helper: comparing the support

The two kinds of support are not like for like, so it is better to compare them side by side than to add them up.

When a grandparent is the main caregiver

• You may claim GCR of $3,000 as a tax relief, worth more the higher your tax bracket.
• The relief stops once the child is past 12, unless the child has a disability.

When you hire a live-in helper

• There is no longer a tax relief for the levy.
• The monthly levy drops from $300 to $60 while you have a Singapore Citizen child below 16 in the household, which works out to $240 a month less than the normal first-helper levy.
• You still pay salary, insurance, food, lodging and other costs. Our full breakdown of the cost of hiring a helper sets these out.

In practice, the decision rarely comes down to tax. It comes down to how many hours of care your child needs, how much your parents can manage, and what happens when a grandparent is unwell or travelling. Many grandparents are happy to do pick-ups and an afternoon or two, but find full weekdays with a toddler exhausting. If you are weighing childcare centres as well, our guides to childcare subsidies in Singapore and infant care versus a helper may help.

When a helper and a grandparent work together

Plenty of households have both: a grandparent who supervises and gives the child the family connection, and a full-time live-in helper who handles cooking, cleaning and the more physical side of childcare. In these homes, it helps to be clear about roles from the first week. Who decides on screen time, snacks and naps? Who does bath time? Who takes the child to the doctor if a grandparent is not feeling well? Agreeing this early prevents the helper being caught between two sets of instructions.

On the tax side, IRAS’s listed conditions for GCR focus on the caregiver’s relationship to you, where they live, the child’s age and citizenship, and the caregiver’s income. Having a helper in the home is not listed as a condition, but if your arrangement is unusual, confirm with IRAS directly rather than guessing.

Related guides: Maid for Newborn Care Singapore: A Practical Hiring Guide and Nanny or Babysitter in Singapore? Why Families Pick a Helper.

Frequently Asked Questions

How much is GCR worth?

IRAS allows $3,000 per caregiver, and if your child has more than one caregiver you can claim on only one of them, so the total is $3,000. It reduces your chargeable income rather than your tax bill directly, so the actual saving depends on your tax bracket.

Can I claim if my mother works part time?

Yes, as long as her income from employment, trade, business, profession or vocation in the relevant year did not exceed $8,000, which is the threshold IRAS applies from YA 2025, and the other conditions are met. A pension does not count as working.

Can my husband claim the relief instead of me?

No. IRAS limits GCR to working mothers who are married, divorced or widowed, and single or male taxpayers are not eligible. The caregiver can still be on your husband’s side of the family, such as his mother.

Is there still tax relief for the maid levy?

No. IRAS discontinued the Foreign Domestic Worker Levy Relief from YA 2025, and YA 2024 was the last year it could be claimed. Families with a Singapore Citizen child below 16 can instead pay the MOM concessionary levy of $60 a month rather than $300 for a first helper.

Do I need to claim the relief again every year?

Not usually. If IRAS granted GCR last year, it prefills and grants it automatically in your next return. You should update it in myTax Portal if anything changes, such as your child turning 13 or the caregiver’s income going above $8,000.

Conclusion

If a grandparent looks after your child, check the IRAS conditions and claim the $3,000 relief if you qualify. Agree with your siblings who claims on which caregiver, and review the claim each year because it is prefilled. If you employ a helper, remember that the old levy tax relief has gone and the support now comes through the $60 concessionary levy, which MOM applies once your household details are in order.

If you are thinking about adding a helper to support the grandparents, or to take over from them, we are happy to talk it through. You can get in touch with the Femme5 team to discuss your family’s needs, read more about how we work with employers, or explore what a good placement looks like.

The Femme5 Team
Maid placement specialists, Femme5 Maid Agency
Our consultants work with Singaporean and expatriate families on helper matching, contracts and MOM compliance, and we verify the regulatory guidance in our articles directly against the Ministry of Manpower’s published requirements.