GST for a hair salon in Singapore: the 9% rate, the S$1 million threshold and your price list

GST is the tax that confuses hair salon owners in Singapore precisely because most of them never have to touch it. The rate is 9%, registration only becomes compulsory at S$1 million of taxable turnover a year, and an unregistered salon must not charge or even mention GST on a receipt. Yet the same owners wonder every January whether they should register anyway, whether the price on the wall is supposed to include the tax, and why a foreign software subscription suddenly shows a GST line.

This guide walks through what actually matters at the front desk: the current rate, the retrospective and prospective registration tests and their deadlines, the real trade-offs of voluntary registration when you are below the threshold, the price display rules IRAS enforces with fines, what receipts and tax invoices must show, and how GST lands on the things your salon buys, software included. Everything rests on IRAS pages checked in October 2026. One thing to say plainly before the numbers start: this is practical guidance from ViteUneCoupe, a free booking platform for hair salons that charges no commission, not tax advice, so let your accountant confirm what applies to your own figures. If you are still at the planning stage, our step-by-step guide to opening a hair salon in Singapore covers the setup side.

What GST rate applies in Singapore in 2026?

The GST rate is 9%, and it has been since 1 January 2024. IRAS states it directly: "The current GST rate in Singapore is 9%. GST-registered businesses are required to charge and account for GST at 9% on all sales of goods and services in Singapore" (IRAS, current GST rates, checked in October 2026). The rate was 7% until the end of 2022 and 8% during 2023, so any article or price guide written before 2024 is quoting an old figure.

There is no reduced rate for hairdressing: a haircut, a colour service and the bottle of shampoo on your retail shelf all carry the same 9% once a salon is registered. That single-rate simplicity is one genuine mercy of the Singapore system compared with countries that tax services and products differently.

The more important point for most readers: 9% only concerns GST-registered businesses. A salon below the registration threshold charges no GST at all, on anything, and its prices carry no hidden tax line.

The S$1 million threshold: must your salon register?

Registration is compulsory when your taxable turnover crosses S$1 million, measured two ways (IRAS, do I need to register for GST, checked in October 2026):

• The retrospective view. At the end of each calendar year, you check whether taxable turnover for 1 January to 31 December exceeded S$1 million. If it did, you must apply for registration between 1 and 30 January of the following year, and you are registered with effect from 1 March.
• The prospective view. At any point in the year, if you can reasonably expect taxable turnover to exceed S$1 million in the next 12 months, you must apply within 30 days of that forecast. For forecasts made on or after 1 July 2025, registration takes effect two months from the forecast date, a grace period announced in February 2025. IRAS expects hard evidence for the forecast, signed contracts or confirmed orders, not optimism: a sales target alone does not trigger the obligation.

Taxable turnover is the total of your taxable supplies: cuts, colours, treatments and blow-dries, plus retail sales of products, all in the same pot. For a sole proprietor, IRAS combines the turnover of all your sole proprietorship businesses and freelance income, not just the salon, which catches owners who also freelance on the side.

Put S$1 million in salon terms: roughly S$83,000 of takings a month, every month. A solo stylist or a two-chair HDB-shopfront salon is nowhere near it. The salons that need to watch the line are multi-stylist operations with strong colour and treatment business and a busy retail shelf, and groups running several outlets under one company. If that is you, add the monthly figure up all year, because the penalty for missing the line is nasty: late registration is backdated, you owe GST on past sales even though you never collected it from clients, and IRAS can add a fine of up to S$10,000 plus a penalty of 10% of the GST due. IRAS generally waives the fine and penalty when you come forward voluntarily, but the backdated GST itself still has to be paid.

Below S$1 million: is voluntary registration worth it?

Any business making taxable supplies can register voluntarily, and IRAS publishes a candid list of factors to weigh before doing so (IRAS, factors to consider before registering voluntarily for GST, checked in October 2026). For a hair salon, the arithmetic usually points one way.

The benefit of registering is input tax: a registered salon claims back the 9% GST on its purchases, colour stock, equipment, rent where the landlord is registered, fit-out works. In a year of heavy renovation spending that is real money.

The cost is on the other side of the chair. Your clients are consumers, not GST-registered businesses, so they cannot claim back anything you charge them. That leaves you two options, and IRAS's own worked examples show the squeeze. Raise prices by 9% and your S$180 colour becomes S$196.20, against competitors who charge no GST at all. Hold your prices and the GST comes out of your margin: a S$180 colour held at S$180 now contains 180 × 9 ÷ 109, about S$14.86 of GST that goes to IRAS instead of to you (a purely hypothetical example). Either way, a voluntarily registered salon competing against unregistered neighbours fights with one hand tied.

Two commitments come with the choice: a voluntarily registered business must remain registered for at least two years, and it takes on all the compliance duties of a registered business, quarterly returns included, so IRAS advises assessing costs and benefits over a full two-year window. For most independent salons comfortably under the threshold, staying unregistered keeps prices sharper and paperwork lighter. The case for volunteering is strongest when a major fit-out is coming and your prices already sit at the premium end where a GST line will not scare anyone. Run the numbers with your accountant before electing, because there is no quick exit.

One rule either way: an unregistered salon must never charge GST or show it on any receipt. Collecting GST without being registered is an offence, not an admin slip.

Once registered, your displayed prices must include GST

Once registered, the price the client sees is the price with GST inside. IRAS is explicit: "If you are GST-registered, you must display and quote prices inclusive of GST to the public. This applies to all price displays like price tags, advertisements, and websites," and failing to comply can mean a fine of up to S$5,000 (IRAS, displaying and quoting prices, checked in October 2026). Verbal quotes over the phone count too.

Concretely, for a salon service menu:

The service-charge exception you see on restaurant menus is for hotels and F&B establishments only; it does not extend to hair salons. And a registered salon that absorbs the GST as a goodwill gesture must not advertise "no GST": IRAS treats that as misleading, because the tax is still inside the discounted price and still owed.

Your online booking page is a price display like any other, so the prices clients see there must match the GST-inclusive list on the wall. For the market context around what Singapore salons actually charge, our survey of hair salon prices in Singapore has the current figures.

Receipts, tax invoices and your records

For walk-in clients, who are consumers, a registered salon issues a receipt, not a full tax invoice. IRAS requires receipts to be serially printed and to show the date, your business name and GST registration number, the total amount payable including GST, and the words "Price payable includes GST" (IRAS, invoicing customers, checked in October 2026). You can choose not to issue receipts systematically, but you must issue one when a client asks, and your records must still capture every sale.

A full tax invoice only becomes mandatory when your customer is itself GST-registered: a production company booking hair for a shoot, a hotel, a corporate event. That document needs the words "Tax Invoice", your name, address and GST registration number, an invoice number and date, the customer's name and address, a description of the services, the amounts excluding GST, the GST, and the total. For bills not exceeding S$1,000 including GST, a simplified tax invoice with fewer details is enough. Keep tax invoices, issued and received, for at least five years.

Unregistered salons have it simpler: no GST lines anywhere, ever, just ordinary records of takings for income tax.

GST on what your salon buys, software included

Your suppliers' side of the ledger works in mirror image. If your salon is GST-registered, the 9% on colour stock, equipment, supplies and local software subscriptions is generally claimable as input tax, so a S$109 purchase really costs S$100. If you are not registered, the GST on purchases is simply part of the price, worth remembering when a supplier quotes "before GST".

Foreign software subscriptions are the modern wrinkle. Under Singapore's overseas vendor registration regime, a GST-registered overseas vendor must charge Singapore GST on remote services sold to customers who are not GST-registered, so an unregistered salon may legitimately see 9% GST added by a large foreign SaaS provider. A GST-registered salon, by contrast, should give the vendor its GST registration number so the vendor does not charge GST on the business purchase (IRAS, GST on imported services, checked in October 2026). There is also a reverse charge mechanism for imported services, but it only concerns businesses that are not entitled to full input tax credit, which an ordinary fully taxable hair salon is not; if your structure is unusual, that is a question for your accountant, not a blog.

ViteUneCoupe is a concrete example and we may as well use ourselves. The free plan costs nothing at all: unlimited online bookings with 0% commission, always, plus your calendar, services catalogue with prices, client database and staff schedules, so there is no GST question to have. The paid Standard plan costs 29 € per month excluding tax, with no commitment, and one honest caveat for a Singapore salon: it is billed in euros from France, not in SGD, so the exact monthly figure moves slightly with the exchange rate and your card may add a small foreign-currency fee. At 29 € a month the sums are small, but you should know before you subscribe. We unpack the whole cost picture, currency included, in our honest look at what salon software really costs in Singapore.

What a booking system genuinely contributes to the GST question is visibility. The S$1 million test is a rolling awareness problem: salon revenue arrives S$30 and S$180 at a time, and nobody feels a threshold approaching unless someone adds it up. Every appointment booked through ViteUneCoupe is recorded with its service and price, so your monthly turnover is a glance, not an end-of-year reconstruction. To see how it compares with everything else available here, our comparison of hair salon booking software in Singapore goes through the options one by one. And to be equally clear about the limits: it is a booking system, not a till or an accounting package; it does not compute, charge or file GST, and your GST-inclusive price list remains your job.

Frequently asked questions

Do hair salons charge GST in Singapore?

Only GST-registered ones, and registration is only compulsory once taxable turnover exceeds S$1 million a year, roughly S$83,000 a month. Most independent hair salons are well below that, charge no GST, and must not mention GST on their receipts at all.

What is the GST rate for a hair salon in Singapore?

9%, the standard rate for all goods and services, in force since 1 January 2024 (IRAS, checked in October 2026). There is no special rate for hairdressing: services and retail products both carry 9% once the salon is registered.

When must my salon register for GST?

Under the retrospective test, if taxable turnover for a calendar year exceeded S$1 million, you apply between 1 and 30 January of the next year and are registered from 1 March. Under the prospective test, if you can reasonably expect to exceed S$1 million in the next 12 months, backed by evidence such as signed contracts, you apply within 30 days of the forecast. Late registration is backdated, with GST due on past sales plus possible fines.

Should a small salon register for GST voluntarily?

Usually not. Your clients are consumers who cannot claim back GST, so registering means either raising prices by 9% against unregistered competitors or absorbing the tax out of your margin, and voluntary registrants must stay registered for at least two years. It can make sense in a heavy fit-out year when the input tax claims are large; model it with your accountant over two full years first.

Must my displayed prices include GST?

Yes, if you are registered. IRAS requires GST-inclusive prices on all displays, price lists, websites and quotes, including your online booking page, with fines of up to S$5,000 for non-compliance. The service-charge exception applies to hotels and F&B establishments, not hair salons. If you are not registered, your prices simply carry no GST and no GST wording.