A foreigner can make a Singapore will. Nothing in Singapore law limits will-making to citizens or permanent residents, and if you hold assets here, such as a bank account, shares, an investment property or an insurance policy, a Singapore will is usually the sensible course. Without one, your family faces a cross-border estate administration at the worst possible moment.
The complication is not whether you can make a will. It is working out which country’s law governs which asset, because the answer is not the same for everything you own. That single distinction drives almost every decision an expat has to make about estate planning. The mechanics of drafting and signing are covered in the guide to writing a will in Singapore; this article deals with what changes when you are not Singaporean.
Movable versus immovable property: the central distinction
Private international law splits your estate into two categories, and applies a different rule to each.
Immovable property, meaning land, houses, apartments, anything fixed to the ground, is generally governed by the law of the place where it is situated. A condominium in Singapore is governed by Singapore law. A house in Jakarta is governed by Indonesian law. A flat in Paris is governed by French law. This holds regardless of your nationality, your domicile, or where you signed your will.
Movable property, meaning bank balances, shares, unit trusts, cars, jewellery, most investments, is generally governed by the law of the country in which you were domiciled at death.
The practical consequence is that one person’s estate can be governed by three or four different succession systems simultaneously. A British national domiciled in England, working in Singapore, owning a Singapore condominium and a London flat, with brokerage accounts in both places, is looking at Singapore law for the condominium, English law for the London flat, and English law for the whole of the movable estate wherever the accounts happen to sit.
How you hold Singapore property matters just as much as what your will says. Property held as joint tenants passes automatically to the surviving owner outside the will altogether, which the guide to joint tenancy and tenancy in common explains in full. Check the title before you draft.
Domicile, and why it is stickier than you think
Because movable property follows domicile, it is worth understanding the concept properly. Domicile is not the same as residence, nationality, tax residence, or where your employment pass was issued.
Everyone acquires a domicile of origin at birth, usually taken from their father. That domicile persists until you acquire a domicile of choice, which requires both physically living in a new country and intending to remain there permanently or indefinitely. Both limbs must be satisfied, and the intention limb is the hard one.
This is why domicile is described as sticky. Many expats live in Singapore for decades on renewable passes, own property here, raise children here, and are still domiciled in their country of origin, because an intention to return “eventually”, a retirement plan elsewhere, or the simple fact of holding a temporary immigration status all point away from a settled intention to remain. If you abandon a domicile of choice without acquiring a new one, your domicile of origin revives.
The point is not to reach a conclusion about your own domicile. It is that you probably cannot settle it yourself, that it may not be what you assume, and that it silently determines which legal system decides who inherits the bulk of a typical expat estate.
One worldwide will or several?
Both structures are used, and both are defensible. The choice depends on how many jurisdictions are involved and how compatible they are.
| Single worldwide will | Separate wills per jurisdiction | |
|---|---|---|
| Best suited to | Assets in common-law countries with similar succession rules | Assets in civil-law or forced-heirship countries, or where local title systems demand local documents |
| Advantage | One document, no risk of gaps or contradictions, simpler to update | Each estate can be dealt with locally and in parallel, without waiting on a foreign grant |
| Risk | A foreign registry or court may not accept or may struggle to apply it, delaying everything | A badly drafted revocation clause in one will destroys another |
The revocation trap
This is the single most common and most damaging error in expat estate planning. A standard will opens with words to the effect of “I revoke all former wills and testamentary dispositions made by me.” Signed in Singapore in June, that clause wipes out the will you signed in Zurich in March, including its careful provisions for Swiss assets that the Singapore will says nothing about. The estate is now partly testate and partly intestate, and the intestate part follows rules you never chose.
Where separate wills are used, each must expressly limit both its scope and its revocation clause to its own jurisdiction, revoking only prior wills dealing with assets in that country. Getting that wording right is not a drafting flourish. It is the reason multiple wills should never be prepared by lawyers who are unaware of each other.
Coordinate the executors too
Separate wills usually mean separate executors, chosen for their ability to act locally. Their powers must dovetail rather than overlap, and the wills should say who bears which liabilities and how any residue is ultimately pooled. An executor in one country with no authority in another can stall an estate for months. The role is set out in the guide to the wills, probate and estate planning framework in Singapore.
Forced heirship in your home country
Singapore gives you broad testamentary freedom. You can leave your estate as you wish, subject to limited claims by dependants. Many civil-law countries do not. France, Spain, Italy, Japan, much of Latin America and others reserve a fixed proportion of the estate for children and sometimes a surviving spouse. That reserved share cannot be given away by will.
Muslim-majority jurisdictions apply faraid, the Islamic law of inheritance, which allocates fixed shares to defined categories of heirs. Singapore applies faraid to the estates of Muslims domiciled here as well, subject to the rules that govern immovable property; the outline is in the guide to faraid and Muslim inheritance.
Where forced heirship applies, it usually bites on immovable property in that country regardless of anything your Singapore will says, and may bite on movable property if you are domiciled there. Some countries allow a limited election of national law; others do not. This cannot be answered from Singapore alone.
CPF, insurance and assets that never pass under a will
Several major assets sit outside the will entirely, and expats routinely overlook them.
- CPF savings. CPF does not form part of your estate and is not distributed by your will. It passes to nominees under a CPF nomination, or, if there is none, through the Public Trustee. Foreigners and former permanent residents who still hold CPF monies can generally make a nomination; the mechanics are in the guide to CPF nomination and what happens on death. Confirm the current position at cpf.gov.sg.
- Insurance policies with a named beneficiary, particularly a trust nomination, pay out directly to that beneficiary.
- Jointly held property and joint accounts held as joint tenants pass by survivorship.
- Foreign pensions and retirement accounts usually have their own beneficiary nomination systems, governed by the rules of the scheme.
A will that carefully divides “my estate” while a stale nomination sends the largest single asset elsewhere is a common and entirely avoidable outcome.
Practical steps for an expat estate
Start with an inventory: every asset, the country it sits in, and whether it is movable or immovable. Add how each is held and who is currently nominated on it. Most of the difficult questions become visible at that stage.
Then take advice in each relevant jurisdiction, and make sure those advisers are talking to each other. A Singapore lawyer cannot tell you how Malaysian land law will treat your Johor property, and a French notaire cannot tell you how a Singapore court will handle your DBS account. The coordination is the value.
Review after any change in your circumstances: a marriage, a divorce, a move, a new property, a change in immigration status. Marriage revokes an existing will in Singapore unless it was made in contemplation of that marriage; divorce does not. Expats separating across borders face a further layer of complexity, set out in the guide to divorce for expats in Singapore. If you want advice on your own situation, we can connect you with a licensed Singapore law practice.
