HDB Renovation Quotation, What It Should Contain

The HDB-specific lines

Beyond the usual trades, an HDB job carries obligations that belong on the document rather than in a conversation.

• —The HDB renovation permit, and who applies for it
• —A professional engineer endorsement where masonry walls are being hacked, commonly $800 to $2,000
• —Debris removal and the final clean, which are frequently omitted
• —Permitted working hours and the renovation period, which affect scheduling and therefore price

Typical 2026 ranges for a 4-room flat

Published guides for 2026 put a 4-room HDB resale renovation commonly in the $42,000 to $48,000 range all-in, within a broader spread of roughly $35,000 to $80,000 depending on scope and finish.

A new BTO usually costs less than a resale of the same size, because a resale often needs hacking, rewiring and replacement of finishes that a new flat does not.

Reading it the same way you would any quotation

The HDB specifics sit on top of the ordinary discipline rather than replacing it. Every trade itemised, every line with a unit and a quantity, exclusions stated, payment staged and GST shown separately if it is charged at all.

The general version of that is set out trade by trade in how to read a renovation quotation.

Get the floor plan before the first contractor visits

HDB sells you the floor plan of your own flat for a few dollars through an online e-Service, and handing it to every firm you invite is the cheapest thing you can do to make their quotations comparable. They are all then pricing the same flat rather than each one’s impression of it.

It also gives you something to check the quotation against. When the plan says the kitchen wall is 3.6 metres and a quotation prices twelve foot run of bottom cabinet along it, those two numbers agree, and you can see that they agree without knowing anything about carpentry.

The one trap is printing. HDB issues the plan as A4 at 1:100 and its own guidance is that you have to set the print dialog to "Actual Size" to keep that scale, because the usual default quietly shrinks the drawing to clear the margins. Email the PDF instead. There is more in where to get the floor plan of your HDB flat.

The permit is a process, not a line item

Renovation in an HDB flat runs under HDB’s own approval process, and that process decides what may be done rather than what anybody would prefer to do. Hacking a wall, relocating a wet area and altering the electrical supply are all governed by it.

For you as the owner, three things follow. The quotation should say who applies for the permit and whether the fee is included. The programme should fit inside the permitted renovation period and the permitted working hours, because a schedule that ignores them is a schedule that slips. And a contractor who is vague about whether something is allowed should be asked to take the question to HDB rather than answering it themselves.

None of this is exotic. It is the ordinary background of every HDB job, which is exactly why it goes unsaid, and why a quotation that states it is telling you something about the firm as well as about the work.

Comparing three HDB quotations without a spreadsheet

Put the three documents side by side and line them up by trade rather than by total. The gaps appear almost immediately, and the gaps are usually most of the price difference.

Then check the quantities before the rates, because a low rate applied to twice the quantity is not a low price. Two firms quoting the same kitchen should arrive at a similar foot run, since the kitchen is the size it is. When they do not, one of them has measured differently or is quoting something different, and that is worth knowing before you choose.

• —Is the permit in all three, or only in one
• —Is the PE endorsement priced, excluded, or simply absent
• —Do the carpentry quantities agree, given it is the same flat
• —Does each one state what it excludes, or only what it includes
• —Is hacking and disposal priced, or assumed

What a good HDB quotation looks like

Organised by room, because that is how you will walk through the flat with the contractor and how you will check the work at handover. Kitchen, living, each bedroom, each bathroom, with a subtotal against each one.

Then the whole-flat items that do not belong to any single room: hacking, the permit, the final clean, and anything structural.