Supporting the Real Estate Agency Industry in Complying with Singapore’s Anti-Money Laundering Measures

SMS Sun Xueling speaking at the ERA Asia Pacific Business Conference in March 2026. (Photo: MND)

Apr 2026 – 3 min read


The real estate sector is a major and attractive target for money laundering activities. Being privy to sellers’ and buyers’ behaviour, funding sources, and transaction patterns that could give rise to suspicion, estate agents (EAs) and real estate salespersons (RESs) play an important role in preventing money laundering.

As part of Singapore’s efforts to strengthen anti-money laundering, countering proliferation financing and countering financing of terrorism (AML/CPF/CFT) measures for the real estate agency industry, the Estate Agents Act 2010 and Estate Agents (Prevention of Money Laundering, Proliferation Financing and Terrorism Financing) Regulations 2021 (PMLPFTF Regulations) were amended and the amendments took effect from 1 July 2025.

The amendments include:

• Extending the existing AML/CFT framework to cover Proliferation Financing (PF)

• Requiring EAs and RESs to conduct due diligence checks on unrepresented counterparties in a property transaction

• Prescribing for the imposition of financial penalties by a Disciplinary Committee (DC) or by CEA under Letter of Censure (LOC) for anti-money laundering, proliferation financing and terrorism financing breaches to be on a 'per breach' instead of a 'per case' basis

Consulting the industry and taking in feedback

Ms Sun Xueling, Senior Minister of State, Ministry of National Development & Ministry of Transport spoke about the new requirements recently at the ERA Asia Pacific Business Conference, OrangeTee Annual Convention, and Huttons Gala Awards in March and April 2026.

She recounted the challenges shared by EAs and RESs in implementing these new requirements, when she met them during her engagement sessions with the industry in late 2025. These included the industry’s difficulties in communicating some of the new requirements to clients, as well as the types of due diligence checks that RESs must conduct in various scenarios.

Taking in the industry’s feedback, CEA published a comprehensive set of responses to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) to provide practical, scenario-based guidance for the industry to address issues such as:

• How beneficial ownership checks for public listed entities should be conducted

• Obligations such as conducting checks on unrepresented counterparties

CEA also addressed the industry’s request for support in instances when facing resistance from consumers who did not understand the need for RESs to collect information for PMLPFTF compliance. To this end, CEA has published a Consumer’s Guide to Due Diligence Checks, which RESs can share with clients and unrepresented counterparties to explain why certain information must be collected as part of the updated anti-money laundering measures.

In addition, CEA issued a revised Guide on the PMLPFTF Regulations, which provides additional details on complying with the updated obligations. The revised Guide also included useful resources such as compliance checklists, sample forms, and templates for EAs and RESs.

These resources, as well as the materials for the industry briefings conducted in the second half of 2025, are available on the CEA website.

Information accurate as at 24 April 2026