Singapore Xero GST Rates: Which Codes Apply to Which Accounts (Free)

If Xero has ever refused a GST rate on an account in your Singapore organisation, this reference explains why, and which rates are actually valid on which accounts. It lists the Singapore Xero GST rates with the class flags Xero calls Available Account Types, so you can see at a glance why a rate is accepted on one account and refused on another.

The rule behind the error

It is not the individual account that decides which rates it accepts. It is the account’s class, checked against each rate’s Available Account Types. Every Singapore Xero rate is valid on some combination of five classes:

• Assets
• Equity
• Expenses
• Liabilities
• Revenue

Each account rolls up to one class (Direct Costs, Overhead, and Expense accounts are Expenses; Sales and Revenue are Revenue; Bank and Fixed Asset accounts are Assets, and so on). A rate is valid on an account only where that class is in its list. If it is not, Xero refuses it. The download shows the full Yes/No grid for the rates a Singapore business uses most.

Why a sales rate is refused on a cost account

This is the split that catches people. Standard-Rated Supplies is available on Revenue but not Expenses, so it only works on income accounts. Standard-Rated Purchases is the mirror image and only works on cost accounts. Xero lists the 9% rate twice for exactly this reason: to route output GST and input GST to the right boxes of the GST F5. The Available Account Types turn that into a hard rule, which is why you cannot put a supplies rate on a purchase line.

The Singapore rates that matter

• Standard-Rated Supplies and Standard-Rated Purchases: the 9% rate, income side and expense side.
• Zero-Rated Supplies / Zero-Rated Purchases: 0%, for exports, international services, and zero-rated buying.
• Exempt Purchases and Regulation 33 Exempt Supplies: financial services and residential property, where input recovery is limited.
• Disallowed Expenses: 9% charged but not claimable, for blocked input tax (private cars, clubs, medical) under Regulations 26 and 27.
• Imports: taxable supplies and Reverse charge: Taxable supply at 9%: imported goods cleared at Customs, and imported services you self-account for. Both read 0% on the line because Xero adds the 9% via the tax type for the F5.
• Out Of Scope Purchases / Out Of Scope Supplies: overseas services performed abroad, and sales of goods outside Singapore.
• No Tax: outside scope, for wages, transfers, and drawings.

An account has one default, but many valid rates

The account stores a single default rate, which prefills the transaction line, but across transactions it legitimately uses several, any valid for its class. A cost of goods account sees standard-rated local stock, Imports: taxable supplies on a Customs shipment, and the reverse charge on an offshore service. The default is the common case; the actual rate follows the place of supply and what was bought. That is why the chart of accounts pairs a default with the other rates used on each account.

This is a reference, not an import

Xero has no CSV import for tax rates; they arrive as your organisation’s Singapore defaults plus any you add. So this file is a reference for which rates are valid where, and a handy aid when migrating systems or building an integration. The flag values are Xero’s standard Singapore defaults; confirm against your own organisation, which may have custom rates.

How to use it

1. When a rate is refused, check the account’s class and whether that class is in the rate’s Available Account Types.
2. On a revenue account use a supplies rate; on a cost account use a purchases rate.
3. Pair this with the Singapore chart of accounts for Xero, which sets a sensible default per account and lists the other valid rates.

ExpenseFlow applies a valid Singapore rate for each supply as it reads a receipt or bill and posts it into Xero, including the blocked and reverse-charge cases, so you avoid the error at the line. On QuickBooks? See the Singapore QuickBooks GST codes reference.