A 4 room BTO renovation starts at S$7,390 for a move-in scope and rises to S$16,990 once the floors go in.
Nine and a half thousand dollars sits between those two numbers, and almost all of it is one measurement. Seven hundred square feet.
Key Takeaways
- Move-in scope is S$7,390. Bare unit with tiles is S$16,990. The difference is floors.
- The bare unit tier lays 700 square feet of tiling, at 600x600 tiles priced $3.00/sqft or lower.
- Resale with full hacking is S$36,990.
- Both bathrooms are a separate S$10,290 line on BTO scopes.
- Every price here links to its product page. Open them and check the scope yourself.
The Number That Explains the Price Gap
Ask any contractor for their tiled area in square feet before you ask for their price. It is the fastest way to find out whether two quotations are describing the same job.
| Flat | Tiled area in the bare unit tier | Package | From |
|---|---|---|---|
| 3-room | smallest of the three | Bare Unit, vinyl | S$12,990 |
| 4-room | 700 sqft | Bare Unit, tiles | S$16,990 |
| 5-room | 800 sqft | Bare Unit, tiles | S$18,990 |
A hundred square feet in either direction is roughly two thousand dollars of tiling and labour. That is the shape of this market, and it is why a cheaper quote is often just a smaller one.
Is Your Flat BTO or Resale?
A BTO flat has sound surfaces and modern services behind the walls, so every dollar goes into adding. A resale flat pays to remove first and add second, and removal means debris, haulage and days on site before anything new appears.
There is a middle case that catches people out. A flat bought on the open market that is only five or six years old often needs no hacking at all, yet it is still a resale purchase. Price it on the condition of the surfaces, not on the label of the transaction.
Are the Floors Already Down?
In a new flat this depends on a box ticked at the flat selection appointment. Bedroom and living-area flooring is an optional component, so two neighbours on the same landing can collect keys to genuinely different flats.
You can settle it without a site visit. Open your flat selection paperwork and find the flooring line. That single document decides a nine-thousand-dollar difference and it is already in a folder you own.
What a 4 Room BTO Renovation Package Includes
Across both BTO tiers the constant is the kitchen and the paint. Every 4 room BTO renovation package here builds the kitchen run, paints the whole flat, and carries project management, on-site supervision, material consultation, 3D rendering and technical drawings inside the quoted price rather than as extras billed later.
What changes between tiers is the floor. Nothing else moves much, and that is the single most useful thing to know before you read anyone's quotation.
It also tells you where to push back. If a quote for a 4 room HDB renovation is materially higher than ours and the kitchen run is still 10ft, the extra is either in tile grade, in carpentry beyond the kitchen, or in nothing at all. Ask which.
Move-In at S$7,390
The 4rm Move-In BTO Package, Most Popular tier, is S$7,390. It makes the flat liveable and deliberately does not touch your floors.
Scope: a 10ft run of top and bottom kitchen cabinets with a tier 1 quartz countertop and the concrete base under it, an internal white carcass with ABS trimmings, soft-close hinges, laminate finish up to $60 per piece and three drawers. Then a sink and tap, a storage heater tank, a hood point with switch, and whole-house painting in Nippon Vinilex with up to four colours.
Included at no cost: a Rinnai hood, a two-burner hob, the sink, the tap and a 15-litre storage heater tank.
Worth being clear about what this tier deliberately leaves alone. Your bedroom and living-room floors stay exactly as HDB handed them over. If you took the flooring option at booking, that is the right outcome and you should not pay to redo it. If you did not, this is the wrong tier and the next one is where you belong.
Bare Unit at S$16,990 and the 700 Square Feet
The 4rm Bare Unit BTO Package with tiles is S$16,990 and contains everything above plus the line that costs the money.
The product page is unusually specific here. It commits to laying floor tiles across the living, dining and bedroom areas to 700sqft, skirtings free, using 600x600 tiles at $3.00 per square foot or lower including GST.
That is worth reading twice. The tile price is stated, the area is stated, and the skirtings are free. When a competing quotation gives you none of those three, you are not comparing prices. You are comparing confidence.
How Does a 4 Room HDB Renovation Compare to a 5-Room?
The 5-room bare unit tier lays 800 square feet and costs S$18,990. The 4-room lays 700 and costs S$16,990.
A hundred square feet, two thousand dollars. The tiers are not priced by prestige. They are priced by area, and once you see that, the whole range stops looking arbitrary.
This is also the fastest sanity check on any quotation you are holding. Divide the tiling line by the square footage it covers. If the result lands far from three dollars a square foot and the tile grade is the same, something else is buried in that number, and you are entitled to ask what.
4 Room Resale Renovation Package Tiers
Stand in an empty resale flat and tap the floor tiles with a knuckle. A hollow, drummy sound means the bed underneath has let go, and new vinyl laid over it will not fix that. A solid sound means the substrate is fine and hacking would be spending for its own sake.
That knuckle test is the honest way to choose between the resale tiers, and it costs nothing.
Two other signs point the same way. Grout that has gone dark and soft in the wet areas usually means water has been sitting under the surface for a while. Tiles that sound fine but sit unevenly underfoot mean the screed has moved. Either of those is a reason to hack; a dated colour scheme on a sound floor is not.
Hacking at S$36,990: What Comes Out First
The 4rm Whole House Resale Package with hacking is S$36,990, and the product page is specific about what is removed.
- Living, dining and bedroom floor tiles, storeroom included.
- Kitchen floor and wall tiles, the kitchen cabinet, and the sink or stove support up to 5ft.
- Both toilets, floor and wall tiles, including the sanitary fittings, the piping and the door.
Read that third line carefully, because it is the one that changes your maths. On this tier the toilets are already inside the price. On a BTO scope they are not.
That single difference is why a resale number and a BTO number should never be compared side by side without adjusting. A resale package that includes two full toilets is not thirty thousand dollars more expensive than a S$7,390 move-in scope. It is a different job on a different flat, with the wet works already counted in. Read the S$36,990 hacking scope line by line and you will see them.
Where the 2 Toilet Renovation Package Sits
Every 4-room flat has two bathrooms. On the resale hacking tier they are covered. On the BTO tiers they are a separate line.
For a BTO flat, both bathrooms come to S$10,290 with the overlay package: tile overlay to floors and walls in both, up to 250 square feet each, water point extensions, and installation of everything that goes in.
Supplied free with it: two WCs, two bidet sets, two basins with mixer taps, two rainshower columns with mixers, and a 15-litre storage heater.
Why Overlay Is Not the Cheap Option on a New Flat
On a new flat overlay is not a saving. For a while it is the only lawful method.
HDB applies a "3-year restriction period" to every newly built flat, and what it restricts is taking out the finishes on bathroom and toilet floors and walls. Until that ends, hacking those tiles is not a budget decision you get to make.
So a BTO owner taking the S$10,290 overlay scope is not economising. They are buying the compliant one, and it happens to cost less.
What These Packages Do Not Include
This section is worth more than a second reading of the price list. It is also the part most quotations leave out.
- Kitchen cabinetry is quoted at 10ft. A longer run costs more.
- Toilet tiling is capped at 250 square feet per bathroom, and tile sizes outside the standard range carry an additional cost.
- Shower kerbs and drop kerbs are not in the two-toilet overlay package.
- Wardrobes, TV consoles and bedroom desk carpentry are not in any of these tiers.
- Durations and warranty terms are not printed on the product pages. Get both into the contract in writing before you pay a deposit.
The Electrical Points HDB Wants a Permit For
Most of what these packages install needs no permit. HDB publishes tables of electrical work that does not require one, adding that those works "are, however, subject to guidelines and conditions".
Where a permit does apply: HDB requires one for new 15amp power points serving air-conditioners or other higher-capacity appliances, in any flat that does not already carry higher electrical loading. Adding aircon points to an older 4-room resale flat is exactly that case.
Only a contractor in HDB's Directory of Renovation Contractors can submit on your behalf, and the owner stays liable for unauthorised work even if the contractor disappears.
How to Read Our Prices Against Anyone Else's
Compare scope, never headline numbers. Three questions expose most of the gap, and they all have numeric answers:
- How many feet of kitchen cabinet, top and bottom?
- How many square feet of tiling, and at what tile price per square foot?
- Are haulage, debris clearance and the chemical wash inside the number or outside it?
A quote that cannot answer those is not cheaper. It's unfinished, and the missing items return as variation orders once the flat is already stripped.
When to Start
Engage a contractor two to three months before key collection. Design, material orders and permit submissions run in parallel during that window, so physical work can begin the week the flat is yours.
Renovation cannot lawfully begin before handover, so the only thing you can pull earlier is the deciding. Our renovation sequence guide sets out the order works actually run in, and the drilling and renovation hours page covers when noisy work is permitted.
Paying for It
Renovation loans in Singapore are bank products, not an HDB scheme, and caps and rates move between lenders. We keep a separate comparison of current bank renovation loan rates rather than printing one figure here that would age badly.
Whatever you borrow, tie payment stages to work you can stand in the flat and verify. Ask what physical state the flat will be in at each payment point. If the answer is a date rather than a description, that's a schedule, not a milestone, and schedules slip.
Working With Us on a 4-Room Flat
RCS is an HDB Registered Renovation Contractor and a BCA-approved contractor, holding bizSAFE Level 3 certification and PMI membership, working on HDB flats since 2017 under Licence HB-11-5877Z. That licence number takes under a minute to check in HDB's directory, and you should check it for us and for everyone else quoting you.
If you know which tier applies, go straight to the 4-room BTO packages. If your flat is a resale, the hacking tier above is the one to read first.
Still Comparing
Sensible. Nobody should sign the second-largest cheque of their life in week one of looking. We'd rather you took another fortnight than regretted the deposit.
If what you need first is someone to check a scope or tell you whether a quotation in front of you is fair, that is a different conversation from appointing a contractor. You can have it at ai-deal.ai, where homeowners get their renovation questions reviewed without hiring anyone.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much is a 4 room BTO renovation in 2026?
A move-in package is S$7,390 and a bare unit package with tiles is S$16,990. A resale whole-house package with hacking is S$36,990. Both bathrooms are a separate S$10,290 line on BTO scopes. Every figure links to its product page above.
What does the extra S$9,600 between the two BTO tiers buy?
Floors. The bare unit tier lays 700 square feet of tiling across the living, dining and bedroom areas with free skirtings, using 600x600 tiles at $3.00 per square foot or lower. The kitchen run and the whole-house painting appear in both tiers.
Do the 4-room packages include both toilets?
The resale whole-house package with hacking includes both toilets, down to the sanitary fittings, piping and door. The BTO move-in and bare unit tiers do not, so both bathrooms are quoted separately at S$10,290 for the overlay package.
Can I hack my bathroom tiles in a new 4-room BTO?
Not in the first three years. A three-year restriction runs on every new flat, and bathroom floor and wall finishes are what it protects. Overlay is the compliant route until it lapses, which is why the overlay package exists at all.
How does a 4-room compare with a 5-room on price?
Mostly by area. The 5-room bare unit tier lays 800 square feet and costs S$18,990; the 4-room lays 700 and costs S$16,990. Roughly a hundred square feet accounts for two thousand dollars, so the range is priced by size rather than by prestige.
Do I need an HDB permit for the electrical work?
Some of it. HDB publishes tables of electrical work needing no permit, though those works stay subject to its guidelines. Installing new 15amp power points for air-conditioners in a flat without higher electrical loading does require one. A contractor in HDB's directory submits it for you.
Sources
- RCS product pages for every price quoted, linked inline at each figure. Verified 9 September 2026.
- HDB renovation guidelines, building works — the three-year restriction on removing bathroom wall and floor finishes.
- HDB renovation guidelines, electrical works — permit rules for 15amp power points and the no-permit tables.
Disclaimer: Prices in this 4 room BTO renovation guide are starting figures for the tiers named, verified against our product pages on 9 September 2026, and they may change. Your final quotation depends on your flat's condition, carpentry length, tile selection and final scope. Durations and warranty terms are confirmed in your contract, not on this page. HDB rules are summarised here with their sources linked; confirm current requirements with HDB before committing.
4-Room Projects and Estates We Cover
The tiers above are the same figures wherever your flat sits. These pages apply them to a named project or a specific estate, which is the faster read if yours is on the list.
- Kent Heights 4-room renovation
- Tampines GreenQuartz 4-room renovation
- ParkEdge @ Bidadari renovation
- 4-room BTO renovation in Hougang
- 4-room HDB renovation in Tampines
If your estate is not listed, the prices on this page still apply. Location changes the logistics of a job, not the tier you belong in.
