NUS — housing guide for new students

October 2026 intake · Suggested move-in: mid-September to early October 2026

NUS teaches across several campuses: Kent Ridge (the main one), Bukit Timah (Law and the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy) and Outram (medicine). This page works from Kent Ridge — check where your faculty sits before deciding where to live.

What this budget actually rents

There are not yet enough room-level rent samples within walking range of this campus for us to publish a stable range. The whole-unit figures below are actual private-residential lettings nearby, to gauge the area’s price level.

Whole-unit rents near campus

• Villa De West — 5-min walk · whole from S$3,950
• Village @ Pasir Panjang — 5-min walk · whole from S$4,000
• The Stellar — 5-min walk · whole from S$5,400
• Varsity Park Condominium — 5-min walk · whole from S$5,450
• Clementiwoods Condominium — 6-min walk · whole from S$3,150
• The Foliage — 7-min walk · whole from S$3,000

Whole-unit rents from URA rental contracts (25q4–26q3), middle 50% of contracts. A guide to the building, not a quote — room rents are a separate question.

Where the campus is, and the commute

The nearest MRT station to campus is Kent Ridge (CC Line), about a 19-minute walk. In Singapore what matters is the number of interchanges, not the distance on a map — the same 3 km is a very different journey direct versus with two changes. Every building page carries the actual public-transport route and time to campus.

Find housing near this school on the map →

Choosing the type of housing

• School / student accommodation: NUS has substantial campus housing, but rooms are applied for under the relevant academic-year process rather than automatically assigned. AY2026/27 application dates and rates are published; no durable public figure was found for the actual international-student allocation rate, so no percentage should be stated. The school’s own accommodation page (read 2026-08-22) →
• A private room: A room inside a private unit: Kent Ridge is a big campus with few private buildings inside walking range — most sit on the Pasir Panjang and Clementi sides. The internal shuttle and the Circle Line do most of the daily work.
• A whole unit, shared: Take a whole unit with classmates: whole units in the west are large and cheaper per square foot, with more choice for a group than closer to town.

Sharing a whole unit is not automatically cheaper than a single room, nor automatically dearer. What it buys is the whole place, roommates you chose, and more freedom in how you live. Whether it works out comes down to the headcount and the actual whole-unit rent at the time — your housing plan works that through for your case.

Areas worth looking at

• Pasir Panjang — The closest of these — a 4-minute walk · nearest tracked home ≈ 4-min walk to campus
• West Coast — An 8-minute walk, towards Clementi where the daily amenities are · nearest tracked home ≈ 8-min walk to campus
• Haw Par Villa — A 10-minute walk, on the Circle Line side for a more direct run into town · nearest tracked home ≈ 10-min walk to campus

Three traps to avoid first

• Read the lease before you pay anything. If someone wants a deposit before showing you the tenancy agreement, stop there.
• Getting your deposit back comes down to the move-in inventory — photograph every item on the day you move in.
• There is a legal cap on how many people may occupy a unit. Confirm it before sharing; do not just count bedrooms.

The full anti-scam checklist →

A housing plan for NUS

What you get is not a pile of listings but a plan you can decide from: for your school, your intake, your move-in date and your budget, it puts student accommodation, a private room and a shared whole unit side by side — rent, commute, lease term, utilities, the total for the year, the risks and a recommendation.

I’m a NUS student · get my housing plan · See a sample housing plan first →

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