Written Reply to Parliamentary Question on Number of Persons Who Renounced Their Permanent Resident Status in the Last Three Years

Question:

Mr Seah Kian Peng: To ask the Minister for Home Affairs with regard to people who have renounced their permanent resident (PR) status (a) what are the numbers in 2019, 2020 and 2021 respectively; (b) whether the numbers of these three years are higher than those in the years before; and (c) what are the numbers and percentages of those who renounced their PR status after one year and five years, respectively.

Answer:

Mr K Shanmugam, Minister for Home Affairs and Minister for Law:

1.   Consistently, the number of Permanent Residents (PRs) who renounced their PR status annually has constituted less than 1% of the PR population. Between 2019 and 2021, an average of 2,590 PRs renounced their PR status annually. This was lower than the average of 4,270 PRs who renounced annually between 2016 and 2018.

2.   Of those who renounced their PR status between 2019 and 2021, less than 10% did so within the first five years of being a PR, and less than 0.5% did so within the first year of being a PR.