How Should Pilates Instructors Claim Studio Rental Expenses?

If you teach pilates in Somerset or at Raffles Place and hire studio space by the hour, IRAS treats those rental fees as deductible only when your employment status allows it and the session's purpose is to produce teaching income. The test is simple to state: the cost must have been incurred wholly and exclusively to produce your teaching income. For most freelance instructors, hourly studio hire clears that bar without difficulty.

The money involved is real. In 2026, hourly Pilates studio hire in central Singapore typically runs from S$35 to S$75 per session, and a full-day workshop space costs S$480. Claiming those costs correctly can make a meaningful difference to your tax bill each year.

Yet many instructors claim nothing, claim the wrong items, or discard the records the taxman may later ask for. The rules become workable once you know the boundaries. Key takeaways:

• Studio rental is deductible when it is wholly and exclusively for producing teaching income.
• Your business structure decides where the deduction is claimed.
• Keep invoices and booking records for at least five years.
• Self-practice and other private costs are usually not claimable.
• File your claim with your tax return by the 18 April deadline.

This guide explains when rental counts as a business expense, what you can and cannot claim, the records IRAS expects, and how your studio location and booking habits affect the paperwork. In this blog, we discuss how Pilates instructors in Singapore should claim studio rental expenses.

Can You Deduct Studio Rental When Teaching Pilates in Somerset?

Yes. Hourly studio rental is generally deductible when it is incurred wholly and exclusively to produce your teaching income.

According to the Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS), a self-employed person may deduct expenses that are wholly and exclusively incurred in producing business income. The underlying test comes from the Income Tax Act 1947: the expense must relate to the trade, must not be private or domestic, and must not be capital in nature. Studio hire for a paying client passes easily. Without the room, there is no lesson and no fee.

The grey areas matter just as much. A session that partly serves your own fitness has a weaker claim, because the cost is no longer exclusively for the trade. IRAS looks at the dominant purpose of each expense, so your records should show which bookings actually produced income.

In practice, two situations trip instructors up most often. The first is claiming self-practice hours as though they were client sessions. The second is claiming rental while employed by a studio, where different rules apply. Both are covered below.

How Does Your Business Structure Affect Your Claim?

The same rental receipt is claimed in different places depending on how you operate, so be clear on your structure before totalling expenses.

Registering a sole proprietorship takes minutes online, but it changes your entire filing position. If you are deciding between employment and freelancing, our page on renting to independent instructors explains how hourly co-share spaces support independent practices. The four common structures behave as follows.

1. Sole proprietorship

Most freelance instructors in Singapore teach as sole proprietors, registered with the Accounting and Corporate Regulatory Authority (ACRA). You declare trade income and allowable expenses in your personal return, typically Form B. The rental reduces income taxed at your personal rate.

2. Partnership

In a partnership, profits and expenses flow through to each partner's share. You claim the studio costs you personally paid that relate to the partnership's teaching income, in proportion to your agreement.

3. Private limited company

A company deducts the rental in its own corporate filing. The headline corporate tax rate is 17 percent in 2026, with partial exemptions for lower profit bands. As a director, you cannot also claim the same costs personally.

4. Employed instructor

If a studio employs you, rental paid from your own pocket is generally not deductible against your salary. Check whether your contract reimburses room hire before you absorb the cost yourself.

What Studio Rental Costs Can You Claim in 2026?

For self-employed instructors and companies, rental paid to deliver paid sessions or workshops is claimable as a business expense, from hourly Pilates slots to full-day workshop blocks. Employed instructors generally cannot deduct such rental against salary.

Not every line on your studio invoice behaves the same way. Here is how the common rental costs for 2026 shake out, using our own published rates as a working example. Pilates at Raffles Place and Somerset carries the same deductibility; only the room types and rates differ between branches.

1. Hourly studio hire for client sessions

Private studio hire is S$45 an hour, duet rooms are S$65 an hour at Somerset and Raffles Place, and the Raffles Place group room is S$75 an hour. All are deductible when a paying client is present.

2. Self-practice rates

Self-practice costs S$35 an hour at Somerset and Raffles Place. Purely personal fitness is not deductible, and only hours you can demonstrate were necessary to maintain teaching skills for paid students are likely to qualify. Document the purpose of each booking before claiming, and confirm your position with IRAS.

3. Membership plans and blocks

Prepaid credits are deductible when the credits are used to deliver paid teaching, not automatically on purchase. Our plans carry a six-month validity, so record purchase dates and how credits were used. Confirm the timing treatment with IRAS or a registered tax agent.

4. Workshop space hire

Workshop space runs S$80 an hour, S$280 for four hours or S$480 for a full eight-hour day in 2026. Hire for paid trainings and client workshops is deductible like any other business cost.

Which Expenses Will IRAS Not Allow?

Costs that are private, domestic or capital in nature are not deductible. The same test that allows your rental disallows personal spending.

Where instructors lose claims is mixing a genuine business cost with a private one. Separate the two from the start, and the annual claim becomes easy to defend.

Costs IRAS typically disallows include:

• Self-practice used purely for your own fitness
• Activewear and ordinary clothing, even if worn only to teach
• Travel between home and studio, which counts as a private commute
• Meals and personal phone plans
• A reformer or equipment purchase, which is capital expenditure rather than a deduction

What Records Should You Keep, and for How Long?

Keep invoices, booking confirmations and bank statements for at least five years, as IRAS requires; IRAS can generally raise an additional assessment up to four years after the relevant Year of Assessment.

For a studio renter, that means invoices, booking confirmations and the bank statements behind them, filed so you can find any given session quickly.

App-based bookings help here. Your booking history, receipts and cancellation records already timestamp each rental. Export them at year end rather than relying on the app staying accessible.

Match each rental to the income it produced where you can. A simple calendar of client sessions, cross-referenced with studio receipts, answers most queries before they are raised. The detail sits in IRAS guidance on record keeping requirements for businesses.

How Do You File the Claim With Your Tax Return?

Total your rental costs for the calendar year, then declare them as allowable business expenses against your trade income.

1. Confirm your status as a self-employed person or registered business before the year ends.
2. Total every deductible rental payment made in the calendar year, including no-show fees and excluding self-practice sessions that were purely for your own fitness; teaching-related self-practice hours may qualify if their purpose is documented. Add membership purchases only once you have confirmed their timing treatment, as noted in the membership section above.
3. Declare trade income and allowable expenses in your return. Sole proprietors with revenue not exceeding S$200,000 may report a two-line statement; revenue above that threshold requires a four-line statement.
4. E-file by 18 April of the following year. Income earned across 2026 is reported in the Year of Assessment 2027.
5. Keep all supporting documents for five years in case IRAS queries the claim.

Two adjacent rules are worth knowing. GST registration becomes compulsory only when taxable turnover exceeds S$1 million — the rate stands at 9 percent in 2026. Once registered, you may claim input tax on studio rental if you hold a valid tax invoice and the rental relates to taxable supplies. Separately, self-employed persons with net trade income above S$6,000 make compulsory MediSave contributions. Verify the current figures with the CPF Board before filing.

Teaching in Somerset or Raffles Place: What Changes?

The tax rules do not change by postcode, but your costs and hours do, and those feed directly into your annual claim.

At 111 Somerset, five minutes from Somerset MRT Exit A, operating hours run 9am to 6pm on weekdays and 9am to 1pm on Saturdays, with the studio closed on Sundays. Plan recurring bookings around those hours so your rental pattern matches your teaching pattern.

The Raffles Place studio, in Grand Building on Phillip Street, runs 7am to 10pm seven days a week and is the only branch with a dedicated group room. Instructors running teacher training there often combine studio slots with our page on renting for workshop space, since full-day blocks change the arithmetic of a claim.

Wherever you teach, app bookings keep the paper trail clean. You can cancel up to one hour before a session without penalty, and every confirmed slot generates a receipt. Our three locations and their equipment lists are on our locations page, and the Raffles Place wellness space rental and Somerset wellness space rental pages cover what each branch includes.

Conclusion

Studio rental is one of the cleanest deductions an independent instructor has, provided the cost serves your teaching income and the paperwork holds together. Claim every hour you genuinely paid to deliver sessions, keep five years of records, and keep private costs out of the claim.

Your structure decides where the deduction lands: a personal return for sole proprietors, corporate filing for companies, and usually nothing for employees. File by the April deadline, and check borderline items with IRAS or a registered tax agent before submitting.

Mind & Movement rents fully equipped Pilates and movement studios by the hour at Orchard, Raffles Place and Somerset, with app bookings that issue a receipt for every session. Message us on WhatsApp to view a studio or ask about recurring weekly slots.

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The Mind & Movement editorial team writes practical guides for independent therapists, instructors and wellness practitioners running their own practice from a rented space in Singapore, covering rooms and studios, locations, bookings and the day-to-day of building a practice.

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