July 09, 2019, 11:16 AM 
In 2015, it was revealed that about one in every three marriages that year was between a Singapore citizen and a foreigner.
Some of these foreign spouses have also gone on to become permanent residents (PR) or even citizens.
Member of Parliament for Aljunied GRC Pritam Singh filed a question seeking clarity on this matter, seeking clarity on the following:
- How many non-Singaporean spouses have applied for PR?
- How many applications have been approved?
- Which countries are the successful applicants from, expressed as a percentage of the successful applicants?
Average success rate of 49%
On July 8, Minister for Home Affairs K Shanmugam said in a written reply that just under half the applications for permanent residency coming from foreign spouses are granted.
He said that from 2009 to 2018, the Immigration and Checkpoints Authority (ICA) received approximately 8,600 applications each year from foreign spouses of Singapore citizens applying for PR.
An average of 4,200 of these are granted each year, he added, with an average success rate of around 49 per cent.
Providing a further breakdown of this, Shanmugam added that 45 per cent of these successful applicants were from Southeast Asian countries, another 45 per cent were from other Asian countries, while the remaining 10 per cent were from non-Asian countries.
Related stories:
Top photo via iStock photo.
If you like what you read, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and Telegram to get the latest updates.