Abstract. Let f : M → N be a generic smooth map with corank one singularities between manifolds, and let S(f ) be the singular point set of f . We define the self-intersection class I(S(f )) ∈ H * (M ; Z) of S(f ) using an incident class introduced by Rimányi but with twisted coefficients, and give a formula for I(S(f )) in terms of characteristic classes of the manifolds. We then apply the formula to the existence problem of fold maps.