We analyze the prospects for light neutralino dark matter in the minimal supersymmetric model extended by a $U(1)$ gauge group. We allow the neutralino to be an arbitrary admixture of singlet and doublet higgsinos, as well as of the three gauginos, and we require agreement with the data from the direct and indirect dark matter detection experiments, while maintaining consistency of the model with the relic density and with the recent Higgs data from the LHC. The constraints have implications for the structure of the lightest neutralino as a dark matter candidate, indicating that it is largely singlino, and its mass can be as light as $sim 20 $ GeV.