How long is a COE valid?
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Ten years from the date of vehicle registration. After that, you can either de-register the vehicle or pay the Prevailing Quota Premium to extend the COE for another five or ten years.
Can I renew my COE after ten years?
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Yes. At the end of the ten-year term you can pay the Prevailing Quota Premium (PQP) to extend the COE for either five or ten more years. The PQP is the moving three-month average of the relevant category's premiums. Renewing for five years is final, the vehicle cannot be renewed again. Renewing for ten years is renewable.
Why are COE prices so high?
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The headline reason is supply: the quota for new COEs is tied to how many vehicles were de-registered in the prior year, and Singapore's population of older cars has been low for years. Demand is structural: Singapore is small, dense, and relatively wealthy. When supply tightens at the same time as demand stays firm, premiums climb. Two policy changes have eased the squeeze recently: the May 2022 EV reclassification from Cat A to Cat B, and the Feb 2025 quota injection of roughly 20,000 extra COEs over five years.
What does PQP mean?
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Prevailing Quota Premium. It is the price you pay to renew an expiring COE for another five or ten years. PQP is calculated as the moving average of the previous three months of premiums in your vehicle's COE category, so it lags the live bidding numbers but tracks them closely.
When are COE bidding exercises held?
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Twice a month, almost always in the first and third weeks. Each exercise opens on a Monday morning and closes on the following Wednesday afternoon at 4 pm Singapore time. LTA publishes the schedule for each half year in advance.
How is the COE premium calculated?
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Bidders submit sealed bids during the open bidding window. When bidding closes, all successful bidders pay the same premium: the lowest bid that still secured a COE. So if the quota is 1,000 and the 1,000th-highest bid was S$95,000, every winning bidder pays S$95,000 regardless of what they actually bid. That uniform-price design is meant to discourage strategic over-bidding.
What's the difference between Cat A and Cat B?
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Cat A is for cars up to 1,600cc and 130bhp. Cat B is for cars above either threshold, plus electric cars whose rated power output exceeds 110kW. In practice, mass-market petrol and small hybrid models compete in Cat A, while large luxury cars and most modern EVs compete in Cat B.
Why did electric cars move from Cat A to Cat B?
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From May 2022, EVs are classified by their rated motor power output rather than engine displacement. The threshold is 110kW: anything above that goes into Cat B, anything at or below stays in Cat A. Most modern EVs comfortably exceed 110kW, so the bulk of new EV registrations now sit in Cat B. The change moved EVs out of competition with small petrol cars and into the same pool as the larger combustion models they typically replace.