Singapore COE Price: Current Rates, Categories, and What Drives the Numbers

COE prices in Singapore regularly break S$100,000 — more than many people earn in a year. If you're watching the numbers and trying to make sense of what's happening in 2026, here is a clear breakdown of current prices, how they're determined, and why the market has produced a rare anomaly this year.

Current COE Prices by Category (February 2026)

The Certificate of Entitlement system divides vehicles into five categories. Each category trades separately with its own supply quota and bidding pool.

The headline story in early 2026: Category A has overtaken Category B. This is historically unusual. Normally, luxury and larger-engined cars (Cat B) command higher premiums than mass-market cars (Cat A). The reversal reflects sustained demand from families buying practical cars and the LTA's decision to raise the Cat A threshold from 97kW to 110kW — drawing more electric vehicles like the BYD Atto 3 into the Cat A pool and intensifying competition there.

How the COE Price Is Set

COE premiums are not fixed by the government. They emerge from a uniform-price open bidding system run twice a month.

The process works as follows. Each bidding exercise opens on a Monday at noon and closes the following Wednesday at 4pm. Participants — individuals, dealerships, and fleet operators — submit a reserve price: the maximum they're willing to pay. The system tracks the Current COE Price (CCP), which rises in S$1 increments as bidders drop out. When the number of willing bidders equals the available quota, the exercise closes. Every successful bidder pays the same strike price, regardless of what they actually bid.

The final price — the Quota Premium — is the highest losing bid plus S$1. This means one additional bidder being willing to go S$1 higher can move the entire market.

What Determines the Quota (Supply)

The supply side is set by the LTA based on the number of vehicle deregistrations over the preceding four rolling quarters. When more cars are scrapped or exported, the quota rises; when fewer leave the road, it shrinks. The LTA occasionally injects "cut-and-fill" quotas — bringing forward deregistrations from future quarters — to stabilise prices. This happened in late 2025 and early 2026.

For February to April 2026, the LTA slightly reduced supply by about 0.8% after a 1.5% increase in the previous quarter. These small quota shifts ripple directly into price.

The 2021–2026 Price Trend

Understanding where prices sit today requires context. COE premiums were below S$40,000 in 2020. Post-pandemic demand, global semiconductor shortages that reduced new car supply, and zero-growth quota periods for some categories drove prices above S$100,000 by late 2022. Prices stabilised above the six-figure mark through 2024 and 2025.

The 2026 picture is shaped by two new forces. First, Budget 2026 drastically cut PARF rebates — the cash-back value when a car is scrapped — reducing the future "paper value" of new cars. Second, the EEAI electric vehicle incentive drops to zero in 2027, creating urgency among EV buyers in 2026.

Neither of these factors directly suppresses COE prices. Demand for Cat A in particular remains high because families still need practical cars, and the effective cost of car ownership has risen rather than fallen.

COE Car vs. New Car: What Category Applies

A "COE car" is a vehicle older than ten years whose owner has paid the Prevailing Quota Premium (PQP) to renew entitlement. It does not rebid for a COE — it pays the PQP at the time of renewal. The category that applied when the car was originally registered determines its renewal category.

When buying a used car with remaining COE, the key number is the original registration date and category, not the current bidding price. The COE premium embedded in the car's price reflects what was paid when new, discounted by how many years remain.

Why the Price Trend Is Hard to Predict

Several factors create genuine unpredictability:

Seasonal patterns are the most reliable signal. COE premiums have historically dipped around Chinese New Year (January and February) when showroom traffic drops. February 2026 did show a modest softening before prices partially recovered.

Policy announcements move markets sharply. Budget 2026's PARF changes were announced in February and created immediate shifts in buyer behaviour — owners of pre-February 2026 cars now hold a higher-value asset relative to newer cars.

PHV (private hire vehicle) fleet demand is a commonly cited price driver, but data from early 2026 shows leasing companies winning less than 10% of COEs — their influence has diminished compared to 2021-2022.

The honest position for any buyer: prices can be contextualised but not reliably forecast quarter by quarter. The more productive question is whether the numbers work for your situation regardless of small fluctuations.

What This Means If You're Buying

The Cat A vs. Cat B anomaly has one practical implication: buyers who would have stretched to Cat B cars for historical prestige or residual value assumptions should recalculate. At similar or lower premiums, Cat B cars are not necessarily a worse deal — but the spread has narrowed significantly.

For anyone working through the complete buy/renew/scrap decision, the Singapore COE Navigator walks through the full framework: depreciation calculations under the new PARF rules, the 5-year vs. 10-year renewal maths, and how current PQP levels affect the break-even point for renewal vs. scrapping.

Get the Singapore COE Navigator

The Bottom Line

Cat A COE currently sits at S$106,501, Cat B at S$105,001, and Cat E (used as a proxy for Cat B by dealers) at S$112,890. The cross-over of Cat A above Cat B is the defining market feature of early 2026. Supply is governed by quarterly deregistration volumes, and the LTA injects occasional quota adjustments to manage price volatility. Predicting where prices go next is hard; understanding exactly how your purchase decision pencils out at today's levels is the tractable problem.