When Does Your COE Expire? How to Check, What Happens Next
Ask a car owner in Singapore when their COE expires and you’ll get one of two answers: a precise date, or a vague “around 2029 sometime.” The second answer is more common than it should be, because that date sets up a decision worth tens of thousands of dollars — and the decision gets worse the later you make it.
Here’s how to pin it down and what to do with it.
The Basic Rule
A COE runs for ten years from the vehicle’s original registration date.
Not from when you bought the car. Not from when the COE was won at auction. From when the vehicle was first registered in Singapore. If you bought a five-year-old used car, you inherited the remaining five years of somebody else’s COE — the clock started long before you were involved.
So the expiry date is simply: first registration date + 10 years.
If the COE has been renewed before, the expiry runs from the end of the previous COE period — plus five or ten years depending on which renewal term was taken.
Where to Find the Date
Your vehicle log card. The authoritative source. It shows the original registration date and the COE expiry date directly. Available through the LTA’s digital services.
OneMotoring. Log in with Singpass and your vehicle details, including COE expiry, are listed.
Your insurance or road tax documents. These often reference the registration date, from which you can count forward ten years.
The dealer, if you’re buying. Any used car listing should state the COE expiry or the registration date. If a seller is vague about it, that’s worth a second look — remaining COE is a large part of what you’re paying for.
Once you have it, put it somewhere you’ll actually see it again. Our My Car tool stores your registration date and shows the countdown, and our free app goes further by sending reminders as the date approaches.
Why the Date Matters So Much
Two reasons, and they pull in opposite directions.
The ten-year PARF cliff. If you deregister before ten years, you get a PARF rebate. At ten years it becomes zero. This is a hard edge, not a gradual taper — miss it and thousands of dollars simply aren’t there.
The renewal decision needs lead time. Deciding whether to pay the PQP, and whether to take five years or ten, isn’t a same-week decision. You want to watch where prices are heading, get the car inspected, price up any work it needs, and possibly shop for a replacement. That’s months, not days.
Owners who discover their expiry date six weeks out end up taking whichever option is fastest rather than whichever is best.
What Happens If It Lapses
A COE that expires without being renewed means the vehicle can no longer legally be used on the road. It isn’t a fine-and-carry-on situation — the car’s entitlement to exist as a registered vehicle has ended.
You’re then expected to deregister it. Leaving a car sitting with an expired COE doesn’t preserve anything: the PARF rebate is already gone at that point, the COE rebate is zero because there’s no unused time left, and you may be accruing obligations on a vehicle you can’t drive.
There is generally a short window around expiry in which renewal can still be arranged, but relying on it is a bad plan. Treat the expiry date as a deadline, not a suggestion, and confirm the current grace arrangements with the LTA rather than assuming.
A Sensible Timeline
Working backwards from the expiry date:
12 months out — start paying attention. Note the date. Begin watching COE price trends, since the PQP you’ll pay is a moving average of recent rounds and you want a feel for its direction.
6 months out — get the numbers. Run the renewal calculator for the 5-year and 10-year cost, and the rebate calculator for what you’d receive if you deregistered instead. Now you have a real comparison rather than a hunch.
6 months out — assess the car honestly. Get it inspected. A car that needs $8,000 of work to be worth keeping changes the maths entirely. This is the input people most often skip.
3 months out — decide. Renew, or deregister. If deregistering, start getting scrap and export quotes; if renewing, make sure funds are in place.
1 month out — execute. Whichever way you’ve gone, do the paperwork with room to spare.
If You’re Buying a Used Car
The expiry date is the single most important number in the listing — arguably more important than the mileage.
A car with two years of COE left is a fundamentally different purchase from the same model with seven years left, and the price gap between them should reflect that. You’re buying two things bundled together: a vehicle, and a block of remaining COE time. Our guide on how many years of COE to look for works through how to think about that trade-off.
Whatever the listing says, verify the registration date on the log card yourself before money changes hands.
The Bottom Line
Your COE expiry date is first registration plus ten years, it’s on your log card, and it drives the largest single decision in owning the car. The PARF rebate disappears at exactly that ten-year mark, so the date is a financial cliff edge, not just an administrative one.
Find it today, write it down, and start the decision twelve months ahead rather than six weeks. Our My Car tool shows the countdown and estimated renewal cost from your registration date alone.
Our free app saves your car and sends reminders before your COE expiry — and before road tax and insurance fall due — so none of these dates arrive as a surprise.
This article is for general information only and is not financial advice. COE validity, grace periods and rebate rules are set by the LTA and can change; confirm your vehicle’s exact position with the LTA or your log card.
Related reading: What Is PQP? · Deregistering Your Car · COE Renewal vs Scrapping
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