Detailed information about certificate of entitlement (COE) to own vehicle in Singapore is available at LTA website.

Important terms and definition

• Bid, $1 increment
• ‘Reserved price’ (RP), is the max bid by user
• ‘Current COE price’ (CCP) is the current bid price
• Quota premium (QP) is final CCP of the bidding exercise
• Successful bidders, are whom reserve price (RP) >= QP
• Deposit is the amount needed to bid COE, now at $10k for cat a, b, c, and e, whereas $200 for cat d.
• Administrative fee for COE bid is non-refundable $2 to 10 per exercise (charged by participating banks, e.g. DBS, OCBC, UOB, Maybank).
• Prevailing quota premium (PQP) is a 3-month rolling average of QPs used to expiring COE of existing cars
• COE rebate is pro-rated COE price if deregistration is carried out before expiration
• Vehicle quota system (VQS) is the available quota for the COE bidding exercise

Two main types of bidders

• Personal entity

Personal entity describe buyers who want to own vehicle for personal use.

• Commercial entity

Commercial entity includes private-hire company (e.g. Uber), biz companies like taxi, car dealers, etc.

Is there an advantage to the commercial entity as compared to personal entity?

Summary of procedure

1. Bidders give ‘reserved price’ (RP)
2. System raise ‘current COE price’ (CCP) by $1 increment
3. When CCP > RP, bidder is eliminated
4. CCP keeps rising until number of bidders remaining, i.e. with RP >= CCP, equals VQS
5. Fittest survive