COEs Not Registered to Vehicles After Successful Bids

Mr Gerald Giam Yean Song asked the Acting Minister for Transport (a) what is the number of COEs that were bid for but not used to register a vehicle in each of the past three years; (b) whether the current one-year COE validity period facilitates speculative bidding by dealers; and (c) whether the Ministry will consider shortening the validity period to three or six months to discourage front-running and moderate COE prices.

From 2022 to 2024, an average of about 650, or 1% of temporary Certificate of Entitlement (TCOEs) issued for successful bids were not used to register a vehicle within a year. The low proportion of TCOE expiry suggests that the dealers are not speculating and are bidding based on actual demand for Certificates of Entitlement (COEs).

TCOE validity periods are already shorter than one year across all COE categories, ranging from one month for Category D to six months for Categories A and B.