What waiting changes
| What | Range | What moves it |
|---|---|---|
| Buying electric | Up to $30,000 in 2026 Up to $20,000 in 2027 | The registration date is what counts. The most you can save off the ARF drops from $30,000 for a car registered in 2026 to $20,000 in 2027. The EV Early Adoption Incentive, worth up to $7,500, ends on 31 December, and the top Vehicular Emissions Scheme rebate is lower in 2027. |
| The Cat A and Cat B merger | $15,000 off to $15,000 more | The model's median OMV. The merger has no start date. LTA plans to share its findings and recommendations by mid-2027, and only cars in the lower bands would get money off. |
| A COE price swing between two exercises | $16,888 for Cat B in late 2025 | Demand against the quota. COE prices can move more in a fortnight than any rebate on the table. Cat B fell $16,888 between two exercises in late 2025. |
| A COE that is about to expire | The PQP for your category | The car's condition. If your current car's COE is about to expire, you're on a deadline, so start with the renew, scrap or export sums. |
Cat A COEs closed at $132,004 on 21 October 2026, $1,005 below the record set in September, and two dates are coming up: the EV Early Adoption Incentive ends on 31 December, and LTA expects to share its findings on merging Cat A and Cat B by mid-2027. Whether waiting saves you anything depends on the car. For an electric car, the registration date alone is worth up to $10,000. For most other buyers, there's no reliable way to know where COE prices go next.
The EV Early Adoption Incentive ends on 31 December 2026
The EV Early Adoption Incentive (EEAI) takes 45% off the Additional Registration Fee, capped at $7,500, for electric cars registered in 2026. LTA stops it from 1 January 2027. The Vehicular Emissions Scheme carries on until 31 December 2027, with rebates for electric cars only, and the $0 ARF floor for electric cars stays until then too. Put together, LTA says an electric car registered in 2026 can save up to $30,000 off the ARF, against up to $20,000 for one registered in 2027.
When LTA announced this change in September 2025, it wrote: "We expect a short-term increase in COE prices." A year-end rush to register electric cars could add bids in the November and December exercises, particularly in Cat A, where electric cars up to 110kW are bid. How big that effect is, and whether it has already played out, is impossible to tell from the results so far.
Should you wait for the Cat A and Cat B merger?
If the model you want is in one of LTA's rebate bands, a merger could take $7,500 or $15,000 off your COE, depending on the model and on which option LTA picks. The Toyota Sienta, Honda Jazz and BYD Atto 3 are among them. A top-band model such as the Tesla Model Y RWD or Toyota Alphard would pay $15,000 more. Our guide has every model LTA placed.
Two things make it a shaky reason to delay. There's no start date: feedback closes on 2 November 2026, LTA plans to share its findings and recommendations by mid-2027, and a change this big would likely need time to set up after that. And COE prices move by more than $15,000 on their own. Cat A went from $85,000 on 5 February 2025 to $128,105 on 8 October 2025, while Cat B dropped from $131,889 on 23 October 2025 to $115,001 on 5 November 2025. One expensive round could cancel a rebate you waited months for.
Will COE prices drop in 2027?
Nobody can say with confidence, us included. The quota rules do tell you how supply behaves, though.
Each quarter's quota is mostly a quarter of the COEs freed up by cars deregistered over the previous 12 months, so supply follows scrappings slowly. LTA has also been pulling supply forward. Since May 2023 it has brought forward COEs from cars due to expire in a future peak, and since February 2025 it has been adding up to about 20,000 extra COEs across categories over several years. When those brought-forward cars are finally scrapped, their COEs don't go back into the pool, because they've already been handed out (LTA's quota notes spell this out). For November 2026 to January 2027, all of that adds up to flat Cat A supply at 7,134 and 3.3% more for Cat B. Our quota report breaks down the numbers.
On the demand side, 1,574 bids chased 1,191 Cat A COEs on 21 October. LTA has also said its review of the car categories isn't about prices, which demand and supply will keep setting. Track every round on our COE results page.
Your COE is running out: what waiting costs
If you already own a car and its COE expires in the next few months, you have three options and a deadline. You can renew for 5 or 10 years at the PQP, scrap or export the car and collect what's due, or replace it.
Renewing gives up the PARF rebate for good, and road tax rises once a car passes 10 years, so the car's condition decides a lot. A gearbox or suspension job that's due soon can turn a sensible renewal into an expensive one. Our COE renewal guide has this month's PQP, the 5 or 10 year checklist covers what to inspect first, and renewal vs scrapping runs the other side of the sums.
If you decide to buy now
- Check the COE category of the exact version you're buying. Many electric cars sit close to the 110kW line, and a different trim can put the same model in Cat B.
- Plan around the bidding dates: 2 to 4 November, 16 to 18 November, 7 to 9 December and 21 to 23 December. After 18 November there's a three-week gap.
- Buying used? Get an independent pre-purchase inspection before you pay, so you know what the car is likely to need over the years left on its COE.
When to come and see us
Weighing a renewal against a new car? Tell us on WhatsApp what you drive and when its COE runs out, and we'll go through the numbers with you. We're at Synergy @ KB, #03-38, 25 Kaki Bukit Road 4.
Sources
- LTA and NEA, extension of the VES and EEAI to support vehicle electrification, news release, 8 September 2025
- LTA, COE quota for November 2026 to January 2027, news release, October 2026
- LTA DataMall, COE bidding results
