COE merger: which band would your car fall into?

If LTA merges Cat A and Cat B, the model you buy would decide whether you get up to $15,000 off your COE or pay up to $15,000 more. LTA's consultation paper places 30 models in bands using 2025 registrations, and it also says what could happen to cars already on the road when their owners renew.

Which band is my car in? LTA's full list

LTA calls the rebate and surcharge a fee-and-rebate, or "feebate", system, and it has put forward two ways to split cars. Option A uses three bands and Option B uses five; both run from a $15,000 rebate at the bottom to a $15,000 surcharge at the top, so two buyers could end up $30,000 apart on the same COE.

Option A: three bands

Option B: five bands

Because the surcharge starts at the median, roughly half of 2025's registrations would have paid extra under either option. That includes cars rated to fit Cat A today: the Tesla Model 3 RWD 110 sits in a surcharge band under both options. The Volvo EX30 appears in its 110kW form too, right at the Cat A power limit for electric cars, but in the rebate bands. And LTA's paper picks the Tesla Model Y as its example of one model that can land in Cat A or Cat B depending on its power rating. Power would stop mattering under the proposal; LTA puts the Model Y RWD in the top band.

The list isn't complete, and it would change. If the merger goes ahead, LTA says it would:

• work out each model's median OMV from past registrations, or use a stand-in, such as the car's own OMV, for a new model with no history
• set the band cut-offs from the previous year's registrations and review them every year
• publish every model's band, so you'd know the rebate or surcharge before choosing a car
• let car retailers appeal a band they think is wrong

What the bands would mean in dollars

Nobody knows what a merged COE would close at. LTA says the change isn't meant to move overall COE prices, which demand and supply would still set. So treat this as an illustration: suppose the merged COE closed at $130,000, roughly where Cat A and Cat B both sat through October 2026.

Set that against the 21 October 2026 exercise. Cat A, where Sienta and Jazz buyers bid, closed at $132,004. Cat B, where Alphard buyers bid, closed at $131,901, so the Sienta buyer paid $103 more for a COE than the Alphard buyer that round.

LTA says the $15,000 figure took reference from the historical gap between Cat A and Cat B. Going by LTA's bidding results, Cat B averaged $27,263 above Cat A across the rounds of 2023, $13,235 in 2024 and $17,835 in 2025, but only $3,375 in 2026 so far. At $30,000 from the bottom band to the top, the spread would be wider than the average gap in any of those years.

Already own a car? What LTA says about renewals

Renewing a COE today costs the Prevailing Quota Premium (PQP) for your category, the average COE price over the last three months. A merged category would have one COE price and one PQP.

Because Cat A and Cat B prices have converged, LTA's paper says owners in both categories already pay broadly similar PQPs, so the rebate and surcharge may not need to apply to renewals at all. November 2026's PQPs for Cat A and Cat B are less than $2,000 apart.

If your COE runs out in the next year, plan on today's rules. LTA hasn't set a start date for any change, and it says the November 2026 to January 2027 COE quota isn't affected by the review. That's part of why waiting until 2027 to buy is a harder call than it looks. Our COE renewal guide covers the PQP sums and the 5 or 10 year choice, and renewal vs scrapping works through the other route. Either way, have the car checked before you pay for another five or ten years of it.

Why engine size stopped working as a dividing line

Since 2014, LTA has split cars by engine size and power. An electric car's power is set largely by software, so a maker can rate a pricier model to fit under the Cat A line. More buyers then compete for Cat A, and the gap with Cat B closes. Cat A finished above Cat B in four rounds of 2026: the second exercises of February, April, June and October.

LTA looked at other ways to tell a mass-market car from a premium one and turned two of them down. Selling prices can be shaped by discounts, trade-in deals and financing, which would need extra rules to police. Size doesn't track value either, and the paper points out that a luxury sports car can be smaller than a family MPV. LTA prefers OMV because it's declared to Customs at import, with action taken against false declarations, and it already sets the ARF. Taking each model's median smooths out swings from exchange rates and sourcing.

What would happen to Cat E

Cat E can register any car, goods vehicle or bus, and most of its COEs go to Cat B cars today. After a merger it would serve only the new car category and Cat C, and LTA expects cars would keep taking it at the expense of Cat C. Some focus group participants wanted Cat E scrapped. LTA's alternative is to keep it for cars only, so a buyer who needs a car urgently still has a route, since a Cat E temporary COE won by an individual can be transferred.

Ideas LTA heard but isn't consulting on

The paper also answers five ideas raised in LTA's focus groups, though it isn't asking for views on them. LTA thinks pay-as-you-bid, where each winner pays their own bid, wouldn't change prices much, because most bids already cluster around the clearing price. A separate category for private hire cars would take COEs out of Cat A and B, and getting its size wrong would push up either fares or everyone else's COE prices.

It doesn't see multiple-car owners as a main driver of demand, so a surcharge on them is unlikely to do much. Allocating COEs by family need would mean hard calls about whose need comes first, LTA says, and a family's circumstances can change over a COE's 10 years. Some people wanted dealers kept out of COE bidding altogether. LTA would sooner make it easier for individuals to bid for themselves: it is working on letting them submit their first bid online and reviewing the bid fees, and it is looking at ways to make dealers publish car prices without the COE.

How to give feedback by 2 November

Submit through go.gov.sg/coe-pcd-feedback by 11.59pm on Monday, 2 November 2026. LTA is asking whether Cat A and B should merge, whether median OMV is the right basis, whether you'd prefer three bands or five, whether the rebate and surcharge should apply to renewals, and what should happen to Cat E. Our news report on the proposal has the background, and Cat A vs Cat B explains today's rules.

When to come and see us

Deciding whether to renew, replace or wait while LTA makes up its mind? Send us your car model and COE expiry date on WhatsApp. We'll check the car over and lay out the numbers. We're at Synergy @ KB, #03-38, 25 Kaki Bukit Road 4. Latest prices are on our COE results page.