COE quota to drop by 1% for February to April period

The supply of Certificates of Entitlement (COE) for the February to April period will drop by 1 per cent compared to the previous quarter, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said on Thursday (Jan 22).

The total number of COEs will fall slightly to 18,824, down from 18,894 from November 2025 to January 2026 period, which saw a 1.5 per cent increase.

Compared with the last quarter, the quota for Categories A and E will decrease by around 1 and 13 per cent respectively, while the quota for Categories B and C will increase by around 1.5 per cent and 3 per cent respectively.

The quota for Category D will remain unchanged.

LTA added that bidding under the new quota will begin on Feb 2.

The COE quota for the bidding period of May to July 2026 will be announced in April.

The upcoming COE quota consists of the following components:

• 25 per cent of the replacement COEs from vehicles deregistered in the 12-month period from January to December 2025.
• Provision for 0.25 per cent per annum growth for Category C based on the Category C vehicle population as at Dec 31, 2025.
• Adjustments for changes in the taxi population, expired temporary COEs, early turnover for commercial vehicles, redistribution from guaranteed deregistrations for Category A, B and Category D and injection of additional COEs. 

In October 2024, LTA announced that up to 20,000 more COEs will be released across all vehicle categories progressively.

The regulator added that the increase is possible after studying "evolving" travel patterns in recent years, along with its ability to manage congestion through ERP 2.0. 

COE prices rose across all categories, except for Categories C and E, in the second COE bidding exercise for January 2026.

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editor@asiaone.com