Car loan curbs extended to individuals buying private-hire cars from 30 October; commercial vehicles and company-owned PHCs stay exempt

From Friday, 30 October 2026, individuals who buy cars registered as private-hire cars (PHCs) face the same loan limits as everyone else buying a private car, the Ministry of Transport, the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and other agencies announced in a joint release on Thursday, 29 October.

Under the rules, buyers of a car with an open market value (OMV) of $20,000 or less can borrow at most 70 per cent of the purchase price, which includes taxes and the certificate of entitlement (COE). For cars with an OMV above $20,000, the cap is 60 per cent. Loan tenure is limited to seven years in both cases. The limits apply to loans from financial institutions and licensed or exempt moneylenders, and also to hire-purchase and conditional sale agreements.

The curbs cover individual-owned PHC purchases where the sales agreement is signed on or after 30 October. Where there is no sales agreement, they apply if the COE is obtained on or after that date. The Straits Times and CNA reported that sole proprietors are treated as individuals under the new rules.

Until now, individual-owned PHCs were exempt because they were meant for commercial use. The authorities said that more private car buyers have been using the exemption with no intention of offering ride-hail services, pointing to a recent surge of about 500 individual-owned self-drive PHC registrations a month as a sign that some buyers wanted more generous financing. According to The Straits Times, Singapore had 98,621 private-hire cars at the end of September, up from 71,147 at the end of 2020.

The exemptions that matter most to fleet operators remain in place. Commercial vehicles, which MAS defines as goods vehicles (excluding goods-cum-passenger vehicles), omnibuses, school buses, private hire buses, excursion buses, private buses, engineering plants and taxis, are still outside the financing limits, as are PHCs owned by businesses and motorcycles.

The Government said it had also considered creating a separate COE category for private-hire and car-leasing companies, but decided against it because it would likely push up rentals for drivers and fares for passengers, and would need more prescriptive rules on PHC drivers and cars. It added that it will monitor the market, look at applying the same limits to other arrangements such as in-house loans, and work with platform operators on implementation. Grab told CNA it supports the change, saying industry-wide standards help protect drivers’ long-term livelihoods, while The Straits Times reported that dealers warned of higher costs for genuine drivers.

For drivers planning to buy their own PHC rather than rent from a fleet, the practical effect is a bigger down payment and a shorter repayment period. Rental and leasing companies that own their PHCs are not affected by the loan caps.

Source: Monetary Authority of Singapore joint media release, 29 October 2026 (with The Straits Times and CNA) — Read the original