Companies can now only sell private-hire cars to individuals after 3 years: LTA

In a move to stabilise the supply of vehicles used to provide ride-hailing services, companies in Singapore will have to keep their private-hire cars designated for ride-hailing services for three years.

It is only after this period that these vehicles can be converted out of the scheme or be transferred to individuals.

The change in rules kicked in on Feb. 19, the Land Transport Authority (LTA) said.

LTA added that the three-year holding period ensures that companies that acquire such vehicles will predominantly lease them to drivers providing ride-hailing services.

Before this, there were no restrictions on such conversions, where businesses could convert the cars out of the chauffeured private-hire car scheme prematurely, which affected the supply of such cars providing point-to-point transport services.

This is different from taxis, which cannot be sold or converted as private cars.

Premature release of information

LTA added that it wanted to announce the new requirement after the certificate of entitlement (COE) bidding exercise on Feb. 19, but its vendor NCS made an unintended move of releasing the information.

The agency said this “should not have happened”.

The premature information disseminated led to some industry players being notified of this new lock-in period before the planned announcement.

The implementation was brought forward before the close of the COE bidding process to "ensure transparency and fairness for all stakeholders", LTA said.

The Straits Times reported that a screenshot of the notification already appeared at noon on Feb. 18.

With the change, the rule affects:

• vehicles that are registered by businesses as chauffeured private-hire cars,
• vehicles that were converted by businesses to function as chauffeured private-hire cars, as well as
• vehicles that were owned by individuals and transferred to companies as chauffeured private-hired cars.

Those not affected include chauffeured private-hire cars registered by companies with COEs secured before Feb. 19.

The rule also does not apply to chauffeured private-hired cars owned by individuals, who use the vehicles for ride-hailing services and personal purposes.

As at January 2025, the population of total private-hire cars is 90,882, up 11.2 per cent from 81,754 at the end of 2023.

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