Before start your journey, ensure the following are brought along:
- road tax (on your car)
- valid insurance coverage for your vehicle for the duration of your vehicle’s stay in Singapore
- car ownership certification (sijil permilikan kenderaan)
- valid driving license
- valid passport(s)
- touch-and-go card
- SGD cash (at least 10 sgd cash)
- pen
This blog is correct at the time of writing, thing might have changed. may wish to checkout this website for more updated details. If your car is not west-malaysian-registered car, there is another set of requirements to be followed.
(note: Some of the items in "to bring list" are not required during the registration. However, may be required when you travel back to Malaysia/on the road in Singapore)
-- My Experience--
With all the documents prepared, my friends and i met in Johor for lunch before heading to Singapore. We were really excited as we haven't been seeing each other for awhile. Moreover, this is a new experience since we never register a car at customs before. (i got even more excited than my friend as has been a while that i'm crossing the border in private car. yup, you can guess that I'm not the driver either. 😂) With all the excitement and nervousness, we drove through Malaysia Custom.
Going through Malaysia Customs was easy. just pass our passport to the officer, get it back, pufffff , drive away. (no need to pay to Malaysia Customs when you're driving out of Malaysia) Although it was easy, but got to be alert which lane to drive into. you might be fined by either country if you chose the wrong lane.
When crossing Singapore customs, we expected checking is stricter as whenever you're entering a country. But did not expect our car boot was inspected before entering the Immigration booth. (Different from my previous experience of car boot inspection, which was done after passport was stamped and before driving out of security area) After the inspection, we drove to the booth, requested departure form, filled it up and hand up the completed form and passport to officer. Then, we drove to block B for car registration with LTA (i'm not going to describe how to go there as we might be driving from different immigration booth. so better ask direction before leaving the booth. drive slowly and ask directions along the way if you're not sure)
After parked car at designated area, we walked to the LTA office. There was an officer manned at a booth just outside the office, and a lady in purple uniform was sitting on one of the chairs near to the booth. The lady requested our documents (insurance and car ownership cert) and helped to fill up a small piece of form. With the little piece of paper, we then proceeded to the booth to fill up a form and passed both completed forms to the officer(at booth) for verification. Few minutes later, officer hand all documents and forms back to us, asked us to proceed to office for Auto-pass card application.
In the office, handover all forms and documents to officer at the counter, paid 10SGD for Auto-pass card, get the card and all our documents. That's it! Car has been registered with LTA successfully. we can happily drive the same car into SG anytime, without repeating this process! (note that only SGD is accepted for payment. read on if you intend to revisit Singapore)
-- About Auto-pass Card --
Although LTA officer will brief about the Auto-pass card when they issue it, i would still like to emphasise 2 points, which I think are critical:
- ensure there is sufficient fund in the card upon leaving Singapore to avoid fine at the custom.
- the card is linked to the car that was registered for the issue of card. Here i quote from LTA website, "It is an offence to use another vehicle's Autopass Card to drive into Singapore."
-- Other Helpful Tips(Or Our Mistakes 😩) --
petrol oh petrol
With all the excitement to visit Singapore in personal car, we forget to fill up the petrol tank in Malaysia for the short weekend trip! (can you smell the burning wallet?😱) We only realised about it right before going through Singapore Customs. 😓 so moral of the story is, never ever forget to fill up the petrol tank in Johor!
Disembarkation/Embarkation Form (Arrival/Departure Form)
Fill up the form on the spot can be stressful and time consuming, especially majority of your group are visitors. As visitors, you can't do much to save time for the first drive-through of immigration check point. (if you know how, share with me 😉) However, time can be saved for subsequent visits. All you have to do is to visit ICA office and request a few departure forms. ICA office is located in the same building as the LTA office (Block B). Getting the departure forms, you may avoid to fill up the form on the spot!
