The cost of owning a car, per month
Depreciation net of the rebates you get back, road tax and the running costs you type in. COE at the 2nd exercise of October 2026 result, read on 24 October 2026.
Cost of owning, per month
$2,256
$27,071 a year, $270,713 over 10.0 years
| Depreciation per year | $20,389 |
| Road tax per year | $682 |
| Running costs per year | $6,000 |
| PARF + COE rebate at the end | $1,700 |
Prepared by Radif Partners · Method · COE results read on 24 October 2026 (latest: 2nd exercise of October 2026)
The largest cost of owning a car in Singapore is not petrol or parking but depreciation: the price paid minus what comes back when the car is deregistered. For the Category A car with an OMV of $30,000, bought at $205,594 before the dealer’s margin, depreciation and road tax come to $21,071 a year, or $1,756 a month, when it is kept ten years and scrapped. Kept five years, it returns $76,202 in PARF and COE rebates, but the cost per year rises to $26,560, because the loss is spread over fewer years. Insurance, parking, petrol or charging, ERP, servicing and loan interest come on top. Nobody publishes reliable averages for those, so the calculator asks for your own figures, starting from an example you should replace. Under the PARF rules for COEs from February 2026, keeping a car to ten years has become the cheapest option per year in most cases.
Category A car, by years kept
| Kept | Rebates at the end | Depreciation per year | With road tax, per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 years | $102,602 | $34,331 | $35,013 | $2,918 |
| 5 years | $76,202 | $25,878 | $26,560 | $2,213 |
| 7 years | $46,401 | $22,742 | $23,424 | $1,952 |
| 10 years | $1,700 | $20,389 | $21,071 | $1,756 |
Larger car, by years kept
| Kept | Rebates at the end | Depreciation per year | With road tax, per year | Per month |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3 years | $118,130 | $62,034 | $63,243 | $5,270 |
| 5 years | $91,750 | $42,496 | $43,706 | $3,642 |
| 7 years | $56,770 | $35,352 | $36,561 | $3,047 |
| 10 years | $4,300 | $29,993 | $31,203 | $2,600 |
The rebates column is what LTA pays back on deregistration: the PARF rebate on the ARF, and the COE rebate for the unused months of the certificate. Both fall with every year the car is kept, the COE rebate to zero at ten years. The depreciation column is the price minus those rebates, divided by the years.
The COE costs the same per year, the ARF does not
Split the depreciation into its parts and a pattern appears. The COE comes back in proportion to the months left, so a certificate scrapped early or late always costs one tenth of its premium per year of use: $13,200 a year at the latest Category A result, whether the car is kept three years or ten. The ARF behaves differently. The PARF rebate falls by steps with age and stops at ten years, so the ARF costs more per year when the car is kept a short time and less when it is kept long. That is why the cost per year falls as the holding period grows in the tables above, and why the drop is steeper for the larger car, whose ARF is a bigger part of the price.
Three ways to end the ten years
A car can be scrapped, exported, or sold on the used market, where its value is mostly the remaining COE and PARF plus a premium for its condition. The tables above assume scrapping, the only case in which the end value is known in advance. Selling usually brings more, which lowers the real depreciation; renewing the COE swaps the PARF for another five or ten years of use, which the COE renewal page prices. Whichever you choose, the rebate figures here are the floor under the car’s value.
Add the cost of the loan
Monthly instalment over 7 years
$1,777
| Largest loan allowed | $123,356 |
| Down payment | $82,238 |
| Total interest | $25,905 |
| Effective yearly rate | 5.57% |
Running costs you add yourself
The calculator above has a single line for insurance, parking, fuel and ERP, filled with an example. Replace it with your figures: your insurance quote, the season parking rate of your estate or office, your monthly petrol or charging bill and your ERP charges. These vary too much from one driver to another for an average to be useful, and the site does not invent one. Servicing and tyres rise with age; for a car kept ten years, budget for them in the later years, when the warranty has usually run out.
Road tax is the one running cost set by rule. For the 1,496 cc car it is $681.90 a year, for the 1,998 cc car $1,209.75, and for an electric car of 110 kW $1,560.20 including the flat component. The road tax calculator covers every engine size.
Where the price comes from
The price in the tables is the cost before the dealer’s margin: OMV, duty and GST, ARF adjusted by the VES, registration fee and COE. Type the price you were actually quoted in the calculator to see what the dealer’s margin does to your cost per year. The full cost calculator builds the price from the OMV, and the scrapping guide explains how the rebates are paid.