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Will banning dealers from bidding possibly reduce COE prices?

Updated by MOT
LTA monitors bidding trends closely. To date, we have not found evidence that dealers are engaging in speculative behaviour. In fact, the market practice is for cars to be sold at fixed prices to buyers before the COE is secured, including the anticipated cost of the COE. This means that dealers have an incentive to bid lower for COEs to maximise their profit margin. Preventing dealers from bidding on behalf of the buyers would inconvenience buyers, as individuals may not be familiar with the bidding process. Furthermore, banning dealers from bidding could easily be circumvented. Today, dealers already submit bids in the name of individual buyers. Should a ban be imposed, buyers could still provide their personal details to dealers to submit bids on their behalf, and it would be challenging to enforce against such a practice.

Topics:

Certificate of Entitlement (COE)

Related questions

What affects COE prices? What is fuelling the high bids in 2025? Are our policy measures (e.g. the one-off injection of 20,000 COEs in Oct 2024 and the 'cut-and-fill' to bring forward COE quota from peak years) ineffective given rising COE prices?

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