VEP, myVEP and Touch ’n Go: Vehicle Paperwork and Payment at the SG-JB Border

By BorderIQ Editorial Team · IPNS Technologies

Ask a commuter what you need on the vehicle side to cross the Causeway and you will get one of two answers: “a VEP”, or a blank look. Both answers are the same problem. There are two Vehicle Entry Permit schemes on this border, run by two different governments, applying to opposite directions of travel, and the phrase “the VEP” means whichever one the speaker last had to deal with.

Then there is the money layer, which is where crossings actually stall: CashCard, CEP, Touch ’n Go, RFID, Autopass and the road charge all live on different cards, different accounts and different sides of the barrier. This page keeps them apart.

The two VEP schemes are not the same scheme

If a household has one car on each side, it deals with both schemes. Nothing is shared between them: an in-order Singapore VEP says nothing about a Singapore-registered car’s myVEP status, and vice versa.

Singapore VEP: Malaysia-registered vehicles entering Singapore

Applying needs three things together — the permit itself, an Autopass Card, and an OVA online account on OneMotoring. OneMotoring also requires outstanding fines to be settled before an application is accepted, which is the step that surprises owners who have let a summons sit.

Current charges, as published by LTA and OneMotoring:

• The VEP fee is waived for the first 10 chargeable days each calendar year.
• Weekends and Singapore public holidays are currently free of the VEP charge.
• Past the free allowance: S$35 per day for cars, S$4 per day for motorcycles.
• A Reciprocal Road Charge of S$6.40 per entry applies to foreign-registered cars. This has been in force since 15 February 2017 and is still current.
• A flat S$5 per day is charged if the vehicle has no In-Vehicle Unit or On-Board Unit.

For a five-day weekly commute, that is the difference between an allowance you rarely touch and roughly S$250 a month per car. If you are pricing a commute, use the month-by-month cost breakdown, which does the multiplication rather than quoting a daily rate and hoping.

New from 6 October 2026: the permit now gates everyone in the car

From 6 October 2026, a foreign-registered car entering Singapore via Woodlands or Tuas must hold a valid VEP. If it does not, passengers cannot submit an SG Arrival Card for that trip, and the vehicle is denied entry and turned back to Malaysia. Reporting: The Straits Times.

Before this, the two documents were independent. Your SGAC was an ICA matter and the car’s permit was an LTA matter, so a traveller could be perfectly documented while the vehicle was not, and the mismatch surfaced at the barrier. Now it surfaces in the app, which is strictly better — provided you submit before leaving home rather than in the queue. The practical consequence for commuters: giving a colleague a lift back from JB is now a shared-risk activity, because a dead permit on the car stops every passenger in it.

myVEP: Singapore-registered cars entering Johor

Malaysia’s scheme has been fully enforced since 1 July 2025 for foreign-registered vehicles, which includes Singapore-registered cars. Two things happen when you cross into Johor with one:

• The permit. Registered through JPJ’s myVEP portal, with a tag fitted to the vehicle.
• The Road Charge. RM20 each time the vehicle enters Malaysia, deducted automatically through the RFID tag rather than at a booth.

Two details are worth stating honestly rather than guessing at. The one-off registration and tag fee, and the permit’s validity period, are not published in a form we can quote from JPJ directly — the portal shows the current figure when you apply, so use that. And while a compound fine in the region of RM300 for non-compliance is widely reported by commuters and motoring writers, we have not seen it confirmed in JPJ’s own text, so treat the number as reported rather than as a published tariff.

Motorcycles are currently exempt. JPJ’s stated exemptions cover motorcycles, government and embassy-owned vehicles and commercial vehicles for the Road Charge, and Singapore-registered motorcycles are currently outside the myVEP requirement as well. That exemption has been described as temporary and could be made mandatory later, so confirm against the JPJ portal before you plan a commute around it. Riders who want the full picture should read crossing the border by motorcycle.

The permit is also not the only document the car needs. A Singapore-registered vehicle entering Malaysia should carry insurance valid in Malaysia, current road tax, a valid driving licence and the vehicle registration certificate (the grant or LVS) — authorities can ask for these. The driving-into-JB guide covers the insurance territorial limits and the fuel rule in detail, checking your Malaysia cover turns the insurance clause into the one email that settles it, and the licence and IDP question answers what you actually need to be allowed behind the wheel.

Touch ’n Go, RFID, CashCard and CEP: who takes what, where

This is the layer that actually strands people, because a card can be perfectly valid and still be the wrong card for the side of the border you are standing on.

Two habits cover most of it. First, top up on both sides before you set off — there are no top-up machines inside the checkpoint complex, so a shortfall is discovered in a lane with traffic behind you. Second, if you rely on RFID, remember the tag and the account behind it are two separate things: a fitted tag on an unfunded or mismatched account is a stop, not a pass-through.

Malaysian operators also run periodic toll discounts, commonly around 50 per cent for Class 1 vehicles around festive seasons. These frequently exclude the border plazas, so do not read an announcement as a free crossing at Johor Bahru — check which plazas it names.

Tolls at the two checkpoints

The Singapore side is the one people get wrong, because the two crossings are not symmetrical.

Tuas charges in both directions and has done since 31 March 2023, when the off-peak rate was removed to match Malaysia’s change on the other side. Other classes at Tuas: vans S$5.60, heavy goods vehicles S$11.30, taxis S$1.60, buses S$2.50. On the Malaysian side, the Second Link plaza at Tanjung Kupang charges RM6.14 for private cars, at that rate since 1 March 2023.

Which crossing you actually want is a distance question more often than a toll question — see Woodlands versus Tuas for the trade-off by destination on the Johor side.

The night-before checklist

• Permit status for whichever car you are taking — VEP on OneMotoring for a Malaysia-plated car, myVEP on the JPJ portal for a Singapore-plated one. Two minutes each, and from 6 October 2026 a lapse on the first one blocks your passengers’ SGAC as well.
• Balance on both payment rails, not one. CashCard or CEP for the Singapore side, Touch ’n Go or a funded RFID account for the Malaysian side.
• Autopass Card present and with balance if the car is Malaysia-registered.
• Fuel at three-quarters or more before you leave Singapore. The three-quarter tank rule is enforced by Singapore Customs on vehicles departing through the land checkpoints, and it is a search at the barrier, not a suggestion.
• Documents in the car, not in the house: insurance valid in Malaysia, road tax, licence, registration certificate.
• A crossing decision made at home, on a good connection, using live conditions rather than the queue you happen to reach first.

Common mistakes

• Saying “the VEP” as if there were one. Checking the wrong portal for your plate is how people arrive documented for a car they are not driving.
• Assuming the free days last. The 10-day allowance and the weekend and holiday exemptions disappear on 1 January 2027; a 2026 budget does not carry over.
• Planning a top-up at the checkpoint. There is no machine there.
• Treating a rider exemption as permanent. Motorcycles are currently outside myVEP and the Road Charge. Currently.
• Leaving a summons unpaid. OneMotoring wants fines cleared before it accepts a VEP application, so the paperwork you think is late is actually blocked.

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