ERP timing decides whether the same drive costs you nothing or six dollars. Gantries in Singapore charge only on weekdays and Saturdays, never on Sundays or public holidays, and only inside fixed time bands that differ at every location. The rate climbs into the morning peak around 8:00am to 9:00am, drops mid-morning, then climbs again for the evening peak near 5:30pm to 7:00pm. Leave five minutes earlier or take a slip road that skips a gantry and the charge can fall by a dollar or vanish. This guide maps the operating hours, the peak and shoulder windows, and the exact moments each gantry switches off, all checked against LTA as of June 2026.
ERP runs Monday to Saturday and stops for Sundays and every public holiday. On the eve of New Year's Day, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Christmas Day, every gantry switches off at 1:00pm and stays off for the rest of the day.
Within those operating days, no gantry charges round the clock. Each one has its own list of time bands, and outside those bands the gantry still reads your unit but deducts nothing. The earliest bands start around 7:00am to 7:30am on the busiest expressways heading into the city, and the latest evening bands run to roughly 8:00pm. Many gantries also have a quiet midday gap where the rate falls to zero between the two peaks.
Rates are set in 30-minute blocks and rise toward the centre of each rush. For most expressway and arterial gantries the dearest morning block sits between 8:00am and 9:00am, and the dearest evening block between 5:30pm and 7:00pm. The shoulders on either side, the half hours just before and after the peak, cost less and are where most of the savings live.
The single most expensive passenger-car pass in 2026 is on the KPE southbound after Defu Flyover, where the morning block reaches around $5.00 to $6.00. The CTE southbound into the city and several AYE and PIE city-bound gantries cluster around $3.00 to $5.00 at their worst. If your route runs through one of these, the table below shows how the charge tapers minute by minute.
| Time band | Charge (passenger car) | What it means for you |
|---|---|---|
| 7:00am to 7:30am | $0.00 to $2.00 | Cheapest entry; the early bird beats most charges |
| 7:30am to 8:00am | $2.00 to $4.00 | Charge ramping up; first shoulder |
| 8:00am to 8:30am | $3.00 to $5.00 | Approaching peak |
| 8:30am to 9:00am | $4.00 to $6.00 | Peak; the most you will pay |
| 9:00am to 9:30am | $2.00 to $4.00 | Falling fast; late shoulder |
| 9:30am to 10:00am | $0.50 to $2.00 | Cheap again; the late slot |
| After 10:00am | $0.00 at most gantries | Midday gap before the evening peak |
LTA does not let the rate jump in one step from, say, $2.00 to $5.00 as the clock ticks over to a new band. Instead it phases the change across the first and last five minutes of a charging period, so the rate steps up or down in smaller increments rather than a single cliff. In practice that means the opening minutes of a peak band and the closing minutes of one are cheaper than the heart of the band.
The takeaway is simple. If you can pass a gantry in the last few minutes of a falling band rather than the first few minutes of the higher one, you pay the lower graduated step. Shaving five to ten minutes off your departure, in the right direction, regularly saves a dollar or two per gantry. Across a five-day week and two gantries each way that is real money you can redirect; our monthly budget planner makes the saving easy to see.
ERP rates are reviewed every quarter and adjusted during the June and December school holidays when traffic is lighter. For the 24 November to 31 December 2025 holiday period, LTA cut rates at six locations across 14 time bands. Examples included the AYE after Jurong Town Hall dropping its 7:30am to 8:00am block from $4.00 to $3.00, and the westbound PIE before Eunos Link falling to $0.00 in two morning blocks.
Increases followed once traffic returned. From 2 January 2026 four locations rose by $1.00 across nine time bands, and a further revision from 23 March 2026 raised rates by $1.00 at four major expressway locations to push back on stubborn peak-hour congestion. Rates shift every quarter, so the figures above are direction, not gospel: always confirm your gantry on the current ERP rates page before relying on a number.
Never guess. LTA publishes a live rates checker on the OneMotoring site where you pick the gantry, the direction, the time and your vehicle class, and it returns the exact charge for that minute. Heavy goods vehicles and buses pay more than cars; motorcycles pay far less, roughly $0.25 to $1.75 per pass.
Plan the drive backward from when you must arrive. Note every gantry on your route, look up each band, and decide whether leaving earlier, later, or via a different slip road is cheaper than the time it costs you. Pair that with where you park, since a cheaper gantry route into an expensive carpark is a false economy; compare options first using our guide to free and cheap parking around Singapore.
Singapore is moving from physical gantries to ERP 2.0, a satellite-based system run through an On-Board Unit fitted to your car. The free installation phase wound down through 2025 and into 2026, with fees afterward of around $35 for motorcycles and $70 for other vehicles, and the old In-Vehicle Unit is being phased out by end 2026.
For now the timing logic is unchanged: ERP 2.0 still charges by time band at the same priced points, so every tip in this guide still applies. The system adds distance-based charging capability for the future, but as of June 2026 you are still billed per priced point inside its operating hours. If you have not switched yet, read our walkthrough of what ERP 2.0 and the OBU cost, and budget the running cost alongside road tax, fuel and insurance with the car cost calculator.
Take a driver who passes the CTE southbound at 8:20am and again northbound at 6:15pm, five days a week. At peak, that is roughly $4.00 plus $3.00, around $7.00 a day, or about $35.00 a week and $140.00 a month before any holiday adjustment.
Shift the morning pass to 9:35am and the evening pass to 7:10pm, both into the cheap shoulder or the free window, and the same two trips can fall to $1.00 or even $0.00. Even saving $4.00 a day adds up to roughly $80.00 a month. You will not always have that flexibility, but on the days you do, ERP timing is the easiest motoring cost to cut without changing anything else about your car.
ERP gantries operate only on weekdays and Saturdays, with the earliest city-bound bands starting around 7:00am to 7:30am and the latest evening bands ending near 8:00pm. There is no ERP on Sundays or public holidays, and on the eves of the five major festivals every gantry stops charging at 1:00pm.
ERP does charge on Saturdays during the published time bands, though Saturday rates are usually lower than weekday peaks. There is no ERP at all on Sundays or on any gazetted public holiday, and charging also stops at 1:00pm on the eves of New Year, Chinese New Year, Hari Raya Puasa, Deepavali and Christmas.
The most expensive ERP windows are the morning peak between roughly 8:00am and 9:00am and the evening peak between about 5:30pm and 7:00pm. Passing a gantry in the shoulder half hours just before or after these blocks, or in the midday and post-7:00pm gaps, costs noticeably less or nothing.
Because rates change in graduated steps and peaks can hit $5.00 to $6.00 per pass while shoulders fall to $0.50 or $0.00, shifting a regular trip by five to fifteen minutes often saves a dollar or two per gantry. For a daily commuter through two priced points each way, that can mean $50.00 to $100.00 a month.
This is general financial information for Singapore, not personal financial advice. Figures change — verify current rates against the official sources above before acting. See our full disclaimer.