COE PQP explained:
the number behind your renewal

What the PQP actually is

When your COE expires, you don't bid for a new one. You renew by paying the PQP — the Prevailing Quota Premium. It's the government's standing price to keep your car on the road for another 5 or 10 years, and right now it's roughly $123,000 for a normal (Cat A) car and $124,700 for a bigger or more powerful (Cat B) car.

The single most useful thing to understand about the PQP is what doesn't move it. It has nothing to do with your car's age, mileage, condition or market value. A ten-year-old hatchback with 40,000km and one with 180,000km pay the identical PQP. The number is set entirely by the wider COE market, not by the vehicle you're renewing.

Where the number comes from

COE prices are set at open bidding exercises, and there are two every month — they open at noon on the first and third Monday and close that same week. Each exercise produces a Quota Premium (QP), the clearing price for a COE in that category.

The PQP is simply the moving average of the QPs over the last three months. Each new month, the oldest month drops off and the newest is added, so the PQP drifts month to month rather than jumping with any single result. Months in which no bidding was held are excluded from the average entirely — they don't count as a zero, they're just skipped.

This is the current figure feeding the calculator below — the this month's PQP, straight from the LTA data:

Why it lags the headline COE price

When you read that "COE prices hit a record" or "COEs crashed this round," that headline is a single QP from a single exercise. It is not what you'll pay to renew. Because the PQP averages three months, it always trails the latest result — smoothed and a step behind.

That lag cuts both ways, and it's worth being honest about both:

Half for five years, full for ten

The PQP is the price for a ten-year renewal. For a five-year renewal you pay half the PQP — with one important catch. The five-year renewal is a one-time option: once you take it, the car must be deregistered at the end of those five years and cannot be renewed again.

Try both against the current figure. The calculator above starts from the live PQP — switch between 5 and 10 years and Cat A and Cat B to see how the number splits.

How to read the bidding results yourself

You don't need anyone to interpret the market for you — the raw numbers are public. Two things are worth watching, and they take about a minute each round:

The category that matters to you. Cat A is cars up to 1,600cc and 130bhp; Cat B is everything above that. Renewing a Cat A car, you only care about the Cat A line — the Cat B swings that make the dramatic headlines may be irrelevant to your renewal.

The direction, not the single figure. One result tells you little; three in a row tell you where the moving average is heading. A run of rising QPs means next month's PQP will be higher than this month's; a run of falling QPs means the opposite is coming, slowly.

Timing your renewal around the PQP

Here's where understanding the mechanic pays off. The PQP that applies to you is the one for the month you renew, and because each month's figure is locked once the previous month's second bidding closes, you can often see the number coming before you commit.

If QPs have been climbing for a couple of months, the moving average hasn't fully caught up yet — renewing before the next step-up can genuinely save money. If QPs have just started falling, waiting a month or two lets the average drift down before you lock in. Neither is a guarantee; the market can turn. But it's the difference between renewing on a date chosen at random and renewing on a date chosen on purpose.

What the PQP doesn't tell you

The PQP answers one question precisely — the price to keep the car — and stays silent on the three that decide whether you should:

Whether renewing beats scrapping. A low PQP on a car that needs a new gearbox is still money badly spent; a high PQP on a sound car you love can be the right call. That trade-off is its own decision, laid out in renew or scrap.

What you give up. Renewing forfeits your PARF rebate — a real cost that doesn't appear anywhere in the PQP. We walk through exactly what you forfeit and what you still get back in the rebates guide.

What it costs you monthly. Almost nobody pays the PQP as a lump sum. Spread over a renewal loan at $0 down, that $123,000 becomes a fixed monthly figure — which is the number that actually decides affordability. Work out yours with the calculator above, or tell us your car and we'll come back with your exact monthly, your rebate position, and the perks that apply — same day.