Firms can now obtain licences for outdoor advertising ‘almost immediately’: MND

SINGAPORE – Businesses in the advertising and marketing sectors will soon benefit from a faster approval process when applying for licences to display outdoor advertisements.

Around 60 per cent of all outdoor advertising licence applicants – about 2,000 per year – can expect to obtain a licence to display signs for shopfronts, commercial buildings and business premises in residential and industrial areas almost immediately after completing their applications, Minister for National Development Chee Hong Tat said on Jan 2.

This will save them up to seven days of waiting time compared with the current process, Mr Chee said. He was speaking at the 2025 Singapore Prestige Brand Award presentation ceremony at the Ritz-Carlton, Millenia Singapore.

Established in 2002 by the Association of Small and Medium Enterprises and SPH Media’s Chinese-language daily Lianhe Zaobao, the award is one of Singapore’s longest-running awards for home-grown brands.

Mr Chee noted that the Building and Construction Authority (BCA) has been given the authority to streamline the licence approval process, including for recurring temporary events.

“The BCA will upgrade its application system to identify recurring events and pre-populate the details from previous applications for these events,” he said, adding that event organisers could potentially save up to 10 days of application and waiting time with this change.

Upgrades to BCA’s IT system to support these changes will be implemented in the second half of 2026. The changes will not just benefit large-scale events such as the Formula One race, light festival i Light, and food festival GastroBeats that use up to hundreds of outdoor advertisements.

“Collectively, these two changes will enable businesses across different sectors – from retail outlets and restaurants to event management companies and marketing agencies – to streamline their operations and reduce administrative burden,” Mr Chee said.

The move comes in response to feedback from the industry that businesses wanting to display outdoor advertisements have to navigate time-consuming licence approval processes.

Currently, business owners need to submit applications for such licences for every event that has outdoor advertisements. Despite the details not changing much from event to event, they are required to provide details such as the dimensions and number of advertisements in every application.

“We can and need to do better than this,” said Mr Chee, adding that a pro-enterprise environment that supports economic growth and business innovation is a priority for his ministry as well as the Government.

The changes announced on Jan 2 come after several other moves by the Ministry of National Development to streamline overly cumbersome rules and reduce red tape for businesses.

Since May 2025, the application process for Outdoor Refreshment Areas – eating houses in public housing estates – requires approval only from HDB, with the time taken for such approvals reduced to less than 30 days. Before that, applications by food and beverage businesses to expand their seating capacity needed to go through the Housing Board as well as the town council, taking up to 42 days to approve.

Since October 2025, the approval process for land-based solar farms has also been simplified. Before that, businesses needed to obtain both the Urban Redevelopment Authority’s (URA) permission and the landowner’s consent to set up solar farms on state land and land owned by statutory boards.

Today, business owners developing solar farms on such land need to obtain only the landowner’s consent. As URA approval is no longer required, each applicant saves $3,500 in fees and one month in waiting time, Mr Chee said.