Singapore Cheques in 2026: Corporate Phase-Out, Rules and Printing

Singapore is winding down cheques faster than any other market ChequeMaster covers. As of October 2026, businesses can still write the SGD corporate cheques they already hold, but banks stopped issuing new corporate cheque books on 1 January 2026 and will stop processing SGD corporate cheques altogether from 1 January 2027. Cheques written by individuals, USD cheques and cashier's orders continue.

If you run a business in Singapore, the most important line in this guide is this: any SGD corporate cheque dated or deposited after 31 December 2026 will be rejected. The rest covers how Singapore cheques work until then, and what remains afterwards.

The phase-out timeline

The Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) and the Association of Banks in Singapore set the timetable, and extended it once. Under the MAS and ABS announcement of 5 December 2024, banks stopped issuing new SGD cheque books to corporates by 31 December 2025, and the deadline to stop processing corporate cheques moved to 31 December 2026.

"Corporate" is broad. It covers companies and any business entity, including sole proprietors, partnerships, societies, trusts and charities. If the account is in a business name, treat its SGD cheques as ending this year.

What this means for a business today

• Stop issuing post-dated SGD cheques for 2027. A cheque dated January 2027 cannot be processed. Rent, instalments and supplier terms that run past year-end need another method, such as GIRO, PayNow, FAST or EDP.
• Use up existing books carefully. You may still write SGD corporate cheques on the leaves you hold, but each one must be deposited by 31 December 2026. Tell payees, and do not leave cheques sitting uncashed late in the year.
• USD cheques continue for both businesses and individuals, as do cashier's orders.
• Personal cheques continue. Individuals can keep writing SGD cheques after 2026, though fees apply and clearing will slow under CTS Lite.
• Expect fewer cheques to manage, not none. Many businesses still have outstanding cheques to track until the end of the year, and need records of what cleared or was returned.

Cheque use had already fallen sharply before the deadline. In its July 2023 announcement, MAS reported annual cheque volume down almost 70%, from 61 million in 2016 to under 19 million in 2022, and cheques falling from 32% to 4% of payment transactions.

How to write a Singapore cheque correctly

• Date: the pre-added layouts use boxed date digits. Put one digit in each box, following the day, month and year labels printed on the leaf. The cheque must be deposited within its validity and, for corporate SGD cheques, before the end-2026 deadline.
• Payee: the payee's account name, on one line.
• Amount in words: the million system. SGD 1,250,000 reads "Singapore Dollars One Million Two Hundred Fifty Thousand Only". Write any cents after the dollars, before "Only".
• Amount in figures: two decimal places, comma separators.
• Crossing: two parallel lines across the top-left corner, often with "A/C Payee Only" so the cheque can only be paid into the payee's account. Cross out "or bearer" if you want an order cheque. See crossed cheques.
• Bottom band: never write or print on the coded strip at the bottom edge.

Validity and clearing

Singapore banks treat cheques as valid for six months from the date of issue unless the cheque states otherwise. DBS, for example, says so on its cheque clearing page. The corporate cheque deadline overrides this: a corporate cheque dated November 2026 would normally be valid until May 2027, but it cannot be processed after 31 December 2026.

Today cheques clear through the Cheque Truncation System (see how truncation works). SGD cheques deposited before the bank's afternoon cut-off on a business day are generally available the next business day. Under MAS's plan for the replacement system, CTS Lite will move the deposit cut-off to 12pm and funds availability to two business days after deposit, with launch scheduled for early 2027. Banks have said they will tell customers the exact changes in advance.

Pre-added Singapore bank layouts

ChequeMaster is not limited to these banks. It works with any bank's cheque, in any country. The layouts below are simply the Singapore bank layouts that come pre-added, so you can start printing without any setup. For any other bank, build a layout from a scan of a blank leaf in a few minutes, and add as many banks and layouts as you need.

• DBS Bank
• HSBC
• Maybank
• OCBC Bank
• POSB
• UOB

POSB is part of DBS, but its cheque design differs, so it has its own layout; select by the name printed on your cheque book. HSBC's Singapore cheque is not the same as HSBC's cheques in the Gulf, so pick the Singapore layout specifically. For any other bank, create a layout from a scan of a blank leaf with the layout editor.

Setting up ChequeMaster for Singapore

1. Choose Singapore Dollar (or US Dollar for USD cheque books) and 2 decimal digits.
2. Select the million/billion words system and switch thousand separators on.
3. Set the date format to match the date boxes on your leaf.
4. Create a cheque book with your bank's layout and the exact number range. Set the A/C Payee text and hide the Bearer text if you cross it out.
5. Test-print on plain paper and check the date boxes first; if digits sit on the box lines, adjust the left margin. See fixing alignment.

ChequeMaster prints on the bank-issued leaves you already hold with an ordinary printer; it does not need, or replace, a bank's cheque self-printing service. For a business working through its last SGD corporate cheques, the useful part may be the record: every cheque is logged with its number, date and status (Issued, Cleared, Returned, Cancelled), so you can filter for anything still marked Issued and chase it before the deadline.

Related guides

• Tracking cleared and uncleared cheques
• Managing post-dated cheques
• Why businesses still use cheques