How do you check that a property agent is registered in Singapore?
Look the agent up on the Public Register of the Council for Estate Agencies (CEA) before you engage them. Every agent must be registered with CEA through a licensed property agency and has a registration number in the form R123456A; doing estate agency work without one is an offence. The register shows whether the registration is valid, the residential transactions the agent has handled in recent years and which party they represented, any awards, and any disciplinary record. CEA's own advice is to search by the phone number you are dealing with: if it leads to no profile, the number is not registered to any agent.
Who must be registered, and what counts as agency work
CEA's page on checking an agent says all property agents in Singapore must be registered with CEA through a licensed property agency, and that each has a unique registration number such as R123456A. Under the Estate Agents Act, estate agency work includes introducing a would-be buyer to a seller or their agent, introducing a would-be seller or landlord to a buyer or tenant, and negotiating a property transaction for a client; doing any of it without valid registration is an offence.
What the Public Register shows
CEA says to visit the Public Register before engaging an agent to verify four things: whether the registration is valid; the residential property transactions the agent has facilitated in the last two years, and which parties they represented; the agent's industry accolades and awards; and any disciplinary records. CEA's article of June 2026 on the enhanced register says the records now cover transactions completed in the past 36 months, and that from 10 June 2026 the website and register show enforcement actions against agencies and agents for the past three years on a rolling basis, letters of censure, disciplinary committee action and court prosecution included, each attributed to the agency the agent was with at the time, with a page of key enforcement statistics by agency.
The phone-number check against fake agents
CEA's two-step method: go to the Public Register and key in the phone number of the person you are dealing with, or the number in the advertisement; if the search does not lead to an agent's profile page, the number is not registered with CEA, and CEA says it is likely a scam even where the agent's name and registration number can be found on the register. CEA's article on scams describes people posing as agents who place fake listings and ask for a deposit to secure a viewing; it says no fee is ever needed for a viewing appointment, and that a victim should file a police report.
What an advertisement must state
CEA says an agent's property advertisement must state the agent's name, CEA registration number and phone number, and the agency's name and licence number; a newspaper classified or a text message need carry only the agent's name and phone number. The register lets you check each of these, and CEA says the absence of any of them, or a detail that does not check out, may mean the advertisement was not placed by a registered agent.
Registrations from 2027: a three-year cycle
Registrations today run to 31 December of the year. CEA's article of 30 July 2026 says that from 1 January 2027 it moves to a three-year licensing and registration cycle: at the renewal at the end of 2026, licences and registrations will be renewed from 1 January 2027 to 31 December 2029, and anyone joining later gets a registration running to 31 December of the third year. Fees stay annual. A registration seen on the register after that date may therefore show an end date three years out; the register, not the date alone, shows whether the agent is in good standing.
If a dispute with an agent arises, CEA's Dispute Resolution Scheme applies where you signed an estate agency agreement with a licensed agency: mediation at an approved centre, or arbitration with a binding decision, which you may choose after writing to the agency or when mediation does not settle it. The ranked list of property agents on this site shows each agent's registration number so that you can run these checks yourself.