Best crypto exchanges in Singapore

A useful “best exchange” list for Singapore is not a global ranking by coin count. It is a short list of firms you can look up on the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) Financial Institutions Directory, fund from a DBS, OCBC or UOB account, and leave again in Singapore dollars.

This page compares the retail platforms Singaporeans actually open in 2026. It is not a recommendation to buy any digital payment token, and a Major Payment Institution (MPI) licence is not a guarantee you will get every dollar back if the firm fails. Confirm the legal name before you send a PayNow.

What “best” means here

We score a platform on four things a Singapore resident can check in an afternoon: whether the operating company is licensed for Digital Payment Token (DPT) service; whether SGD arrives over PayNow or FAST without a correspondent-bank delay; whether the all-in cost of a small spot trade is visible in Singapore dollars; and whether SGD leaves again over FAST at a published fee.

We do not score marketing campaigns, overseas coin lists the Singapore entity does not offer, or leverage products MAS has told licensees not to push at retail. For the lookup method rather than the names, start with how to choose a MAS-licensed crypto exchange.

The directory lists far more DPT MPIs than the six names below. Many are custody, OTC or merchant-payment shops. A DPT licence is not the same thing as a retail book you can fund with S$500.

The six retail books Singaporeans open

These are the consumer-facing MPIs that, as of the 12 October 2026 directory check, take retail Singapore residents through Singpass, a risk-awareness assessment and an SGD wallet.

Independent Reserve SG Pte. Ltd. runs a public retail book with free PayNow deposits and FAST withdrawals at about S$1.50. The group grew up on AUD and SGD pairs, which is why the Singapore site still feels like an exchange rather than a consumer app.

SBI Coinhako Technology Pte. Ltd. — still searched as Coinhako, and listed for years as Hako Technology Pte. Ltd. — is the local brand many first-time buyers already have on their phone. Instant-buy prices include a spread; the limit book is cheaper. PayNow deposits are free if you paste the deposit code.

Coinbase Singapore Pte. Ltd. is an MPI for DPT service and cross-border money transfer. Singpass onboarding is the default. PayNow and FAST deposits are often zero-fee. The simple-buy screen is convenient and expensive; Advanced Trade is the book if you are comparing maker-taker rates. USDC against SGD is a first-class pair.

Foris DAX Asia Pte. Ltd. is the Crypto.com entity licensed for DPT service. The Visa card is a different company (Foris Asia Pte. Ltd.) with a different activity. Retail customers fund an SGD account over PayNow or FAST and withdraw over FAST at S$1.99 as of October 2026.

OKX SG Pte. Ltd. offers the most order-book-like retail interface of the six, with PayNow deposits and FAST withdrawals that the firm has advertised as free via DBS. MAS consumer-protection guidelines restrict credit, leverage and DPT derivatives for retail customers of a DPT licensee. The global OKX catalogue is not the Singapore book.

Gemini Digital Payments Singapore, Pte. Ltd. received its full MPI licence on 8 September 2026. PayNow and FAST deposits are free; FAST withdrawals are listed at S$3. Spot and custody are the retail products. Treat any derivatives screen as a separate question for the Singapore entity, not a feature of the licence.

Moomoo, Revolut, Upbit and Bitstamp also appear as DPT MPIs. Check what the Singapore entity actually sells you before you assume a brokerage app is a substitute for an exchange.

Who is not on this list

Luno closed Singapore accounts at 00:00 SGT on 20 June 2023 and withdrew its MAS licence application. An old Luno SGD bookmark is a historical page, not a live option.

Binance remains on the MAS Investor Alert List. MAS put it there because the group solicited Singapore users for payment services without a licence — including SGD pairs and local payment methods — and was required to stop. An IAL entry is a warning that the public may wrongly think the firm is MAS-regulated. It is not a licence.

A global brand with an SGD ticker is not a Singapore product. If the legal name is missing from the directory, or the name on the IAL matches the app you downloaded, stop before you scan a QR code. Whether crypto is legal in Singapore is a separate question from whether a particular app may serve you.

SGD rails, compared

PayNow is how most retail deposits arrive. You scan the platform’s QR code or type its Unique Entity Number (UEN) in your banking app, paste the reference the exchange shows you, and send SGD from an account in your own name. FAST is the bank-to-bank rail underneath many of those payments, and it is the usual way SGD leaves.

Figures are from each firm’s public Singapore fee page as of October 2026. Banks set their own PayNow daily limits; a DBS token and a saved UEN usually raise a first-time S$1,000 cap. The steps — UEN, reference, name-match, bounce reasons — are in how to deposit SGD into a crypto exchange.

Card purchases are a different product. MAS guidelines tell DPT providers not to take locally issued credit cards from retail customers. A debit-card instant-buy usually costs more than PayNow plus a book trade.

Fees you actually pay

The line that matters on a S$1,000 Bitcoin purchase is not the FAST withdrawal. It is the spread plus the stated trading fee.

Independent Reserve publishes a maker-taker schedule that starts at 0.5% and steps down with 30-day volume, to as low as 0.02% for the largest books. Coinhako’s spot wallet trade is 0.6%; limit orders and recurring buys are 0.5%. Its instant-buy button can look cheaper until you compare the quoted SGD price with a mid-market reference.

Coinbase’s simple-buy screen bundles spread and fee; Advanced Trade publishes maker-taker rates. For any purchase above a few hundred dollars, open Advanced before you confirm. Coinbase has also offered no-fee SGD purchases of USDC — useful as a dollar stablecoin rail, not a promise that every pair is free.

Crypto.com’s app tariff depends on volume and any membership tier the Singapore entity still honours. The exchange view is closer to a conventional book; do not mix the two screens. OKX SG will often look cheap on maker-taker if the pair is actually on the Singapore book. Gemini’s spot fees sit in the same family as other MPI books, but the S$3 FAST withdrawal makes small round-trips more expensive.

None of these figures include blockchain network fees when you withdraw a token to a self-hosted wallet.

Custody is not deposit insurance

Every MPI on this list must safeguard customer assets to a standard MAS can inspect. That is stronger than an unlicensed offshore book. It is not the Singapore Deposit Insurance Scheme. Fiat sitting in an exchange wallet is not a bank deposit.

Read the Singapore user agreement for where SGD is held — often a safeguarding account at a local bank — and where tokens sit. Independent Reserve states that it uses DBS for SGD and subjects balances to an annual audit. The others publish their own custody wording. If the sentence is vague, ask support for the safeguarding bank before you leave a five-figure SGD balance overnight.

Travel-rule checks apply when you send tokens off-platform above MAS thresholds. That is normal for a licensee. Prefer a platform that has already accepted a PayNow or FAST from the same bank you will withdraw to. First withdrawals are often held for a manual review of one to three business days. After that, FAST is usually seconds. Budget the published fee — typically S$0 to S$2, S$3 at Gemini.

How to use this list

Look up the legal name on the directory. Complete Singpass and the risk-awareness quiz on one platform, not three. Send a small PayNow — S$50 is enough — and confirm it credits before you scale up. Place a limit order rather than mashing the instant-buy button. Withdraw a test amount of SGD over FAST so you know the rail works on a weekday afternoon.

If you want a single default for a spot purchase funded from a local bank, Independent Reserve and Coinbase are the cleanest SGD stories on current public fees. If you already use Coinhako, there is no need to migrate for its own sake. If you want more order-book tools, stay on OKX’s MAS-supervised spot product. Crypto.com and Gemini are reasonable if you already live in those apps and have checked the Singapore entity.

The exchanges hub is the index for this desk. Licence status and fee pages change. Check the directory on the day you onboard.