GetGo turned on its Drive to Malaysia feature on Tuesday 1 September 2026, and for the first time you can take a Singapore car-sharing vehicle across the Causeway or the Second Link without borrowing a friend's car or queueing at a rental counter. The cars already carry a Vehicle Entry Permit RFID tag, so you do not need your own VEP. The headline cost is a 30% cross-border surcharge that is capped per day: $20 on weekdays and $30 on weekends and public holidays for Select vehicles, $25 and $35 for Plus. There is no deposit and, unusually, no mileage charge at all, which on a Kuala Lumpur round trip is worth more than the surcharge itself. Two things almost everyone gets wrong. First, fuel is normally included on a GetGo booking through the car's Esso card, but on a Drive to Malaysia booking you pay for your own fuel at every stage with no reimbursement, including the three-quarter tank Singapore Customs makes you leave with. Second, your Touch 'n Go eWallet app will not work at the gantry, because the VEP tag is registered to GetGo and not to you, so you need a physical Touch 'n Go card with at least RM50 on it. Bookings run 12 hours minimum and five days maximum, up to 30 days ahead, West Malaysia only. Here is the full fee stack, three worked costings off GetGo's own rate card, and the checklist to clear both CIQs without a fine.
For the first time, a Singapore car-sharing app will let you drive its car out of the country.
GetGo, Singapore's largest car-sharing operator, switched on its Drive to Malaysia feature on Tuesday 1 September 2026, effective immediately. Until now GetGo cars were not permitted to leave the island, so a JB run meant borrowing a friend's car or queueing at a rental counter. Now it is a checkbox in the app.
> Quick view: eligible cars already carry a VEP RFID tag, so you do not apply for your own permit. The cross-border surcharge is 30%, capped at $20 to $35 a day depending on the car and the day. There is no deposit and no mileage charge at all, which on a KL round trip is worth more than the surcharge. Two catches nobody expects: fuel is no longer included on these bookings, and your Touch 'n Go app will not work at the gantry, so bring the physical card with RM50 on it.
How it works, in four taps
The mechanics are deliberately unremarkable, which is the point of the launch. In the app, pick your date and time and tap Go, tap Filter on the results page, tick the Drive to Malaysia (New) checkbox, and choose a car with the Malaysia tag on its vehicle card.
Then the step that is easy to miss: on the booking page you have to tap the DTM toggle to opt in before confirming. That toggle is what applies the surcharge and refreshes your price, so if the total looks unchanged, you have not actually opted in.
The eligible pool is Select and Plus vehicles only, badged in the app. GetGo runs more than 3,000 cars across over 1,700 locations with more than 500,000 signed-up drivers, so the DTM fleet is a subset, and the car parked under your block may not be one of them.
The booking rules
| Rule | What GetGo set |
|---|
| Minimum booking | 12 hours |
| Maximum booking | 5 days per booking |
| Advance booking window | Up to 30 days |
| Eligible crossings | Woodlands Causeway or Tuas Second Link |
| Where you may drive | West Malaysia only, no fixed drop-off points |
| Where you may not | Thailand, or any country beyond Malaysia. Insurance is void there |
| Ending the booking | Only at the car's original home lot in Singapore. You cannot end it in Malaysia |
| Extending | Allowed in the app. The cross-border surcharge applies to the extra hours too |
The 12-hour minimum is not arbitrary. GetGo says it exists to leave adequate travel time to get back, and it recommends at least a 2-hour buffer for customs clearance, with a reminder pushed 3 hours before your booking ends.
What three real trips cost
These are our own calculations off GetGo's published full-day rate card and its DTM fee table, read on 1 September 2026. The app quotes your actual price before you confirm, and that quote is the one that binds.
| Trip | Time charge | Surcharge (30%, capped) | Standard CDW (10%) | Platform fee | Total before fuel and tolls |
|---|
| Select car, 24 hours, Mon to Thu | $90 | $27 capped to $20 | $11 | $1.20 | about $122.20 |
| Select car, Fri to Sun (3 days) | $100 + $140 + $140 = $380 | $114 capped to $90 at the weekend rate | $47 | $1.20 | about $518.20 |
| Plus car, 24 hours, Sat | $160 | $48 capped to $35 | $19.50 | $1.20 | about $215.70 |
Two things to read off that table. The cap is doing the work: in all three cases the 30% figure is higher than what you actually pay, and the gap widens the more expensive the booking. And the surcharge is the smaller half of the story.
The no-mileage rule is the real discount. GetGo normally charges $0.44/km on petrol cars and $0.29/km on electric. On a DTM booking there is no mileage charge at all, no matter how far you drive in West Malaysia. A Singapore to Kuala Lumpur round trip is roughly 700km, which at the usual rate would have added about $308 to the bill. Even a lazy JB weekend of 150km would have been about $66. Against that, a $90 weekend surcharge on a three-day booking reads very differently.
Note one small discrepancy in the source material. GetGo's own guide describes the surcharge as "+30% of your usual price", while the launch release quoted by newsrooms describes it as 30% "on the time charge". Because mileage is zero on these bookings, the two work out to nearly the same number, and the daily cap flattens the difference on anything longer than a few hours.
The fuel rule almost everyone will get wrong
This is the change that will cost people money, because it reverses a habit.
On an ordinary GetGo booking, fuel is included. Every car carries an Esso fuel card and GetGo's rates page states plainly that the company covers fuel and charging. Most members have genuinely never paid for petrol in a GetGo.
On a Drive to Malaysia booking, GetGo states you pay for your own fuel in Singapore and Malaysia, at all stages, with no reimbursement. Three consequences:
- You must leave Singapore with the tank at least three-quarters full. This is a Singapore Customs requirement for departing vehicles, not a GetGo rule, and it carries fines of up to $500. It now comes out of your pocket, and on a Select car it is the largest single cash item of the day.
- In Malaysia you must use RON97 or above. RON95 is subsidised and barred to foreign-registered vehicles. This is enforced: a Singaporean driver was fined RM20,000 in July 2025 for filling up with RON95 in Johor.
- You must return with the tank at least half full, or pay $35 for every quarter-tank you fall short. Take a dashboard photo at the start and end of the booking. GetGo asks for the closing one in the app, and the opening one is your evidence in any dispute.
The card that will strand you at the gantry
Your car's VEP is already sorted, but the RM20 road charge Malaysia levies on every foreign private vehicle, every entry, is not.
GetGo's instruction is exact: tap a physical Touch 'n Go card with at least RM50 loaded. Do not rely on the Touch 'n Go eWallet app. In a private car, drivers usually link their own eWallet to their own VEP account and let the RM20 deduct itself. That does not work here, because the VEP RFID tag on a GetGo car is registered to GetGo, not to you, so there is no link between the tag at the gantry and the balance in your phone.
The same physical card then covers highway tolls and gantry parking in Malaysia. For on-street parking you need the relevant state's own app, which differs by state: Parkmax@Johor in Johor Bahru, Smart Selangor in Selangor. Check before you park, not after.
You also need a NETS CashCard with at least $10 for Singapore checkpoint fees on the way out.
On the road up north
- RON97 or higher only. See above. This is the expensive mistake.
- Speed limits are 110km/h on highways and 50 to 80km/h in urban areas. Keep left unless overtaking.
- Seatbelts are mandatory for everyone in the vehicle.
- No ride-hailing or paid chauffeuring, in either country.
- No unregistered drivers. Only you and Additional Drivers added at $3 each are insured. GetGo lets you pre-register a co-driver so a long run can be split between two covered drivers, which is worth doing for KL.
- Do not cross into Thailand. Cover applies to West Malaysia only.
What the insurance actually covers
Basic motor insurance is included in every booking. CDW lowers your excess, it does not remove it, and on a cross-border booking it costs double: Standard CDW rises from 5% to 10% of the bill and Enhanced from 10% to 20%, calculated on the time charge plus the surcharge.
GetGo's published excess figures, which apply across its fleet except the Luxury and Premium Electric categories and are quoted for experienced drivers, are $3,300 total excess with no CDW, $2,300 with Standard and $900 with Enhanced. GetGo has not published a separate excess schedule for Malaysia trips, so treat those as the general numbers and read the exact excess shown in the app for your own booking. CDW does not cover Loss of Use or the administrative fees that follow an accident.
If something goes wrong out there: 24/7 Live Chat in the app with priority for DTM users, and partners who GetGo says will reach you anywhere in West Malaysia within 45 minutes for minor issues. On a highway, the orange emergency phones every 2km, or PLUSRonda on 1800-88-0000. For an accident, GetGo's hotline is +65 6564 3846, called immediately, before you move anything.
Should you take it over a rental?
The honest answer depends on one number: how far you are driving.
For a short JB day trip, a conventional Johor-bound rental or a cross-border bus may still win on cash, and the 12-hour minimum means you are paying for at least half a day whether you use it or not.
For a long trip inland, GetGo's shape is unusual and favourable. No deposit, no rental store, no counter queue, no mileage cap, and a surcharge that stops climbing at $20 to $35 a day. The further you drive, the better it looks, and it is the only option here where the paperwork of a Vehicle Entry Permit has already been done for you.
What it is not is a cheap way to leave a car in JB. You are always driving back, always to the same home lot, always within five days.
Related reads
Every price, fee, rule and phone number above was read off GetGo's own Drive to Malaysia guide, its rates page and its CDW terms on 1 September 2026, with the booking limits cross-checked against GetGo's launch release as reported the same day. Rates, caps and terms are set by GetGo and can change, and the app's quote is what binds. Confirm on official channels before you book.
