Tuas Checkpoint: Facial Recognition Is Now Live on All 80 Automated Motorcycle Lanes, and Full-Face Helmets Have to Come Off

> Quick view: ICA said on Friday 18 September 2026 that facial recognition immigration clearance is now running on all 80 automated arrival and departure lanes at Tuas Checkpoint. Scan a MyICA QR code or your passport, ride into the bay, insert your AutoPass or Cashcard, lift the visor and look at the camera. A full-face helmet has to come off. Woodlands has run it since 31 March, so both land checkpoints are now covered.

If you ride to Johor through Tuas, the thing that clears you is no longer the fingerprint reader. ICA announced on Friday 18 September 2026 that facial images are now the primary biometric identifier on every automated motorcycle lane at the checkpoint, arrival and departure, 80 lanes in all.

This is not a trial and there is nothing to sign up for. It is the final leg of a rollout ICA set out in a media release on 26 March 2026, which named Tuas for the third quarter of the year. That deadline has been met with a fortnight to spare.

What actually changed

ICA's March release is the policy document, and it is worth reading literally: facial images progressively replace fingerprints as the primary biometric identifier for motorcyclists and pillion riders clearing immigration at the land checkpoints. It is part of what ICA calls its New Clearance Concept, aimed at clearance that is contactless, secure and faster.

The sequence to date:

ICA says the combination of QR code clearance and facial recognition for motorcyclists and pillion riders has lifted clearance throughput by more than 35 per cent during departure peak periods. That is ICA's own figure, and departure peaks are exactly when the bike lanes at both checkpoints hurt most.

The six steps, as ICA writes them

Straight from the annex to ICA's media release, and matched against ICA's standing BIKES page:

1. Present and scan your passport, or the QR code generated via the MyICA mobile app, at the kiosk.
2. The entry barrier lifts on verification. Ride into the clearance bay.
3. Insert your AutoPass or Cashcard into the card reader in the bay.
4. Lift your helmet visor. ICA's note here is the one to remember: riders and pillion riders wearing full face helmets will need to remove the helmet so their facial features are fully visible.
5. Remove sunglasses and face masks, if any, then look into the camera to capture your facial image.
6. The exit barrier lifts on successful verification. The light strips on the facial camera turn green, and you are cleared.

With a pillion rider, you each look at your own facial camera when prompted. If the facial check does not succeed, ICA's BIKES page says you are prompted for your fingerprint biometric instead, so a failed scan costs you seconds, not a trip to a manned counter.

The detail that will catch people out

There is a real split between helmet types now, and nobody advertises it.

A flip-front or modular lid clears with a visor lift, one gloved movement. A full-face helmet has to be removed entirely, which means unbuckling, lifting it off, holding it, looking at the camera, and putting it back on, in a lane with riders behind you. For that group, the honest read is that facial recognition is not automatically faster than the fingerprint touch it replaces, at least not on the first few runs.

Two things follow from that. If you cross often on a full-face lid and you are choosing a helmet anyway, a modular one now saves you a step at the border twice a trip. And if you are crossing at a departure peak, expect the lane to move unevenly while riders work out which group they are in.

Set up the QR code before you go, not at the kiosk

ICA keeps pushing QR code clearance for a reason: as of 15 March 2026, 62 per cent of motorcyclists and pillion riders were using it at the land checkpoints, and the agency's position is that the more riders adopt it, the faster overall traffic moves and the shorter the waits get.

Two rules sit in the same part of ICA's release and both bite at the kiosk:

• Carry your passport anyway. ICA may still require you to produce it for verification.
• Update your QR code if you have changed passport. Otherwise the code will be rejected during clearance.

A rider with a QR code generated against an expired passport is a rider holding up a lane. Generate it at home.

Four things this does not change

It is easy to read a headline like this as the border problem being solved. It is not.

• The car queues are a separate project. Automated in-vehicle clearance for cars, ICA's Automated Passenger Clearance System, is a different system on a different timeline, reaching all vehicles at Tuas from early 2027.
• Tuas departure car zones are still a worksite. Parts of them close in phases until late 2027 while the manned car counters are replaced. Bike lanes are not car lanes, but the checkpoint they share is still under construction.
• Malaysian immigration is untouched. This is the Singapore side only. Whatever happens at the other end of the Second Link runs to its own rules.
• Eligibility still excludes some riders. First-time foreign visitors, and anyone entering on a different passport from their last trip, clear manually that time.

Before you ride

ICA's newsroom carries no media release for the Tuas switch-on, which came through the agency's own social channels on 18 September. The standing reference is ICA's BIKES page at ica.gov.sg, which sets out the eligibility table and the clearance steps, and it notes that clearance zones not yet ready for facial recognition continue to prompt for fingerprints. Check ICA's own channels for the current position before you travel rather than relying on any roundup, this one included.

Related

• Singapore Goes 'Drive-Through Immigration': Tuas Checkpoint to Roll Out World-First Automated Car Clearance from 2027 is the car half of the same automation programme
• Tuas Checkpoint: Departure Car Lanes Close in Phases From 1 Sep 2026 is the construction advisory that runs to late 2027
• ICA: Heavy Traffic at Woodlands and Tuas From 4 to 14 Sep 2026 for how ICA frames peak crossing periods
• Causeway Link Goes Cashless at Queen Street and Newton if you would rather not ride at all
• WTS9 Cross-Border Bus: Changi Airport to Johor Bahru if you are connecting from the airport

*Sources: ICA media release "Facial Image to be Progressively Rolled out as Primary Biometric Identifier for Motorcyclist Immigration Clearance at the Land Checkpoints", 26 March 2026, and its annex; ICA's Biometric Identification of Motorbikers (BIKES) page at ica.gov.sg; and ICA's announcement of the Tuas rollout on 18 September 2026. Photo: ICA official campaign visual.*