The Animal & Veterinary Service is doing something it has never done before: bringing an adoption drive into the Central Business District, at lunchtime, on a working Thursday.
Paws in the City runs 27 to 29 August 2026, 11am to 8pm daily, at Urban Park, Guoco Tower, 1 Wallich Street, Singapore 078881 - the plaza on top of Tanjong Pagar MRT. AVS calls it its first ever pet event in the CBD, and its own poster bills it as "Adoption drives, marketplace, and more animal-related fun!"
> Quick view: Free to walk in, no ticket or registration published. Ten welfare groups plus AVS, on a roster that changes daily - the cat and bird groups are all on Thursday 27 Aug. And note the calendar: the event ends Saturday 29 Aug, but the free pet-cat licensing window closes Monday 31 Aug. Adopt a cat and you have two days to microchip, do the free online course and file on PALS.
The basics
| Dates | Thursday 27 to Saturday 29 August 2026 |
| Time | 11am to 8pm, all three days |
| Where | Urban Park, Guoco Tower, 1 Wallich Street, S078881 |
| Cost | No ticket, fee or registration published by AVS |
| Who's there | 10 animal welfare groups + AVS |
| Animals | Dogs and cats on site; adoption booklets for other animals such as parrots |
AVS pitches it squarely at the office crowd - "the perfect weekday lunch break or after-work stop for those in and around the CBD" - and says more details will be released closer to the date. The page was last updated on 18 August 2026.
Pick your day - the roster is not the same each day
This is the part the coverage has skipped, and it decides whether you meet a cat or a queue of dogs. AVS publishes exactly who is on site, in which half of the day:
| Time | Thu 27 Aug | Fri 28 Aug | Sat 29 Aug |
|---|---|---|---|
| 11am - 3pm | Love Kuching Project; Parrot Society (Singapore); Animal & Veterinary Service | Action for Singapore Dogs; Every Stray Matters | Oasis Second Chance Animal Shelter; SOSD; Chained Dog Awareness Singapore |
| 3pm - 8pm | Action for Singapore Dogs; Mercylight Animal Rescue; SPCA; Purely Adoptions | Oasis Second Chance Animal Shelter; Every Stray Matters; Action for Singapore Dogs | Action for Singapore Dogs |
Read down the Thursday column and the pattern is obvious: every group whose remit covers cats or birds is on the opening day - Love Kuching Project is a community cat rescue, the Parrot Society (Singapore) speaks for the birds, the SPCA rehomes cats, dogs, rabbits and small animals, and Purely Adoptions handles both cats and dogs. Friday and Saturday are dog days. And Action for Singapore Dogs is the only group present on all three, so if your schedule is rigid, that is the one constant.
What is on, hour by hour
| Time | Thu 27 Aug | Fri 28 Aug | Sat 29 Aug |
|---|---|---|---|
| All day | Caricature artists | Caricature artists; AVS Education booth | Caricature artists |
| 11am - 1pm | Chat with AVS Dog Trainer | - | - |
| 12 - 1pm | - | Talk: "Fostering: A Sustainable Pathway from Rescue to Responsible Rehoming" by Every Stray Matters | Paw Race |
| 2 - 3pm | - | DIY Dog Toy Workshop from Recycled Materials | - |
| 3 - 5pm | - | Chat with AVS Dog Trainer | Treasure Hunt (3-4pm) |
| 4 - 6pm | - | - | Paw Race |
| 5 - 7pm | Chat with AVS Dog Trainer | Treasure Hunt (6-7pm) | - |
| 7 - 8pm | - | - | Best Ridiculously Dressed Owner and Dog Contest |
The Chat with AVS Dog Trainer booth is the quietly useful one if you are on the fence: free access to a trainer, before you take a dog home rather than after. And note that the fostering talk is given by Every Stray Matters, one of the groups actually on the roster that day - fostering is the low-commitment answer for anyone who wants to help but cannot sign up for a decade.
The deadline nobody at the event will chase you about
Here is the calendar problem. Paws in the City ends on Saturday 29 August. The two-year transition period for pet cat licensing ends on Monday 31 August 2026.
Since 1 September 2024, under the Cat Management Framework, all cat licences have been issued for free - and for a sterilised cat that free licence is a one-time licence valid for the cat's lifetime. An unsterilised cat gets a free licence covering the transition period, issued on a renewal basis.
From 1 September 2026 it becomes an offence under the Animals and Birds Act to keep an unlicensed pet cat, and owners who fail to comply with the cat-keeping rules and licence conditions are liable on conviction to a fine of up to $5,000. AVS has said it will investigate feedback and take enforcement action.
So if you adopt a cat on the Thursday, you have four days. On the Saturday, two. The steps are microchip, then the compulsory free one-time online pet ownership course for first-time applicants, then apply on PALS at pals.avs.gov.sg. The course is the step people underestimate - do it the same evening.
One correction while we are here. Plenty of write-ups are telling cat owners that a licence will cost "S$35 for life if sterilised, or S$90 a year if not" after 31 August. AVS's own licence-fee page does carry a heading for "Dog and cat licence fees (from 1 September 2026 onwards)" - but the table underneath it is completely empty, and the page was last updated on 31 October 2025. Those figures are lifted from the dog schedule, where a one-time licence for a sterilised dog is S$35 and a one-year licence for a non-sterilised dog is S$90 (with a 10% rebate for GIRO, online or AXS payment). They are a reasonable guess at what cats will be charged. They are not, today, a published cat fee - which is one more reason to file before the free window shuts.
For the record, the framework has moved a lot of animals: about 66,000 pet cats licensed since September 2024, 94% of them sterilised, 11,500 microchipped at over 120 free drives, and over 64,000 people through the online course. Lower-income households can also apply for free sterilisation and microchipping under the Pet Cat Sterilisation Support programme, which has covered more than 5,200 cats across 2,500 households.
What adoption actually costs
Adoption fees are published, and they are the cheapest part of pet ownership. The SPCA's fees all include vaccination, sterilisation, deworming and microchipping:
| SPCA adoption fee | Amount |
|---|---|
| Singapore Special puppies (under 6 months) | $250 |
| Local cross breed adults (6 months to under 7.5 years) | $150 |
| Pedigrees and crosses (under 7.5 years) | $350 |
| Senior dogs (over 7.5 years, or over a year at SPCA) | $70 |
| Dogs with special needs or long-term medical care | $25 |
| Local kittens (under 6 months) / local cats | $100 / $80 |
| Pedigree, cross and long-fur cats | $200 |
| Senior or special-needs cats | $25 |
| Local rabbit / pedigree rabbit | $20 / $70 |
| Guinea pig / skinny pig / chinchilla | $30 / $50 / $100 |
| Hamsters, mice, gerbils | $10 |
Its page adds the line most people miss: the AVS dog licensing fee is not included. Action for Singapore Dogs charges $400 for a local cross breed and $600 for a pedigree, covering the vet health check, vaccinations up to adoption, microchipping and sterilisation once the dog is old enough.
The SPCA also publishes how its process works, and it is worth knowing before you fall in love at a booth: up to five families can reserve the same animal, all household members must be present to interact with it, a premises check may be required, and if you are approved you can adopt on the spot, with the animal held for up to three days.
Before you commit: the flat rules
- HDB flat: up to two cats, plus one dog of an approved breed under the HDB Animals Rules 1989.
- Private premises: a maximum of three cats and/or dogs in total.
- A Singapore Special in an HDB flat is only allowed via Project ADORE: the dog must be up to 55cm in height (the old 15kg weight cap was removed in 2020 and formalised in 2022), licensed, microchipped, vaccinated and sterilised, one per unit, and the adopter must complete a mandatory obedience training programme with an AVS-accredited certified dog trainer or an ADORE trainer.
- Already over the cat limit? If you owned the cats before 1 September 2024 and license them all before 31 August 2026, you may keep all of them - a household with five existing licensed cats keeps five. Miss the window and you are held to two.
- Fostering instead: from 3 August 2026 AVS is running a two-year pilot letting approved fosterers keep up to six cats in a 3-room or larger HDB flat and 10 in private premises, with licensing fees waived for fostered cats.
And the sentence that should sit under every adoption story: abandonment is an offence. A first-time offender who fails in the duty of care to their pet faces a fine of up to $10,000, up to 12 months' jail, or both.
*Image: Animal & Veterinary Service (AVS) official event artwork. Primary sources: the AVS event page for Paws in the City, AVS's published licence-fee and Cat Management Framework pages, NParks' media release of 18 July 2026, and the published adoption-fee pages of the SPCA and Action for Singapore Dogs.*
