> Quick view: ReadSG launches today, Sunday 6 September 2026, and September is now Singapore's first National Reading Month. Four things are live. The launch day at the National Library Building runs 11am to 6pm, free, registration required. The ReadSG Challenge on CrowdTaskSG pays 20 coins per 15-minute reading session, one session a day. CrowdTaskSG prices coins at 1,000 to S$1, so that is two cents a day. Log 15 sessions by 7 October and you enter a draw for one of 8 Kobo Clara Colour e-readers (S$259.90 each). Read for Good turns every logged session into charity funding, 6 Sep to 7 Oct, and the Big Book Giveaway hands out free library books on 19 and 20 September.
The National Library Board switched on ReadSG this morning. It is a five-year national reading movement with President Tharman Shanmugaratnam as Patron, and it inaugurates September as National Reading Month.
The framing that has travelled furthest since NLB announced this in July is "Singapore will pay you to read". The reward mechanic went live with the campaign, so that claim can finally be checked against a number. It does not survive contact with one.
What the ReadSG Challenge actually pays
The Challenge is hosted on CrowdTaskSG, GovTech's crowdsourcing platform, and NLB describes it as a pilot. Its terms and conditions publish the full rate card:
| What you do | What it pays |
|---|---|
| Log one daily reading session (15 minutes or more) | 20 coins |
| Check in at a Challenge Event and finish the event quiz | 20 coins plus 1 limited-edition ReadSG Challenge charm |
| Complete the post-Challenge survey | 50 coins |
CrowdTaskSG's own FAQ sets the conversion at 1,000 coins = S$1. So a daily reading session is worth two cents.
Read every single day from 6 September to 7 October, which is 32 sessions, and you collect 640 coins. Add the survey and you have 690 coins. That is 69 cents for eight hours of reading, or roughly nine cents an hour.
There is a second wall in front of that 69 cents. CrowdTaskSG's minimum payment is S$0.10, or 100 coins, so the first five days of reading buy nothing at all. And coins expire: anything earned between 1 April and 30 September expires at 11.59pm on 31 March the following year, while coins earned 1 October to 31 March expire on 30 September of the same year. Coins are spent by scanning a NETS QR code at a participating merchant. The terms are explicit that they are non-transferable and cannot be exchanged for cash.
> Treat the coins as a rounding error. The prize actually worth chasing is the draw.
The Kobo draw is the real prize
The Challenge runs two lucky-draw rounds, and both have qualifying thresholds you have to hit deliberately.
Round 1 covers 6 September 2026, 00:00 to 7 October 2026, 23:59. Log 15 reading sessions in that window and you are entered automatically, with no separate registration. 8 winners each receive one Kobo Clara Colour e-reader, which Rakuten Kobo's own Singapore store prices at S$259.90. The draw is on 14 October 2026 at 2pm at The Central Public Library, 100 Victoria Street #B1-01.
Round 2 covers 8 October to 30 November 2026. You need a cumulative 30 sessions by the end of it, and Round 1 sessions count toward that total. Round 1 winners are excluded. 7 winners each receive a Kobo Libra Colour, which the same store prices at S$369.90. That draw is on 6 January 2027 at 2pm, same venue.
Across both rounds that is 15 e-readers, about S$4,668 of hardware, against a coin pool worth cents. Fifteen sessions in 32 days is the single most efficient thing to aim at here. It is under half the days in the window, and it is the whole qualification.
Two conditions decide whether a win survives. Winners are notified by the email on their CrowdTaskSG account and must acknowledge within 7 days, then collect within 30 days of the results being released. Miss either and the prize is forfeited, with no extensions and no substitutions. Forfeited prizes go to a replacement draw on 3 February 2027. Results are posted at read.gov.sg within 7 days of each draw.
The rules that decide whether your reading counts
- One session per day only. The daily check-in resets at 11.59pm. NLB asks you to log all your reading for the day in a single submission and pick the interval that reflects the total.
- 15 minutes is the floor, preferably uninterrupted.
- Almost everything counts. NLB's FAQ accepts physical books, eBooks, audiobooks, magazines, comics, newspapers and long-form articles, in any language, from any source. You do not have to read NLB's collection.
- Eligibility is Singpass. You must be 18 or older, or 15 to 17 with parental or guardian consent. One Singpass account per person, and multiple accounts can get you suspended.
- Under 15? They are not in this Challenge. NLB points younger readers to Book Bugs, and preschoolers aged 0 to 6 with their parents to A Book a Day, which launches in January 2027.
- One diary note: CrowdTaskSG has scheduled maintenance from 17 September, 9pm, to 18 September, 2am.
Sign-up is at go.gov.sg/rcct, which lands on the quest page. As of this morning it showed 195 readers joined and 2,760 minutes read.
Read for Good: your 15 minutes is worth more to someone else
This is the part where the arithmetic finally works in your favour. From 6 September to 7 October, every session you log on the ReadSG Challenge also counts toward Read for Good, NLB's charity reading drive, now in its 10th year and formerly called Read for Books.
NLB is targeting 7.5 million collective reading minutes, which unlocks S$150,000 of funding for up to 10,000 beneficiaries. The three beneficiaries for 2026 are kidsREAD, MINDS and Preschool Market. The FAQ is straight about the mechanics: if the total lands below 7.5 million minutes, the donation is pro-rated; if it goes above, the payout is capped at S$150,000.
So the same 15 minutes that earns you two cents feeds a pool paying out at roughly two cents a minute to charity. That is a better reason to log the session than the coin is.
Read for Good has a second route that needs no Singpass at all. Read for 15 minutes, photograph the session, and submit through FormSG at go.gov.sg/r4g26-all. Anyone can take part: you do not need to be a library member, a Singaporean, or even living in Singapore. Group Read Together sessions are welcome, and organisations can run several. Reading must happen between 6 September and 7 October, and FormSG submissions close 14 October 2026 at 11.59pm.
Today at the National Library Building, free
The launch runs 11am to 6pm across The Plaza and Lobby on Level 1 and the Central Library at Basement 1, National Library Building, 100 Victoria Street, Singapore 188064. Entry is free but registration is required, one ticket per person.
There are themed reading spaces at the Central Library (Immersive Room, Programme Room 3, Courtyard) and in the National Library Building (The Pod on Level 16, the Promenade on Level 13, the Courtyard on Level 5), plus a marketplace with local bookstores and artists, picnic grounds, activity stations and limited-edition merchandise. Camy from Monsters United is doing a storytelling session and meet-and-greet.
The stage schedule:
| Time | Session |
|---|---|
| 11am to 5pm | What If the Right Book Found You at Exactly the Right Moment? |
| 12.30pm to 1pm | How Are You Feeling? with Suhaimi Yusof and Nurjannah Suhaimi |
| 2pm to 2.30pm | Growing Up, One Book at a Time with Amanda Yip |
| 2.45pm to 3.15pm | Own Your Morning, Own Your Day with Das DD |
| 3.30pm to 4pm | From Script to Soul: The Original Daughter with Annette Lee |
| 5.30pm to 6pm | Poetry in Motion by STEP Dance Theatre |
If town is too far today, there is a neighbourhood version. Read for Good at your local library runs 2pm to 3pm today at participating libraries and the Former Ford Factory. Pick a title off a librarian's trolley, read 15 uninterrupted minutes, and collect an exclusive Reading Dessert Keychain while stocks last.
Free books on 19 and 20 September
The Big Book Giveaway returns for its 11th edition on Saturday 19 and Sunday 20 September 2026, 10am to 4pm, at The Plaza, Level 1, National Library Building. NLB gives away books and audio-visual items from the public library collections free of charge.
The rule is 10 books, 10 minutes: you get 10 minutes to browse and may take a maximum of 10 books per person, while stocks last. You can also bring your own pre-loved books to pass on, up to 100 per person. NLB will not accept religious materials, textbooks and assessment books, magazines, annual reports, DVDs, CDs and other audio-visual material, or damaged items. New this year: goodwill donations to MINDS as you browse.
Also running all month
- Love Our Libraries and Archives (LOLA), all September. Borrow 4 physical library items to redeem a Genre Cat sticker, with a new one each week: Adventure Cat 1 to 7 Sep, Fantasy Cat 8 to 14 Sep, Sci-fi Cat 15 to 21 Sep, Romance Cat 22 to 30 Sep. While stocks last.
- Reading in the Age of Distraction, Saturdays. 12 Sep, Richard E. Cytowic on brain rot, 10am to 11.30am. 19 Sep, Naomi S. Baron on print versus screen versus audio versus AI, 10am to 11.30am. 26 Sep, Oliver Burkeman on finding time, 3pm to 4.30pm. The 5 September session with John Green has already run.
The honest summary
If you were told Singapore is paying people to read, the number is two cents a day, and you cannot spend the first five days' worth. What is genuinely on offer is a free launch day today, free books on 19 and 20 September, free keychains and stickers through the month, a charity pool that turns your 15 minutes into real funding, and a draw for 15 e-readers that only asks for 15 logged sessions in five weeks.
Log the sessions for the draw and the charity. Ignore the coins.
Related
- World Car-Free Day 2026: Joo Chiat Closes to Traffic on 3 October. The other CrowdTaskSG quest running right now, with the same coin arithmetic.
- Best Places for Kids in Singapore During the School Holidays. The September break runs 5 to 13 September.
- Best Singapore Promos and Deals This Month. Every live deal, sorted by urgency.
*Sources: NLB's official ReadSG site (read.gov.sg), the ReadSG Challenge quest page and terms and conditions on GovTech's CrowdTaskSG (crowdtask.gov.sg), CrowdTaskSG's own coin FAQ, NLB's Read for Good 2026 FAQ PDF (reference FAQ/CSG/A&S/2026/09/01), and NLB's event listing for the 6 September launch. E-reader prices read off Rakuten Kobo's Singapore eReader store on 6 September 2026. Cover image: NLB's own ReadSG campaign key visual. Dates, rewards and terms are set by NLB and GovTech and may change, so confirm on read.gov.sg and crowdtask.gov.sg before planning around them.*
