Ready Before Chinese New Year 2027? The Latest Start Dates for an HDB Flat or Condo Renovation

It is early October, and a lot of homeowners are asking the same thing: can the flat be ready before Chinese New Year? Chinese New Year 2027 falls on Saturday 6 February. The honest answer depends less on the calendar than on three numbers: how long your type of job takes, how long the permit step takes before work can start, and how much slack you leave at the end. This guide does the date arithmetic using the timelines already published on our HDB and condo pages, so you can see whether your plan is realistic before you sign anything.

Everything below is calendar arithmetic from our published ranges. It is not a promise that any particular job will finish on a particular date. That is only possible after a site visit.

Do not count back from 6 February

The date that matters is not Chinese New Year itself. It is the day the flat is genuinely finished: painted, cleaned, walked through with you, and any defects fixed. Our published HDB schedule puts painting, cleaning and handover in the last week of the job, and the handover walkthrough is where the punch list appears. If the walkthrough happens on 4 February, the fixes from it collide with reunion dinner preparations.

So pick a finish line well before the holiday. We suggest Friday 29 January 2027, one week ahead. That is our rule of thumb, not an industry rule, and it gives you a week for defects, deep cleaning, delivering furniture and unpacking. The dates below all count back from 29 January. If you would rather finish earlier, shift every date by the same number of weeks.

The published durations

• HDB flat: a typical full renovation takes 6 to 10 weeks.
• Condo, typical: 8 to 12 weeks. Smaller 1-2 bedroom units can finish in 6 to 8 weeks, and a 4-bedroom or penthouse unit can take 12 to 16 weeks.
• Condo permit: the management office's approval typically adds 1 to 2 weeks before work starts.

These are ranges because the scope decides where you land. A flat where the kitchen, both bathrooms, flooring and full-height carpentry are all being replaced sits at the long end. A flat where the layout stays and the finishes are refreshed sits at the short end.

The latest start dates, counting back from 29 January

These are the last days works could begin and still reach the finish line, if the job runs exactly to the published number of weeks.

HDB flat

• 6-week job: works must start by Friday 18 December 2026.
• 8-week job: works must start by Friday 4 December 2026.
• 10-week job: works must start by Friday 20 November 2026.

Condo apartment (with a permit lead time of up to 2 weeks added)

• Small unit, 8-week job: works by Friday 4 December, so the permit application goes in by Friday 20 November.
• Typical unit, 12-week job: works by Friday 6 November, so the permit application goes in by Friday 23 October.
• Large unit or penthouse, 16-week job: works would have had to start by Friday 9 October, and the permit application by Friday 25 September. That date has already passed, so for a unit this size a pre-Chinese New Year finish is not a realistic target.

Read those with two cautions. First, the arithmetic uses plain calendar weeks. Friday 25 December and Friday 1 January are both public holidays, and our HDB and condo pages both say there is no work on public holidays. Each one removes a working day from the window. Our published week counts do not say whether they already allow for holidays, so ask for a written week-by-week schedule that shows these dates. Second, a bigger scope means the long end of the range. If your plan is a 10-week job, plan for 10 and treat anything shorter as a bonus.

The weeks before the start date

The start date is not the day you sign. Before work starts, a few steps have to happen in order:

1. Site visit. Any price depends on it. We do not quote a fixed figure from a floor plan alone.
2. Itemised quotation. After the visit, our published turnaround is within 3 working days.
3. Your decision. Compare the quote line by line. Our guide to reading and comparing renovation quotations helps here, and you may want a second quote.
4. The renovation permit. All HDB renovations need a permit before work begins, and we submit it on your behalf. For a condo we submit to the management office, which is where the 1 to 2 weeks comes from.

So a 10-week HDB job that must start on 20 November needs all four steps finished by then, which in practice means the site visit has to happen in the weeks before, not on the week you hope to start. If you are reading this in October, the decision window for a longer job is already open. Our guide to what to prepare before the site visit shows how to make that first visit produce a quote that holds.

What does not compress

When a deadline is tight, the instinct is to ask for more hours. The rules do not allow it. HDB renovation work is permitted only on weekdays from 9am to 6pm and on Saturdays from 9am to 1pm, with no work on Sundays and public holidays. Condos typically allow weekdays 9am to 5pm only, and some allow Saturdays. You cannot make up lost time with evenings or Sundays, and noisy works are often limited further (see our guide to renovation noise rules and permitted hours).

The other step that cannot be squeezed is waterproofing. Every wet area needs the membrane applied and then a 24-hour ponding test before any tile goes down. If a contractor offers to reach your date by dropping that test, they are borrowing time from a leak that shows up in one or two years. Read the ponding test and what to ask before tiling and refuse to trade it away.

If your dates are already too late

If the arithmetic says you cannot make it, you still have choices that do not involve rushing:

• Cut scope, not steps. Remove the items that add the most time, such as a false ceiling or a long run of built-in carpentry, and do them after the holiday. Our guide to false ceilings in HDB flats covers one that many flats can skip.
• Do the essentials first. Kitchen, bathrooms and flooring are the parts you cannot live around. Wardrobes and feature walls can wait.
• Check your own date first. If you are collecting keys to a resale flat, read when you can actually start renovating before you plan around a date that is not yours to set.
• Do not treat HDB's limit as your schedule. HDB allows a maximum renovation period of 3 months from the start date. That is a ceiling, not a plan, and a flat that starts late and uses the whole allowance will not be ready for 6 February.

Five questions to ask before you commit to a date

1. What is the week-by-week schedule, and which public holidays does it assume?
2. Which days around Chinese New Year will your team not be working, and does any trade leave early?
3. By what date must I confirm tiles, sanitaryware and carpentry design so nothing waits on me? (Our carpentry is built in our own Singapore factory, which is why design decisions are best settled before work starts.)
4. What is the handover date, and how many days are built in after it for the defects list?
5. If the job slips, who tells me, and when? Our guide to what to do when a renovation runs late covers the answer to look for.

A contractor who promises to finish by a date without visiting the flat is guessing. One who gives you a schedule with dates, holidays and a defects buffer has planned it.

Want to know whether your flat or condo can be ready by Chinese New Year? WhatsApp us on 9107 2601 with your flat type or condo name, the work you want done and the date you need it finished, and we will tell you plainly whether it is realistic and arrange a site visit. Larry Contractors is an HDB Licensed Renovation Contractor, HB-09-5667H. How we work is on our HDB renovation contractor and condo renovation contractors pages.