How to Check a Renovation Contractor Is Really HDB-Registered

Almost every renovation company in Singapore says it is HDB-licensed. The claim appears on websites, on quotations, on the side of a lorry and in the first message of a WhatsApp conversation. It costs nothing to type, and most homeowners have no idea it can be checked in about ninety seconds.

It can. Here is exactly how, what the number actually means, and the three situations where a company is telling the truth and you are still not covered.

What "HDB-registered" actually is

HDB runs a registration scheme for renovation contractors, and only a company on that register may apply for a renovation permit for works in an HDB flat. Registration belongs to the company, not to a person, a foreman or a trade. It carries a licence number in the form HB-yy-nnnnn — ours is HB-09-5667H, and you will find it in the footer of every page on this site for the same reason we are writing this article: a number you can check is worth more than an adjective you cannot.

Two things follow immediately, and they are the two most people get wrong.

A permit is not a licence. The permit is issued for your specific flat and your specific works. The licence is the standing registration that lets a company apply for one at all. A contractor who shows you a permit from a previous job has shown you something about that job, not about their standing today.

A licence is not a quality rating. Registration establishes that a company is entitled to do HDB renovation work and is answerable to HDB for it. It does not say the workmanship was good, that the last five customers were happy, or that the company will still exist in month eight. It is a floor, not a recommendation — but a floor you should never go below.

The ninety-second check

HDB lets you look a contractor up yourself, through its e-Services at services2.hdb.gov.sg under "Find a Renovation Contractor". Do it on your own phone, before money moves.

1. Get the exact registered company name and the licence number in writing. A WhatsApp message is fine. What you want is the name as registered — "Larry Contractors Pte Ltd", not "Larry" or a brand name used on Facebook.
2. Look the company up on HDB's e-Services under "Find a Renovation Contractor", and confirm the licence number shown matches the one you were given.
3. Check the name on the quotation matches the name in the directory. This is the step that catches the most, and we come back to it below.
4. Check the same name is on the bank account you are asked to pay. A company that is registered, quotes under a different entity and collects into a third is telling you something.

If a company hesitates when you ask for the registered name and licence number, that hesitation is your answer. Nobody legitimate is embarrassed by this question. We publish ours before anyone asks.

Three ways the claim is technically true and still no use to you

1. Working "under" someone else's licence. An unregistered outfit finds a registered company willing to submit the permit application, and the works are done by people who have no relationship with the licence holder. On paper there is a registered contractor. In practice, the company answerable to HDB is not the company in your flat, and when something goes wrong the two point at each other. Ask directly: whose licence is the permit going to be applied under, and is that the same company I am signing with? Ask it before you sign, and keep the reply.

2. The quotation is from a different entity. Group structures are ordinary and not sinister by themselves. What matters is that the entity you contract with, the entity that holds the licence and applies for the permit, and the entity you pay are the same one — or that you understand exactly why they are not. Your contract is with whoever is named on the quotation, and that is who you would have to pursue.

3. The registration does not cover your property type. HDB registration is about HDB flats. If you are renovating a condominium, the questions are MCST approval and the management's own contractor requirements; if you are altering a landed house, structural works fall under BCA and the licence that matters there is a builder's licence, not an HDB one. We hold both sides of that — the HDB registration for flats, and Wong Lye Pte Ltd's BCA General Builder Class 2 licence behind the building works — which is why we can say plainly which one applies to a job rather than implying one covers everything. More on where those lines fall in our HDB renovation permit guide.

What the permit does for you once works start

The permit is applied for by the contractor, not by you, and it is specific to the works described. That has a useful consequence: the permit is a record of what was declared. If hacking is happening in your flat and hacking is not on the permit, that is a fact you can point at, not an opinion you have to argue.

So ask for a copy of the approved permit when it comes through, read the description of works against your quotation, and keep it. If the two do not match, the time to raise it is that afternoon — not after the wall is down. Which walls are even eligible is a separate question, and a common source of surprises: see which HDB walls you can and cannot remove.

What to keep on file

None of this takes long, and it is the difference between a dispute you can evidence and one you cannot:

• The registered company name and licence number, as given to you in writing.
• A screenshot of the HDB e-Services result on the day you checked, with the date visible.
• The approved renovation permit, and the works description on it.
• The quotation, showing the same company name.
• Payment records to that same company — not to an individual's personal account.

Five items, one folder on your phone. If a renovation ever goes badly, this folder is what turns "I think they said they were licensed" into something a third party can act on.

The questions worth asking in the first conversation

1. What is your registered company name and HDB licence number?
2. Will the permit be applied for under that same company?
3. Is the company on the quotation the same one, and is the payee the same again?
4. Who will actually be on site — your own team, or subcontracted trades?
5. For anything outside an HDB flat: which licence covers this work, and who holds it?

A company that answers all five without friction has told you more about how it operates than any portfolio of finished photographs. We answer them the same way every time, which is a large part of why we work directly with homeowners rather than through a middleman — there is nobody in between to blur whose licence is whose.

Where this sits among the other checks

Registration is the first filter, not the last. Once a company clears it, the useful questions become about scope, payment and workmanship rather than standing — the ground covered in questions to ask before you sign and the red flags worth walking away from. Do the licence check first because it is cheap and binary. Do the rest because that is where the money actually goes wrong.

The short version

Ask for the registered name and the HB number. Search HDB's directory yourself. Check that name against the quotation and against the account you are paying. Ask whose licence the permit will be filed under. Keep five documents. That is the whole check, it costs nothing, and it is the single cheapest hour of protection in a renovation.

If you are comparing companies right now and want a straight answer on which licence applies to your particular job — HDB flat, condo unit or landed house — send us the property type and the scope. Message us on WhatsApp and we will tell you what should be in place, whether or not you engage us. Our own details: Larry Contractors Pte Ltd, HDB Licence No. HB-09-5667H.