When we’re talking about Singapore type approval process, one topic that can’t be avoided is lead time. Lead time is the duration that we need to finish an approval certification process. This is influenced by many aspect such as the procedures, requirements, variety of tastings required, and the responsiveness of the bureaucracy itself. The faster the lead time, the sooner the product can be marketed in Singapore. That’s why lead time is an important aspect when it comes to approval process.

Lead Time

Singapore is well known for its efficiency. Efficiency in this countries are applied to many aspects, including their bureaucracy. Their authority tend to simplify the bureaucracy process, and remove unnecessary process in the middle. That’s why type approval certificate in Singapore can be obtained quite sooner compared to its neighboring countries.

For your information, type approval process in Singapore is obtained with paperwork process. Although for some type of technologies testing is still required, but for most applications, it can be finished with paperwork by submitting required documentation to government portal: https://licensing.gobusiness.gov.sg/ . Upon submission, there will be evaluation process. Some additional document or data may be required in this process. And after finished, the IMDA certificate for your telecommunication product will be issued. The overall lead time would be around three business days.

Validity of IMDA Certificate

Validity is the period of how long such compliance certificate will be valid or accepted by the authority. In Singapore, validity period is distinguished by the type of application used during the certification process. FYI, there are 5 types of applications, namely:

  1. Enhanced Simplified Equipment Registration (ESER). This application is applied to products which fall into Short Range/Low Power Device classification, DECT Cordless Telephone, multi-channel portable radio (MCR446) at less than 500 mW, Portable mobile radio (PMR446), DVB-T2 Integrated Receiver Decoder, and Complex multi-line equipment.
  2. Simplified Equipment Registration (SER). This is applied to Broadband Access Equipment and Mobile Terminals.
  3. General Equipment Registration (GER). GER is applied to devices such as Landmobile Radio/walkie-talkie, Mobile/IoT Base Station/Repeater System, UWB, TV White Space devices, IoT User Equipment, DSRC, and Short-Range Device products which operates under the approval from IMDA.
  4. General Equipment Registration by Certification Bodies (GER-CB). GER-CB is applicable to authorized applicant/CB that are already specified under MRA Phase II. In other words, this application is only applicable for certification bodies that have been recognized by IMDA to register all types of telecommunication devices.
  5. Confirmation of Conformity (COFC). This is voluntary application for telecommunication equipment which has no obligation to do any approval (equipment exempted from registration). The example is fax.

From five types of application above, application number 1 – 4 has validity period of 5 years. And for application type number 5, it has no validity period. This means that the certificate would be valid forever.

Why We Care

As stated earlier, lead time is very important when we process Singapore Type Approval certification. Although this country has quite short lead time compared to other neighboring countries, it’s still important to keep the lead time on track. So, we can avoid unnecessary delay in the certificate delivery. Because in the approval process, one small mistake can affect the delivery time. Therefore, in Dimulti, we will keep your application on track and make sure the certificate can be delivered on time. Besides, remembering that Singapore type approval certificate has limited validity time, we will also help you to maintain this validity time. So, your products can be sold without any issue in the future.