Phase 2C runs from 9am on 28 July to 4.30pm on 30 July, with results on 11 August. Here is the full phase table, and exactly how distance and citizenship decide a ballot.
By Marcus Toh · 2026-07-30
The 2026 Primary One Registration Exercise for children entering P1 in 2027 runs from 30 June to 30 October 2026, registered online through MOE's portal with Singpass. The early phases, for siblings, alumni and other prior connections, are done or closing, and Phase 2B results land on 27 July. The next morning, Phase 2C opens at 9am on Tuesday 28 July, and this is the phase most families are waiting for, because it is the open round for Singapore Citizen and PR children who did not register or did not get a place in the earlier phases. It is also where balloting and home distance genuinely bite.
| Phase | Registration period | Results |
|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | 9am, 30 June to 4.30pm, 2 July | 8 July |
| Phase 2A | 9am, 9 July to 4.30pm, 10 July | 17 July |
| Phase 2B | 9am, 20 July to 4.30pm, 21 July | 27 July |
| Phase 2C | 9am, 28 July to 4.30pm, 30 July | 11 August |
| Phase 2C Supplementary | 9am, 17 August to 4.30pm, 18 August | 27 August |
Balloting happens when a school has more registrants than places, and MOE states it can occur in any phase from 2A to 2C Supplementary. When it does, priority is not random. Registrants are ordered into six groups, taken in strict sequence: Singapore Citizens living within 1km of the school, then Citizens between 1km and 2km, then Citizens outside 2km, followed by Permanent Residents in the same three distance bands. A school fills places group by group down that ladder.
The ballot itself only happens inside the group where the places run out. If a school has thirty places left and forty Citizen registrants within 1km, those forty enter a computerised ballot for the thirty places, and MOE states that everyone required to ballot gets an equal chance. Everyone in the groups above was already admitted, and everyone below misses out without balloting at all. That is why the distance category your address falls in matters more than anything else you control in Phase 2C.
Two more rules worth knowing before you commit. First, an address that earned priority admission must be lived in for at least 30 months from the start of the exercise on 30 June 2026, so a short term move near a school is a commitment, not a trick. Second, MOE announced that from this exercise it will gradually reduce P1 intake across most primary schools in response to falling cohort sizes, which is worth knowing when you compare this year's vacancy numbers against older forum anecdotes. Since a priority address has to be lived in for thirty months anyway, it is worth sizing up the rest of the neighbourhood too, from childcare pickups to something like a tuition centre in Sengkang for the primary years ahead.
If your school ballots this week and your child's name does not come up, it will feel like the first big door of their education closing. It is not, and I want to say that plainly before results day rather than after. A ballot miss at Phase 2C says nothing about your child, because they were never assessed, and it says almost nothing about their future, because at age six the school matters far less than parents fear.
Here is the part the anxiety hides. Every primary school in Singapore runs the same national curriculum, taught by teachers trained by the same MOE, and the things that actually shape a six year old, being read to, being talked with, being allowed to be curious, all happen at home regardless of which gate they walk through at 7am. The famous school is not the advantage. The parent who shows up every evening is.
So register, let the ballot do what ballots do, and take whichever result comes with a lighter heart than the queue around you. Six years of steady home support beats any Phase 2C outcome, and by P3 nobody in your child's life will remember the ballot at all. The door that matters is the one you open every night, and no ballot can take that one away.