Childhood Immunisation Schedule Singapore: What to Expect

Singapore runs one childhood immunisation schedule, and only two of the jabs on it are compulsory by law. That schedule is the National Childhood Immunisation Schedule (NCIS), a list of vaccinations covering 14 diseases. The Communicable Diseases Agency publishes it.

As published on 22 May 2026, it covers tuberculosis, hepatitis B, diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b, measles, mumps, rubella, chickenpox, pneumococcal disease, human papillomavirus and influenza. Only the diphtheria and measles jabs are compulsory, under the Infectious Diseases Act. The rest are the recommended standard of care.

What the schedule is, and who keeps it

The NCIS is the national list of vaccinations recommended as the standard of care, because the diseases they prevent are a significant healthcare burden for Singapore. The Ministry of Health (MOH) reviews it with its Expert Committee on Immunisation, weighing local disease burden, vaccine safety, how well each vaccine works and what it costs.

Two words on that page do different jobs, and it is easy to read them as one. Recommended is the standard of care: a clinic gives these jabs as part of routine care, and they are what most Singaporean children receive. Compulsory is a legal word. The law requires those jabs and sets a penalty if you do not.

The schedule sits with the Communicable Diseases Agency, a statutory board under the Ministry of Health established in April 2025. The same agency maintains the National Immunisation Registry, the register of doses given.

The two jabs that are compulsory by law

The rules sit in the Infectious Diseases (Diphtheria and Measles Vaccination) Regulations 2021. Here is what they actually say.

For diphtheria, a child must complete a course of 3 injections when the child is 6 weeks of age or older but below 12 months. Two boosters follow. The first is due within 18 months of finishing the primary course, and the second after that and before the child turns 12.

For measles, a child must complete a course of 2 doses when the child is 12 months of age or older but below 25 months. That is a window, not a birthday appointment. Start the measles course at 12 months and you are inside it. Start it late and you are not.

If your child is medically unfit to be vaccinated, a doctor issues a certificate of unfitness and the course then has to be completed within 12 months of the date on that certificate. A child is also exempt from the measles course where the parent submits laboratory results showing the child has had measles or has immunity against the virus.

Miss a dose of either jab and it can be required in writing. Regulation 6 lets the Director issue a notice setting the time by which the child must be vaccinated. Regulations 3(2) and 5(2) cover the same ground for a child who leaves Singapore for six months or more without finishing the course and comes back before turning 12.

What is the penalty? Regulation 9 sets one offence: a fine not exceeding S$10,000, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months, or both. There is no smaller first-offence tier and no larger second-offence tier in the regulation now in force. Children born before 1 January 2022 remain under the rules they were born to, which the 2021 Regulations say continue to apply to them.

None of that reaches the jabs the schedule merely recommends. The law covers two diseases out of fourteen. For the rest, the standard of care is what your clinic recommends.

Every vaccine on the schedule, and what it protects against

The schedule is laid out by age in the agency’s own chart, and that chart is the version to book against. What follows is what sits on it: every vaccine, the disease it protects against, how many doses it takes and whether the law requires it. D1 means the first dose, D2 the second, and B1 or B2 a booster.

The ages come first here, because the table below does not carry them. The chart runs from birth through 2, 4, 6, 12, 15 and 18 months, then 2 to 4 years, 5 to 9 years and the school bands from 10 to 11 years up to 15 to 17 years.

The agency and the 2021 Regulations state some of these ages in words. The diphtheria course runs when the baby is 6 weeks of age or older but below 12 months, with its first booster within 18 months of finishing that course and its second before the child turns 12; the measles course runs when the child is 12 months of age or older but below 25 months; hepatitis B doses 2 and 3 come at 2 and 6 months inside the 6-in-1; and the school rounds at 10 to 11, 12 to 13 and 13 to 14 years.

Twelve vaccines cover those 14 diseases, because two of them are combinations. The 6-in-1 covers diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, Haemophilus influenzae type b and hepatitis B in one injection, so one needle can do the work of several separate jabs. MMRV, which combines measles, mumps, rubella and chickenpox, does the same job later.

The schedule’s own notes give one more useful detail: for MMR, only the second dose is recommended as part of the MMRV. From 10 to 11 years, the Tdap, polio, HPV and MMR doses move to the school-based vaccination programme run by the Health Promotion Board. That is also where MMR catch-up happens for a child who missed it.

What it costs, and where you can get the jabs

Short answer: for a Singapore Citizen child, the jabs on the schedule are subsidised at a CHAS GP clinic, which is a family doctor on the Community Health Assist Scheme, and at a polyclinic. What you pay depends on the setting and on which vaccine brand the clinic holds.

The list that decides whether a particular jab is subsidised is MOH’s Subsidised Vaccine List, dated as of 1 April 2026. It names the specific brands MOH subsidises from the childhood and adult schedules, at public hospitals, specialist outpatient clinics, polyclinics and CHAS GP clinics.

MediSave is the other lever and it works differently. MOH allows MediSave for every vaccination on the NCIS in outpatient settings. A subsidy reduces what the clinic charges you. MediSave is your own savings account, and it pays a bill you have already been charged.

CHAS Blue also names nationally-recommended vaccinations as one of its benefits, for citizens who meet the criteria for vaccination under the childhood and adult schedules. If you want the detail on how a CHAS tier stacks up, our guide to choosing a paediatrician in Singapore sets out the three routes.

Where the record lives

Two records, sitting side by side rather than replacing each other. The Child Health Booklet is the paper one. The digital one lives in HealthHub, under Children’s Health Services, which describes itself as a companion to the booklet that you use together with it.

The digital record pulls from the National Immunisation Registry, the register of doses given that the Communicable Diseases Agency maintains. HealthHub also shows upcoming vaccinations, so it is the record that tells you what is due next.

The same Children’s Health Services e-service also logs your child’s weight at each visit; our baby weight chart by month sets out what a normal weight looks like at each age.

1. Open the HealthHub app or web portal and log in with Singpass.
2. On the web portal, go to Health eServices, then Children’s Health Services. On the app, it is the menu, then Dependents (Children), then Children’s Health Services.
3. Open the immunisation part of the record. It shows past immunisation history and upcoming vaccinations.
4. Compare it with the Child Health Booklet. If the two differ, raise it with the clinic at the next visit.

One eligibility detail catches people out. HealthHub says a parent can add a child who is below 21 and, from 1 January 1996, is a Singapore Citizen born in Singapore, a naturalised Singapore Citizen or a Permanent Resident, and only the citizen line asks where the child was born. So a permanent resident or naturalised citizen born outside Singapore from that date is still on the list; if your child is not on it, ask your clinic how the paper record is handled instead.

And register the birth before any of this. HealthHub asks for the child’s birth details when you add them, and if you have not registered yet, our guide to registering your baby’s birth in Singapore covers the forms and the deadlines.

A missed dose, and the booster that gets missed

Coverage for the primary series, the first course of doses a child is given, holds at about 97%. The gap opens at the booster.

In a Parliamentary reply on 10 September 2026, the Ministry of Health said that among resident children aged two, coverage for the diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis primary series has been maintained at about 97%, and coverage for the booster dose at about 90%. By seven years of age, booster coverage rose to about 96% or higher.

The Ministry’s own read on the gap is plain: delays in vaccination when children are sick, or parents missing appointments. It also says what it does about it. Reminders go out through HealthHub notifications and letters to parents, and catch-up vaccination is provided in primary school.

Measles shows the same shape. In a Parliamentary reply on 24 February 2026, MOH put measles dose 2 coverage at about 93% at two years and 97% by seven. The same reply recorded 50 laboratory-confirmed measles cases in Singapore between 1 January 2021 and 31 December 2025, six of them in people who had been vaccinated and still caught it.

So what do you do when a dose slips? Book the catch-up as soon as the child is well again. Tell the clinic which doses are missing rather than guessing, because the gap decides what they give. For diphtheria and measles, remember the dose can be required in writing, and that a certificate of unfitness starts a 12-month clock rather than stopping one.

The flu jab is on the schedule. Rotavirus is not.

One correction worth making. Influenza is on the NCIS, not beside it. The schedule asks for it annually for every child from 6 months to under 5 years, and annually for children and adolescents aged 5 to 17 with a specific medical condition or indication.

Rotavirus and hepatitis A are different. Neither appears among the vaccines in the schedule’s own list, so they sit outside the subsidies described above. Ask your clinic about them at the same visit, and ask what they charge before you agree.

How to tell a current page from a stale one

Health pages about the schedule go out of date quietly, and two official sources on this topic are currently out of step with each other. The 2021 Regulations still tell doctors to report a vaccination through the Health Promotion Board’s old registry address, while the agency’s own registry portal sits on cda.gov.sg. HealthHub’s Children’s Health Services page is still labelled as contributed by the Health Promotion Board.

Neither of those is a reason to distrust either source. It is a reason to check the date on a page before you book from it. The agency’s schedule page was last updated on 22 May 2026 when this was written, and MOH’s subsidy page on 9 April 2026. Those are the two dates that tell you whether what you are reading is current.

Your next step

Add your child on HealthHub with Singpass and look at the upcoming vaccinations on the record before the next clinic visit. It tells you which dose is due, and you can check that against the agency’s schedule chart.

If the visit itself is still to sort, our guide to choosing a paediatrician in Singapore covers the three routes and where the schedule jabs are subsidised on each one. More on the first year sits in our infant guides.

Wei Chun

Founder & Editor

A Singapore parent writing the guide he wished he'd had — practical, calm, and grounded in what actually works.

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