Advertising in Singapore with Google Ads: how to launch and what changes

In short

• Which languages should you plan for in Singapore? English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil are all in the Google Ads list, but English is the language most often spoken at home. Start with it, then add a language when your searches show it.
• Should you split the country into areas? Singapore is a city-state: target the whole country and vary the language rather than the area, with one campaign, or at least one ad group, per language.
• Who invoices, and with which tax? Google's Singapore section covers goods and services tax (GST) for accounts with a Singaporean business address and names no invoicing company. An account based elsewhere reads the section of its own country.
• Is online gambling allowed? No: Singapore is not in the list of countries where Google accepts those ads.
• Should you show prices with tax included? For GST-registered businesses, the tax authority requires GST-inclusive prices toward the public. Ask your accountant whether that covers your ads and your pages.
• When should you watch the calendar? At National Day, Chinese New Year and the holidays with moving dates: measure the effect in Google Trends set to Singapore.

Key takeaway: Launch a campaign for Singapore in English, add a language only when the searches show it, display your prices as the tax rule requires, and read the Google results page of each keyword before you bid.

Country fact sheet

Data verified on 14 October 2026. Each value was read on its source on the date shown. It may have changed since: the source prevails.

The method, step by step

1. Step 1 — Create a campaign dedicated to Singapore

   Pick Singapore as the location of the campaign. One campaign per country and language keeps budgets, bids and reports readable. If your offer is only delivered in Singapore, choose the Presence option, which targets people located there, rather than Presence or interest, which also reaches people who are only interested in the country.

2. Step 2 — Start with English, one language per campaign

   Write ads, keywords and landing page in English for the first campaign. Google matches ads to searches based on their language: one language per campaign, or at least per ad group, avoids mixing. The facts table at the top of the page lists the languages Google Ads recognizes for the country.

3. Step 3 — Rebuild the keywords language by language

   Start from Keyword Planner set to Singapore and to the target language, not from a translation of your list. Keep one more language only if Keyword Planner and Google Trends show searches in it. Our guide on how to choose Google Ads keywords covers the method.

4. Step 4 — Read the Singapore Google results page before you bid

   For each keyword, look at the Google results page as seen from Singapore, in the language of the keyword: ads, ranking pages, local blocks. The Should I Bid intent analysis does this reading keyword by keyword and returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict.

5. Step 5 — Write the ads and the landing page in the target language

   Have each version written, or at least reviewed, by a native speaker. If your business is registered for GST, check with your accountant that the prices you display to the public include the tax, as the tax authority requires.

6. Step 6 — Plan for the invoice and the GST

   Check the business address of your account: Google's Singapore section targets accounts with an address in Singapore. An account based elsewhere reads the section of its own country. The name of the invoicing company is on your invoice. Ask your accountant what is recoverable.

7. Step 7 — Check the rules for your sector

   Gambling, medicines, telemedicine, alcohol: Google keeps country-specific rules. Online gambling, for example, is not allowed in Singapore under Google's policy. Read the policy page for your sector before you write, and look for the mention of Singapore.

8. Step 8 — Test, exclude, then add a language

   Run a capped test budget, read the search terms report and add as negatives whatever brings clicks with no buying intent. Once the first language runs well, open the next one in its own campaign, with its own keywords and its own negatives.

A city-state: target the whole country, structure by language

Singapore is a city-state: the whole country is the natural targeting area, and language is what makes your campaigns differ. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs presents the country as a tropical island in Southeast Asia and calls it a city-state. In Google Ads, pick Singapore as the location rather than stacking local targets as you would for a large country.

Do not assume Google offers the same area levels everywhere. Google Ads Help on geographic targeting says the available target types vary by country, that a very small location or radius may only serve intermittently, and that a radius around a place exists for local businesses. Type Singapore in the location field, see what your account offers, and keep the whole country unless your deliveries or your address justify a finer area.

Choose Presence if your offer is only delivered in Singapore. The same help page describes Presence or interest as the recommended option on Search, and suggests Presence when you only want people located on the spot. For an offer limited to the country, clicks from people who are interested in it without being there are very unlikely to become customers.

Language is no longer set in the campaign: it is played out in your ads. Google removed the language setting from Search campaigns: ads are now matched based on their language, and Google gives priority to ads in the language of the search term. To reach your audience, you keep the geographic location. One campaign, or at least one ad group, per language remains the most readable structure, with ads, keywords and landing page written in the same language.

One internet user can understand several languages, and Google takes that into account. Google's help explains that a person who understands two languages may see an ad in either one, even when they type their search in just one. In Singapore, the official household survey notes that most of those who speak mainly English at home also speak another language. So do not infer a customer's language from their background: the search terms report tells you which language they type.

English first, then Chinese, Malay and Tamil: in which order

Start with English: it is the language that most residents say they speak most often at home. According to the household survey of the Department of Statistics, English is the first language spoken at home, ahead of Mandarin, followed by Malay, Chinese dialects and Tamil. Wikipedia describes English as the de facto main language of daily life, government, law and commerce. That survey covers residents: it says nothing about visitors, whom your customers may include.

All the official languages are in the Google Ads list, with a nuance about Chinese. Article 153A of the Constitution names Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English as official languages, and Malay, in the Roman script, as the national language. The Google Ads language list offers English, Malay and Tamil, and Chinese in two versions, simplified and traditional: the word Mandarin does not appear in it. The facts table at the top of the page recalls it.

For Chinese, write in simplified characters first, then see whether traditional characters show up in your search terms. According to Wikipedia's article on the languages of Singapore, simplified characters are used in official documents, and the government does not officially discourage traditional characters. That is a starting point, not a certainty about what your customers type: only your own reports settle it.

Add Malay or Tamil when the data justifies it, not because they are official. Open Keyword Planner set to Singapore and to the language concerned, compare with Google Trends, and create the campaign only if searches exist for your offer. The official survey also counts Chinese dialects separately, while the Google Ads list has none on its own: those searches are handled in your Chinese ads and keywords.

Singapore English has colloquial forms that your starting list does not contain. Wikipedia describes Singlish as an English-based speech form widely used in the country. Read the search terms report, spot the forms that really trigger your ads and add the missing ones. Think about negatives too: Google Ads Help on negative keywords says they do not match close variants, so each form to exclude is declared separately. Our comparison of negative keyword tools helps you keep those lists.

The list below sums up what to test for each keyword idea.

• English: the standard form, then the colloquial forms found in the search terms report.
• Chinese: simplified characters first, then traditional characters if your search terms show some.
• Malay and Tamil: a dedicated ad group or campaign, only if Keyword Planner shows searches for your offer.
• Brands and product names: the form your customers type, in each script and each language.
• Negatives: add them language by language, because they do not cover close variants.

Google, Bing, DuckDuckGo: where search happens, and on which device

Google concentrates most searches in Singapore: the facts table at the top of the page shows a clear gap with Bing, then DuckDuckGo. A Google Ads campaign only reaches searches made on Google. It covers neither Bing nor DuckDuckGo, whose share is small but measurable.

Baidu and Yandex weigh very little in this measure. According to the table, almost all the searches measured go through Google, Bing or DuckDuckGo. Nothing in this measure justifies budgeting for another platform before you have read your own Google Ads results. The figure comes from sites that use the StatCounter counter: it gives an order of magnitude, not a census.

Mobile weighs more than desktop in page views, according to the facts table. Open your landing pages on a phone before you launch, and look at the device report of your own account after the first days: the split of page views in a country says nothing about the split of your customers.

Seen from abroad, you will not see your ad when you search from home. Google Ads Help on geographic targeting says that if you target a place where your business is not located, you cannot see your ad when you search on Google, and points to the ad preview and diagnosis tool to find it. Use it before concluding that an ad does not serve.

Billing, GST, currency and displayed prices

The Singapore section of Google's tax page talks about GST, not about an invoicing company. In Google's page on taxes by country, the Singapore section says that all Google Ads sales in Singapore are subject to goods and services tax, and that this affects accounts with a business address in Singapore. It names no invoicing company: the name is on your invoice. An account based elsewhere reads the section of its own country. Google notes that it cannot advise on tax: the rate is in the facts table, and your accountant tells you what is recoverable in your case.

The same page says taxes are collected at the time of prepayment in the countries concerned, Singapore included. If you pay by prepayment, the page says a dotted line under the payment information opens a tooltip with the breakdown of the amount, the tax and the total. Keep that breakdown for your bookkeeping.

Google adds no regulatory surcharge specific to Singapore. Google's list of jurisdiction-specific surcharges names several countries, and Singapore is not one of them. So your test budget needs no local markup, unlike what you would see in the countries on that list. Read the page again before a big spend: it can change.

If your business is registered for GST, the prices you display to the public must include the tax. The tax authority of Singapore/gst-rate-change/gst-rate-change-for-consumers1) writes it for registered businesses: what the customer sees must be the final price they pay. That rule covers prices displayed to the public. Ask your accountant or a lawyer whether it covers your ads and your landing pages, and display the price accordingly.

The national currency is the Singapore dollar, and its rate is not pegged to another currency. According to the questions and answers of the monetary authority, Singapore runs no exchange rate peg, and the central bank targets a policy band for its effective exchange rate. Show your prices in that currency. The billing currency of your Google Ads account is a separate setting, chosen when the account was opened.

Advertising rules: gambling, health and alcohol

For online gambling, Google's policy leaves no door open in Singapore. Google's page on gambling only allows those ads in the countries it lists, with the country's certifications, and says that online gambling not listed for a country may not be advertised. Singapore has no entry in that list. The same page names Singapore among the examples of places where promoting offline gambling is prohibited. For this sector, launch nothing without a lawyer's opinion.

Over-the-counter medicines and telemedicine are allowed with limitations and Google certification. The Singapore section of Google's page on healthcare lists two rows: pharmaceutical manufacturers may promote over-the-counter medicines in line with local law, and telemedicine providers licensed under the Healthcare Services Act may promote prescription drug services. It lists no other product for the country: read the whole page before you apply for certification.

Alcohol is in the list of accepted countries, with a note of local caution. According to Google's page on alcohol, a campaign that targets only locations outside the list is disapproved, and advertisers must understand local legal restrictions on products and on the content of ads. Being on the list therefore does not mean everything is allowed: the law of the country keeps the final word.

For every other sector, open Google's policy page and look for the mention of Singapore. Finance, regulated products, sensitive content: a rejected ad delays the launch and skews your first results. To see who already advertises from Singapore, read your competitors' ads before you choose your messages. Our guide to the Google Ads Transparency Center explains how to filter by country, and the one on who bids on your keywords compares the other methods.

Calendar: National Day, Chinese New Year and holidays with moving dates

The Ministry of Manpower publishes the official list of public holidays, year by year, and the facts table at the top of the page repeats the next dates. The Ministry of Manpower's public holidays page lists National Day, Chinese New Year over two days, and holidays such as Hari Raya Puasa, Hari Raya Haji, Vesak Day and Deepavali. These may be days when your customers are not working, and when your team, your carriers or your customer service can be away.

Several of these holidays change date from one year to the next: read the list of the year again before you set budgets and schedules. The facts table gives the next dates as the ministry publishes them. Do not copy those of one year into the next.

The ministry page adds a substitute rule: the following day can be a holiday for some people only. It says, for example, that a Monday will be a public holiday for people whose rest day falls on the day of the holiday. The real length of a break therefore depends on the people concerned: if your customers or your teams do not share the same rest day, do not count on a uniform calendar.

Do not guess the effect on your searches: measure it, language by language. Open Google Trends set to Singapore, compare your keywords around those dates over several years, separately in English, Chinese, Malay and Tamil, and note whether demand rises, drops or shifts. Then decide whether to raise, cut or pause your budgets, depending on what you deliver and who answers your customers during those days.

Traps to avoid before you launch

Do not translate your keyword list from one language to another. A word-for-word translation produces phrases nobody types. Rebuild each list in its own language from Keyword Planner, and check on Google in Singapore that the search shows buying intent rather than articles or definitions. Our guide to search intent in Google Ads explains how to read that page.

Do not copy the structure of a campaign built for a large country. A small territory does not need ten campaigns by area. Spend your effort where Singapore really varies: language, tax and the rules of your sector.

Do not confuse the Singapore Google page with the one from your home country. Ads, ranking pages and local results change with the country and the language: open the results page as seen from Singapore, in the language of the keyword, before you bid. To cut lost clicks, our guide on reducing wasted Google Ads budget gives a method.

Reading the Singapore Google page keyword by keyword is the job of Should I Bid. Its intent analysis reads the Google results page in the country and language you choose, among 50 countries, then returns a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100, and recommends negatives. For Singapore, the tool offers English, simplified Chinese, Malay and Tamil. Vision generates keyword ideas from a product or a page; the analysis tells you which ones deserve a bid. The tool works with credits, one credit per analyzed keyword: see pricing.

FAQ

How do I launch a Google Ads campaign in Singapore?

Create a dedicated campaign that targets Singapore, with the Presence option if your offer is only delivered on the spot. Write ads, keywords and landing page in a single language, English first, because Google matches ads based on their language. Check the rules for your sector, display your prices as the tax rule requires, then run a capped test and open another language in its own campaign.

Which language should I write my ads in for Singapore?

Start with English, the language that most residents say they speak most often at home according to the official household survey. Add Chinese, Malay or Tamil in separate campaigns or ad groups, only if Keyword Planner and Google Trends show searches for your offer. The search terms report then tells you which language your customers type in.

Does Google Ads recognize Chinese, Malay and Tamil?

Yes, they are in the Google Ads language list, with English. Chinese is offered as simplified and as traditional; the word Mandarin, used by the Constitution, is not in it. Google removed the language setting from Search campaigns: your ads, written in the target language, are what gets matched to searches. One campaign or ad group per language remains the clearest structure.

Who invoices Google Ads in Singapore, and is there a tax?

The Singapore section of Google's tax page covers goods and services tax (GST) for accounts with a business address in Singapore, and names no invoicing company: the name is on your invoice. An account based elsewhere reads the section of its own country. Google does not give tax advice: ask your accountant. The rate is in the facts table at the top of the page.

Can I advertise online gambling in Singapore with Google Ads?

No, according to Google's policy. It only allows those ads in the countries it lists, says online gambling not listed for a country may not be advertised, and Singapore has no entry in that list. Promoting offline gambling is also named there as prohibited in Singapore. For this sector, ask a lawyer before any launch.

Does Should I Bid analyze keywords on Google in Singapore?

Yes. Should I Bid reads the Google results page for the country and language you choose, among 50 countries, including Singapore, with English, simplified Chinese, Malay or Tamil. It checks that page against your offer and returns, for each keyword, a Bid, Test or Skip verdict with a score out of 100. You can try it with free analyses, no credit card: see pricing.

Sources

• Google Ads Help: taxes in your country (Singapore section: GST) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: jurisdiction-specific surcharges (Singapore not on the list) — Google Ads Help
• Google Advertising Policies: gambling and games, allowed countries and offline gambling — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Advertising Policies: healthcare and medicines (Singapore section) — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Advertising Policies: alcohol (list of countries where those ads are accepted) — Google Advertising Policies Help
• Google Ads API: language codes (English, Chinese, Malay, Tamil) — Google Ads API
• Google Ads Help: About language targeting (setting removed from Search campaigns) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: target ads to geographic locations (presence, radius, ad preview) — Google Ads Help
• Google Ads Help: about negative keywords (no close variants) — Google Ads Help
• Constitution of the Republic of Singapore, Article 153A: official languages and national language — Singapore Statutes Online
• Department of Statistics: General Household Survey, literacy and home language — Singapore Department of Statistics
• Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore (IRAS): GST rate and GST-inclusive price display — Inland Revenue Authority of Singapore
• Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS): monetary policy framework and exchange rate — Monetary Authority of Singapore
• Ministry of Manpower (MOM): public holidays and the following-day rule — Ministry of Manpower
• Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore: about Singapore (city-state) — Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Singapore
• Wikipedia: Languages of Singapore (simplified characters, Singlish, English in practice) — Wikipedia
• StatCounter: search engine market share in Singapore — StatCounter Global Stats