Singapore-JB illegal cross-border services

We know, we know. We’ve covered a lot of guides on getting from Singapore to JB, including hopping on one of the Singapore-Johor buses and going on a road trip by driving to JB. Now, let’s say you want the comfort of a car but don’t want the hassle of manoeuvring it through traffic – the best option then is to hire a private driver.

So, you go online and search for “private car hires to Malaysia” and see a tonne of results pop up. Now for the bad news – almost all the results you see will be of illegal cross-border services to JB. In fact, only the officially licensed taxis under the cross-border taxi scheme are allowed to drop you off in JB.

To save you the trouble of being stopped at customs, here’s a list of some of them, which entirely seem legit when you click on their website, but in reality are not licensed to bring you across the border.

Why are private car hires offering illegal cross-border services to JB so popular?

Needless to say, the best part about going to JB in a car is that there’s no need to disembark from your vehicle at immigration. Just wind down your window to show your passport to the officer, or better yet, just scan the MyICA QR code.

A huge draw is that these illegal cross-border services offer door-to-door services, which means you get to choose the pick-up point in Singapore and the final drop-...