Singapore Bar Exam Cost 2027: Part A, Part B and Retake Fees

Independent — not affiliated with SILE (the Singapore Institute of Legal Education) or the Ministry of Law. The exam facts on this page come from SILE’s own web pages and its 2027 Session 1 application guide, read on 31 October 2026 and listed at the end. Our practice questions are written by us from Singapore legislation; they are not SILE questions.

Normal applications and retaker registrations for 2027 Session 1 closed at 5pm on 30 September 2026, so the dates below concern that session. Applications for Session 2 are scheduled to open in April 2027; check its application guide for its fees and deadlines.

The fees include physical access to the NUS Libraries (for 2027 Session 1, via an NUS QR code for the CJ Koh Law Library), a personal LawNet account and access to SILE Campus, SILE’s online learning portal. The optional Part A Course runs outside office hours; for 2027 Session 1 it runs from 11 January to 9 March 2027, and SILE’s indicative calendar puts the Session 2 course in the second half of the year. The difference between the two fees in your row is, in effect, what the optional Course adds.

Each Part A paper is passed or failed on its own. If you fail, you must register and pay for all of your failed subjects at your next attempt, through SILE’s retakers’ registration. The fee depends on how many subjects you are retaking:

Retaking costs time as well as money. On the ordinary overseas-graduate route you cannot attend the Part B Course until you have passed all of Part A and met the other qualified-person requirements, unless the Minister for Law exempts you, and Part A papers come round only twice a year (April and October on SILE’s indicative calendar). There is no appeal against a Part A result.

SILE also runs a Part B Donated Bursaries Fund, set up with donations from the legal profession to help financially disadvantaged candidates with the Part B fee; details and eligibility are on SILE’s bursary page.

Any refund is at SILE’s sole discretion, and once you are assigned a seminar group the optional Course fee is non-refundable, so do not rely on the calendar dates alone. The guide does not spell out the position for a withdrawal on 26 February 2027 itself, so check with SILE before relying on a refund that day.

Singapore citizens aged 25 and above can use Base-Tier SkillsFuture Credit, not Mid-Career Tier, against the optional Part A Course fee, unless they have already paid the Course fee in full themselves (SkillsFuture Credit is not meant for training an employer provides, which the employer should pay for): when you apply, you pay your total fees less the credit you will claim against the Course component and attach a screenshot of your balance; after SILE’s invoice arrives, you claim on the SkillsFuture portal between 13 November 2026 and 11 January 2027 for Session 1, and you must then log in to SILE Campus by 25 January 2027. Singapore citizens can also apply for reimbursement of examination and Course fees from their Post-Secondary Education Account, from 11 to 31 January 2027; to be eligible you must attend the Opening Brief on the first day of the Course under your full NRIC name, even if not taking the Course.

The fee tables are only SILE’s charges. Three other costs follow from SILE’s own rules, and they are worth budgeting for early, because they depend on your situation rather than on a published figure.

Whether the optional Part A Course is worth its extra cost depends on how you prepare best; SILE’s fees include SILE Campus access and its course materials either way. We make no claim about how the Course affects results; the SILE sources we read give no figures comparing results by Course attendance.

What you pay for is only part of what you need. To sit Part A as an overseas graduate you must be a Singapore citizen or PR (or hold an exemption), hold an applicable law degree from a scheduled overseas university that meets the QP Rules’ degree, date and academic requirements (at least lower second-class honours or the equivalent for the UK lists, a top-70% ranking for the Australian, New Zealand and US lists), or hold an exemption for any requirement you miss, pass the Ethics quiz at 100%, and be in Singapore with a suitable laptop for the papers. To go on to Part B you must also have completed at least six months of relevant legal training, practice or work within a continuous eight months, after passing your final law degree examination. Our guide on how to become a lawyer in Singapore walks through every step.

Independent — not affiliated with SILE (the Singapore Institute of Legal Education) or the Ministry of Law. The exam facts on this page come from SILE’s own web pages and its 2027 Session 1 application guide, read on 31 October 2026 and listed at the end. Our practice questions are written by us from Singapore legislation; they are not SILE questions.