Ramadan in Singapore

How the start date is fixed, and why it can move

Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar and the month of fasting. Because that calendar is lunar, Ramadan moves about 11 days earlier each Gregorian year and works its way through the seasons over roughly three decades.

Singapore does not wait for a naked-eye sighting to publish the date. MUIS uses calculated crescent visibility, so a date can be printed well ahead. The formal announcement still comes the evening before. For 1447H the Mufti announced on 17 February 2026 that the crescent was not visible above Singapore's horizon at sunset, because the moon set four minutes before the sun, and that Ramadan would begin on Thursday 19 February 2026 (MUIS). Four minutes is the whole margin. That is why the dates further down this page, worked back from the gazetted Aidilfitri date, are arithmetic rather than announcement, and can move by a day. The guide to how the date is set covers the calculation criteria in full.

The shape of the day

Through the month, observing Muslims eat sahur before dawn, fast through daylight and break the fast at sunset with iftar. Singapore sits about one degree north of the equator, so day length barely changes across the year and the fast runs to much the same length whichever season Ramadan has drifted into. That is a local quirk worth knowing: further from the equator the same month can be hours longer or shorter depending on where in the Gregorian year it lands.

Sahur and iftar times still change daily and follow the prayer timings rather than the holiday date, so use a dedicated prayer-times source for them rather than a calendar. Not everyone fasts: the young, the elderly, the unwell, travellers and pregnant or nursing mothers are treated differently, and who is exempt and what they owe instead is a question for MUIS or a religious teacher. Where a fast cannot be made up at all, fidyah is paid in its place, and the Singapore rules for that changed in 2026.

Tarawih, and where it actually happens

After the night prayer, mosques hold tarawih, the long congregational prayers performed nightly through Ramadan. The scale is easy to underestimate. For 1447H the mosques provided 110,000 prayer spaces every night for tarawih, with dedicated space for female congregants, and a further 15,500 a night at up to 46 mosque-affiliated qaryahs, close to 20 per cent more qaryah capacity than the year before, with new ones at Tengah, Chua Chu Kang, Clementi, Pasir Ris and Punggol (MUIS, 13 February 2026). The qaryahs are the useful detail for anyone who assumes tarawih means travelling to a large mosque: much of the capacity now sits in the neighbourhoods.

The bazaars come before the fasting, not after

The Hari Raya light-up and the Ramadan bazaars at Geylang Serai and Kampong Gelam go up ahead of the month. In 2026 the Wisma Geylang Serai light-up was switched on 14 February (PMO), five days before Ramadan began. The bazaar then runs through the fasting month and is busiest late in the evening, after iftar, in the final week. If you want to see it, that is the window. It does not survive into Hari Raya itself.

The last ten nights, and the deadlines they carry

The final ten nights are the part of the month that matters most, and the mosques are at their fullest then. Selected mosques add qiyamullail, the late night prayer, over that stretch. Muslims seek Laylatul Qadr, the Night of Decree, somewhere in those nights: it is deliberately not pinned to a date, which is why the question is which nights to watch rather than which date to book. The Laylatul Qadr guide sets out the odd nights it is associated with and how they are counted.

Two obligations come due in this window and both have deadlines that are easy to misread. Zakat fitrah, the per-person alms MUIS recalculates every Ramadan from the price of rice, must be paid before the Aidilfitri prayer rather than merely during Ramadan; the zakat fitrah guide has the current rates. Zakat harta, the 2.5 per cent on wealth held above the nisab for a lunar year, is a separate obligation that many people pay in Ramadan by habit and confuse with the first; the zakat harta guide covers the detail people get wrong about how it is calculated.

How the month ends

On the evening of the 29th, MUIS determines whether the crescent of Syawal is visible. If it is, Ramadan has run 29 days; if not, the month completes 30 and Hari Raya falls a day later. That is not a formality. In 2022 the sighting attempt failed with the western horizon overcast, Singapore fasted a thirtieth day, and Aidilfitri fell on 3 May while several neighbouring countries celebrated on 2 May. The Office of the Mufti published a clarification noting that all four MABIMS countries had applied the same method and that each result was valid in its own context (Office of the Mufti, 2 May 2022).

The next morning is Hari Raya Puasa, the gazetted public holiday, and the only one of the two that ends a month of fasting.