I have lived in Singapore for years, and I still take tours here. Not because I need directions, but because a good local guide turns a street I walk past every day into a story I did not know. That is what you are actually paying a tour company in Singapore for: not the route, the person.
Which is why this guide leads with something most listicles skip. In Singapore, guiding tourists for money without a licence is illegal, and the good operators are proud of their licensed guides while the chancers go quiet when you ask. I will show you how to check in about a minute, then give you the eight companies I would actually book, from big-name walking tours to a one-of-a-kind trishaw ride.
This is the hub of my Tours and Sightseeing series. Once you have picked a company, my spokes go deeper on walking tours, food tours and hiring a private tour guide. For a self-guided day out, see my things to do in Singapore guide, and for anything on the water, my sunset cruise picks.
Key Takeaways
- 1 In Singapore, anyone guiding tourists for payment must hold an STB Tourist Guide Licence. It is the law, and it is the single fastest way to filter the real operators from the chancers.
- 2 You can check any guide against the official STB TRUST directory in about a minute, and it is worth doing before you book a private tour.
- 3 Monster Day Tours is my all-round first pick, Tribe Tours leads for private and Peranakan heritage, and Wok n Stroll is the food specialist.
- 4 The best tours are small-group or private and led by a named local, not a coach with 40 strangers and a microphone.
- 5 Expect S$40 to S$120 per person for a group walking or food tour, and S$300 to S$800-plus for a half-day private guide.
What I look for in a tour company in Singapore
Five things, and the first one is genuinely non-negotiable.
- An STB Tourist Guide Licence. Under the Singapore Tourism Board Act, anyone who provides in-person guiding to tourists for payment needs a valid licence, earned through a 120-hour training programme. This is not red tape, it is a real filter: a licensed guide has been trained in the history and taught how to research and tell it properly. You can look up any guide by name in the STB TRUST tourist guide directory. Reputable companies will tell you their guides are licensed without being asked.
- Small groups or private. The difference between a great tour and a forgettable one is almost always group size. Eight people around a guide who can hear your questions beats forty trailing a flag. If a tour does not state its maximum group size, assume it is large.
- A named specialism, not everything. The best operators are known for something specific: this one owns heritage, that one owns food, another owns private and bespoke. A company that claims to be the best at all of it usually is not the best at any of it.
- Real reviews with guide names in them. On a good tour, people remember their guide and name them in the review. Scroll the recent reviews and see whether individual guides come up by name. That is the clearest sign the experience is about a person, not a script.
- Honest pricing and inclusions. A food tour should tell you how many tastings. A private tour should tell you the hourly rate and what transport and entry fees are included. Vagueness on price is usually vagueness you will pay for later.
Singapore is genuinely one of the safest and easiest cities in the world to explore alone, so you never strictly need a tour. You take one to understand the place faster and deeper than you could on your own. Judge every company on whether it delivers that.
1. Monster Day Tours
Monster Day Tours is where I send most people first, because it does the hardest thing in this business consistently: it makes a scheduled group tour feel personal. With well over 6,500 reviews and a stack of awards, it is about as close to a safe default as this industry has.
The range is wide without being unfocused: heritage walks through Kampong Glam and Chinatown, a genuinely good Singapore Street Food and Night Tour along the river through Boat Quay and Clarke Quay, and private options if you want a guide to yourself. What keeps showing up in the reviews is the guides by name, which is exactly the signal you want. People remember Mui, Ping and the rest because the tours are built around them, not a script.
If you only have time to research one company, this is the one. It is the reliable centre of the market that the others define themselves against.
Website: monsterdaytours.com
Location: Tours across Singapore, central meeting points
Google Rating: Excellent, on 6,500-plus reviews
Best known for: Award-winning walking and street-food tours with named local guides
2. Tribe Tours
Tribe Tours is my pick when you want the tour to feel less like a tour and more like a knowledgeable friend showing you around. They run privately guided experiences led by what they call Chiefs and Natives, meaning senior guides and local experts, and they have the Travellers Choice recognition and a top-five ranking among Singapore activities to back it up.
Their sweet spot is Peranakan heritage: the shophouses, food and history of Joo Chiat and Katong, woven together by a guide who can move from architecture to a plate of food to a family story without missing a beat. Reviewers single out guides like Royston for exactly this, being deeply knowledgeable and generous with their time.
Because it leans private, it costs more than a scheduled group walk, and it is worth it when you want depth and the freedom to follow your own curiosity.
Website: tribe-tours.com
Location: Private tours across Singapore, strong on the east
Google Rating: Excellent, Travellers Choice recognised
Best known for: Private, local-expert guided tours and Peranakan heritage
Contact Tribe Tours directly
3. Let's Go Tour Singapore
If you want the widest menu under one roof, Let's Go Tour is it. Bicycle tours, boat tours, city highlights, cooking classes, food, they run more formats than anyone else on this list, and they are an STB-licensed travel agency with an STA Best Tour Experience award and more than 50,000 guests behind them.
That breadth is the reason to start here when you are not yet sure what kind of tour you want. You can browse a genuinely varied catalogue, compare formats, and book in one place, which is easier than piecing together three specialists. Reviewers consistently praise guides like Barani for adapting the tour to the group's interests rather than running a fixed loop.
The trade-off with any wide-range operator is that no single tour is quite as specialist as a company that only does that one thing. For most visitors, the convenience wins.
Website: letsgotoursingapore.com
Location: Tours across Singapore
Google Rating: Excellent, STA award winner, 50,000-plus guests
Best known for: The widest range of tour formats, all STB-licensed
4. The Original Singapore Walks
The Original Singapore Walks, run by Journeys, is the heritage heavyweight. They have been running award-winning walking and coach tours for decades, and their Changi WWII war trail is one of the most respected history tours in the country.
What sets them apart is the seriousness of the storytelling. These are guides, many of them local Singaporeans, who weave in their own family memories, and the tours are built for people who genuinely want the history rather than a photo stop. Their war and cemetery trails in particular are handled with a gravity that mass-market operators cannot match.
Come here when the subject matters more than the selfie. For the wider heritage-walk field, including their rivals, see my dedicated walking tours guide.
Website: journeys.com.sg
Location: Heritage trails islandwide, including Changi
Google Rating: Excellent, long-running award winner
Best known for: Serious heritage and WWII history walks
Contact The Original Singapore Walks directly
5. Wok 'n' Stroll
Wok 'n' Stroll is the food specialist, and food is the one subject where a specialist genuinely beats a generalist. Their licensed guides walk you through wet markets and hawker centres, from Tekka Market in Little India to the Malay food of Kampong Glam, explaining not just what you are eating but the history and the families behind it.
They run more food formats than you would expect, from a next-generation hawker tour that spotlights young hawkers preserving the trade, to a street-food night tour, to a self-guided audio option for people who want to eat at their own pace. Some of their guides are chefs, which shows in how they talk about the food.
This is a place where being hungry is the only preparation you need. For the full food-tour field, see my food tours guide.
Website: woknstroll.com.sg
Location: Hawker centres and markets across Singapore
Google Rating: Excellent, strong repeat mentions of guides
Best known for: Licensed-guide hawker and street-food tours
Recommended reads
6. Betel Box Tours
Betel Box calls itself The Real Singapore Tours, and the positioning is earned. Run out of Joo Chiat, they specialise in the lived-in, non-touristy side of the city, with the Joo Chiat-Katong food walk and a Geylang food walk that most operators would not touch.
This is the company for travellers who have already done Marina Bay and want to see how Singaporeans actually live and eat. The tours skew toward the eastern neighbourhoods, real hawker culture, and the kind of streets you would never think to explore on your own. It is a smaller, more grassroots operation than the big names above, and that is exactly the appeal.
Come here on a second visit, or a first visit where you want to skip the postcard version.
Website: betelboxtours.com
Location: 200 Joo Chiat Road, Singapore, plus eastern neighbourhoods
Google Rating: Very good, grassroots following
Best known for: Real, non-touristy Joo Chiat, Katong and Geylang tours
7. Trishaw Uncle
Trishaw Uncle is on this list for doing one thing nobody else can: they are the only licensed trishaw tour operator in Singapore. That is not a marketing line, it is a genuine monopoly on a piece of the city's history, and it makes them the rare operator I would recommend partly for the format itself.
A trishaw ride through the Singapore River, Little India, Kampong Glam and Chinatown is unashamedly nostalgic, and it is one of the few tours that works brilliantly for older travellers or anyone who cannot manage a long walk in the heat. It pairs beautifully with a walking or food tour: ride the trishaw to rest your feet and see the sights, walk the neighbourhoods you want to explore in depth.
Manage expectations on price, because a heritage trishaw ride is a premium novelty rather than a cheap taxi. What you are buying is the experience, and there is only one place to buy it.
Website: trishawuncle.com.sg
Location: Singapore River, Little India, Kampong Glam, Chinatown
Google Rating: Very good, unique format
Best known for: The only licensed trishaw tours in Singapore
8. Everyday Tour Company
Everyday Tour Company is my pick for people who want a tour built entirely around them. They specialise in bespoke, tailored private tours, so instead of choosing from a fixed menu you tell them what you are into, whether that is architecture, coffee, street art or family history, and they design the day.
This is the format that suits returning visitors, families with specific interests, and anyone travelling with someone who has mobility needs or a tight attention span, because the pace and content bend to you. The trade-off is that fully bespoke costs more than a scheduled tour, and it is worth it precisely when a scheduled tour would not fit what you want.
Come here when your ideal day out does not appear on anyone else's booking page.
Website: everydaytourcompany.com
Location: Custom private tours across Singapore
Google Rating: Excellent, boutique operator
Best known for: Fully bespoke, tailored private tours
Singapore tour companies compared
Pick by what kind of experience you actually want, not by whoever ranks first on a booking site.
| Company | Best for | Format |
|---|---|---|
| Monster Day Tours | An all-round safe first pick | Group and private walks, street food |
| Tribe Tours | Private depth and Peranakan heritage | Private, local-expert led |
| Let's Go Tour | Widest choice of formats | Bike, boat, food, city, cooking |
| Original Singapore Walks | Serious history and WWII | Heritage walking and coach |
| Wok 'n' Stroll | Food and hawker culture | Food walks, day and night |
| Betel Box | The real, non-touristy city | Eastern neighbourhood food walks |
| Trishaw Uncle | Nostalgia and low-mobility comfort | Licensed trishaw rides |
| Everyday Tour Company | A day built around you | Fully bespoke private tours |
How much does a tour in Singapore cost?
Prices vary hugely by format and group size, but here is the honest range so you can budget before you browse.
| Tour type | Typical price | What to know |
|---|---|---|
| Group walking tour | S$40 to S$90 per person | Usually 2 to 3 hours. The best value in guided tours. |
| Group food tour | S$70 to S$130 per person | Tastings usually included. Confirm how many. |
| Trishaw ride | S$50 to S$100 per person | A premium novelty, priced as an experience. |
| Half-day private guide | S$300 to S$500 | For the whole group, not per person. Often the better deal for 4-plus people. |
| Full-day private or bespoke | S$500 to S$900-plus | Transport and entry fees may be extra. Ask. |
| Pay-as-you-wish walks | You decide at the end | Some heritage operators run these. Tip fairly for a good guide. |
For a group of four or more, a private guide often works out similar per head to individual group tickets, with the whole tour bent to your interests. Do the maths before you assume private is the expensive option.
How do I check if a Singapore tour guide is licensed?
Search their name in the STB TRUST tourist guide directory. Every legally operating guide is listed there, so a name that does not appear is a genuine warning sign.
Under the Singapore Tourism Board rules, in-person guiding for payment without a licence is an offence, so a licensed guide is both the legal choice and the trained one. Reputable companies never mind the question. If asking makes someone defensive, that is your answer.
Do I even need a tour in Singapore?
Strictly, no. Singapore is one of the safest, cleanest and easiest cities in the world to explore alone, with world-class public transport and English everywhere. You will never be stuck.
You take a tour to go deeper and faster than you could solo. A good guide gives you the history behind the shophouse, the story behind the dish, and the shortcut to understanding a neighbourhood that would take you days to piece together yourself. If you have three days, one guided half-day is often the best-value part of the trip.
What is the best tour for first-time visitors to Singapore?
Start with a half-day walking tour of the historic core, Chinatown, Kampong Glam and the Civic District, with any of Monster Day Tours, Let's Go Tour or The Original Singapore Walks. It gives you the map in your head that makes the rest of the trip make sense.
Then add a food tour on a separate day, because trying to do heritage and hawker food in one go means you do neither justice. For a first visit, one good walk plus one good food tour covers more than a week of wandering.
Are private tours worth it over group tours in Singapore?
For couples and solo travellers on a budget, a small-group tour is excellent value and perfectly good. For families, special interests, or groups of four or more, private is often the smarter buy: the per-head cost narrows, and the whole day flexes to your pace and curiosity.
The deciding question is not money, it is fit. If a fixed itinerary suits you, book a group tour. If you have specific interests or people who need the pace adjusted, book private and enjoy the freedom. My private tour guides guide goes deeper on this.
If you want a single recommendation, book Monster Day Tours for your first tour and you will not go wrong. Want private depth or Peranakan heritage, go to Tribe Tours. Want to eat your way through the city, Wok n Stroll. Want the format nobody else has, ride with Trishaw Uncle.
Whichever you choose, do the one-minute licence check first. It costs you nothing, it is the clearest quality signal in this industry, and the good operators are proud to pass it. The best tour company in Singapore is the one whose guide you remember by name a year later, and a licence is how that person got so good at the job.
On a separate note, if you run a tour or travel business in Singapore and your website is not turning searchers into bookings, that is what I do. You can see how our web design service works or get a free quote.
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Professional Opinion-haver
Terris
Chief Recommender · I do the digging so you don't have to
Terris is a Singapore-based web designer and digital strategist who has spent 8+ years building websites for local businesses. His Terris Recommends series shares personal picks for the best service providers across Singapore, informed by his experience working with businesses across industries.
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