Singapore-Johor Crossing: Best Time to Go Shopping in Johor Bahru

Johor Bahru, the capital city of Johor, West Malaysia, is a popular shopping and dining destination for Singapore residents due to the better exchange rates from Singapore Dollar to Malaysia Ringgit. There are a large number of shopping malls just across the Straits of Johor and shoppers from Singapore are spoilt for choice. However, going on a shopping trip in Johor Bahru is not like going shopping in Singapore, there is a border to cross — and peak-hour congestions (vehicles and humans) at the immigration checkpoints is a major consideration when deciding the time to go.

Many day-trippers from Singapore, especially the working groups and families with children having travel constraints, will choose to cross the border to Johor Bahru on Saturdays, or on the first day of long weekends, hoping to keep Sundays, or the last day of the long weekends, as a rest day before going back to work or school the following day. This is a typical mindset of the tired working class.

However, Saturdays are the busiest days at both Tuas and Woodlands border-crossings due to:

Malaysians residing in Singapore returning to their hometowns over the weekends.
Malaysian workers heading home after the third-shift on Friday or half-day of work on Saturdays. Many of them are ferried by blue-coloured worker buses.
Saturday mornings are working days for many factories and heavy vehicles, regardless whether they are empty or carrying goods, will cross the border during their working hours.
Tourists going on weekend trips in Malaysia will usually choose to cross the border in the early morning too, trying to max out the two days.
Many Singaporeans like to drive, making the congestion worst.
And, entering the fray are ignorant first-timers and tired day-trippers (who must rest the next day).

The above factors are enough reason to cause congestions at the checkpoints, making Saturday the worst possible day to go shopping in Johor Bahru with average delays of two hours and worst during holiday or festive seasons. Although not very frequent, a system-down at any checkpoints on a Saturday will be the worst experience ever.

Let’s find the best time to go over and have a great day instead of getting caught in checkpoint congestions.

1. Weekdays

The best time to go over to Johor Bahru will be on weekdays as lesser people will cross the border as compared to weekends. Those who can afford to go shopping on weekdays are the non-working group, including retired and elderlies, and those on day-off or annual leaves. Of course, many people considered taking leaves to go shopping as a waste and would rather save their leaves for longer holidays, which is the primary reason why they choose to go on weekends and “enjoy” getting caught in congestions.

However, there are peak congestion hours on weekdays too. The two time periods with most commuters, and blue worker buses, at the checkpoints are:

Between 8:30am and 10:30am, where off-work workers will journey from Singapore to Johor Bahru. On Monday mornings, there may be few workers going off-work but the worker buses that ferry workers into Singapore in the morning will need to return to Johor.
Between 4pm and 7pm, where many workers will cross the border to Singapore for the second shift. The bottleneck will be inside the bus platform of JB CIQ where numerous blue buses sending workers to the checkpoint will need to wait for the workers to clear customs.
Of course, between 5pm and 8pm are when day-shift workers go off work and return to Johor, but few day-trippers will be going in at this time. Friday evening is the worst time as many Malaysians residing in Singapore will want to return to their hometowns after work and also travellers going in after work (not willing to take leaves on Friday).

Not forgetting that heavy vehicles have no fixed timing to cross the border and traffic congestions usually began when the blue buses piled onto the traffic.

However, peak-hour congestions on weekdays, excluding Friday evenings, are not as bad as during weekends and may take around 40 minutes to 1 hour to cross the border. To skirt the congestive hours, go over before 8:30am or after 10:30am and return to Singapore before 3:30pm or after 7pm.

More: Best Times to Cross Singapore-Johor Causeway (Woodlands)

2. Sunday Morning

For those who cannot go shopping on weekdays, the next better option will be on Sundays. Those crossing the border from Singapore to Johor on Sunday mornings are mostly one-day trippers — i.e. few multi-day travellers, few overtime workers returning home, few / no worker buses and very few heavy vehicles. Crossing the border on Sunday mornings are usually a breeze.

However, good times are short on Sundays.

Several things will take place on Sunday evenings at the checkpoints:

Weekend travellers, including those staying overnight in Johor Bahru, and Malaysians residing in Singapore will usually cross over to Malaysia on Friday evenings or Saturday mornings and return on Sunday evenings to maximise the weekends.
Tour buses ferrying tourists from around West Malaysia will reach the checkpoints by Sunday afternoon or in the evening and they become the bottleneck in JB CIQ, waiting for their passengers to clear immigrations.
Unsuspecting day-trippers will also return near evening time.

These are the reasons why both border-crossings will start to get congested around 3pm and can last till 2am — the worst time that I heard of.

Therefore, go in early on Sundays, shop at places nearer to JB CIQ to avoid long travelling time. Enjoy lunch and make sure to start the return journey latest by 2:30pm. Stay for dinner if you don’t mind taking at least 2 hours to cross the border.

A Sunday Lesson

On one Sunday, I went over to Johor Bahru with a couple of friends. Instead of returning early after lunch, we decided to stay longer and have early dinner before returning. We were back at JB CIQ slightly after 5pm and was caught in long queues at JB immigration clearance for more than an hour*. Following that, the queues for all Singapore-bound public buses snaked all the way from the boarding bays to the level above. It took another 45 minutes before we got on a bus. There was no heavy traffic on the Causeway and we crossed the straits in less than 10 minutes. Back at Woodlands checkpoint, it was another one hour* before we cleared it — at 7:30pm! If there had been a traffic jam on the Causeway, it would have taken us much longer to come back.

* Avoid long, slow queues at both Singapore and Malaysia immigrations, read:

3. Die Die Must Saturday

For those who insist on Saturdays as best days to go shopping in Johor Bahru, it is still possible to go ahead — the key is to avoid the peak-hour congestions.

For a full day in Johor Bahru, cross the border as early as possible — latest by 7:30am — before the blue worker buses returned to the checkpoints after dropping and fetching off-work workers from Singapore factories. Believe me, you rush to beat the worker buses, they also rush to beat other buses so as to go back faster.

If few hours are adequate for shopping, go after 3pm. The congestion should have eased by then. Catch a movie, have dinner and an easy return journey. However, this apply only to normal Saturdays, not during school holidays and long weekends when congestions may last till 6pm or later.

4. Long Weekend

Long weekends are the worst time at the checkpoints, especially on the first day and last day. But, the day(s) in between are good days to go shopping.

If the following Monday is a public holiday, go on Sunday and stay as late as you want since majority of travellers and Malaysians will return to Singapore on Monday — the smarter ones will return on Sunday.

If Friday is a public holiday, Saturday may be a good day to do a day-trip. However, bear in mind that factory workers may still need to work half-day on Saturday and Malaysian workers going back after work will be at the border-crossing at around 12pm. So, it will be best to go in early on Saturday, not around noon time. Sunday may still be a good day for shopping but do come back before 1pm — you will not like long-weekend congestions at the checkpoints.

5. Public Holiday on a Weekday

Single public holiday on a weekday — not contributing to a long weekend (i.e. not Monday or Friday) and outside of school holidays — can be good shopping day for day-trippers too.

The reasons being:

Malaysian workers will go back to Johor in the morning after the third-shift but no workers will be coming into Singapore in the evening.
Very few heavy vehicles will be ferrying goods across the border.
Malaysians residing in Singapore will not want to journey back to their hometowns, spend few hours, then have to return in the evening for work the next day. They usually prefer two days on weekends or more on long weekends.

And, that leaves mostly day-trippers, who will go in and return, on weekday public holidays. However, expect more day-trippers than normal weekdays. So, cross over as early as possible in the morning and it should be easy coming back later in the evening — barring any unforeseen circumstances.