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 — Singapore citizens and Permanent Residents (PRs), expats, foreigners residing here, etc — 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 the same as going shopping in Singapore, there is a border (hurdle) to cross — and peak-hour congestions (vehicles and humans) at immigration checkpoints is a major consideration factor when deciding the best 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 their Friday third-shifts or half-day of work on Saturdays. Many of them are ferried by blue Pekerja Bas (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 Singapore residents (including PRs and Malaysians residing here) like to drive. Aside from not being able to find parking lots in shopping malls and getting stuck in traffic jams on major roads in Johor Bahru, they also make congestions on the Causeway worst.
And, entering the fray are ignorant first-timers and knowing tired day-trippers (who must rest the next day).

The above factors are enough to cause congestions at the checkpoints, making Saturdays (and Friday evenings) the worst possible days to go shopping in Johor Bahru with average delays of two hours and worst during holidays, long weekends or festive seasons.

Although not very frequent, a system-down at any of the checkpoints on a Saturday will be the worst experience ever — it will not be just slow but long waiting hours to rectify the system or for recalled officers to return to work and man the counters. There are several occurrences in 2025 and 2026, one on 10-11 January 2026 (Sat & Sun) and the latest on 28 May 2026 (just 2 days before a long weekend and the start of the June school holidays).

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

Contents:

Weekdays
Normal Sunday Mornings
Die Die Must Saturdays
Weekday Public Holidays
Long Weekends

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-offs or annual leaves. Of course, many people considered taking leaves to go shopping a waste of their leaves and would rather save them for longer holidays, which is the primary reason why they choose to go on weekends and “enjoy” being part of the congestions.

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

Between 8am 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 early 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 all their worker-passengers to clear customs.
Of course, between 5pm and 8pm are when day-shift workers go off work and return to Johor, but few shoppers will be going in at this time. Friday evenings, after work, are the worst time as many Malaysians residing in Singapore will want to return to their hometowns and also travellers going in (not willing to take leaves on Friday) — the number totalled over half a million people, especially on eves of long weekends (580,000 on April 30).

Not forgetting that heavy vehicles have no fixed timing to cross the border and traffic congestions usually began when the blue worker buses join the long queues of heavy vehicles, including tour buses.

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 on Normal Weekends

2. Normal Sunday Mornings

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. There may be some travellers taking tour buses to Malaysia but the number is not big. 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 choose to cross over to Malaysia on Friday evenings / 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 “weekend bottleneck” at the checkpoints, waiting for their passengers to clear immigrations.
Unsuspecting Sunday day-trippers will usually return near evening time. Not forgetting that most of them drive.

Above 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 for breakfast, 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.

However, if any of the auto-clearance systems at the checkpoints is down on a Sunday, it will not be just a nightmare — you probably will not be going over the Singapore-Johor border ever again.

A Sunday Lesson

On one Sunday, I went over to Johor Bahru with a couple of friends. Instead of returning early after lunch, which I usually did if I was travelling solo, 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 Saturdays

For those who insist on Saturdays as the “best day” 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 (smarter people will make it before 7am) — before the blue worker buses returned to the checkpoints after dropping and fetching off-work, third-shift workers (if any) 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 couple of 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 maybe later.

4. Weekday Public Holidays

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:

Third-shifts Malaysian workers will go back to Johor in the morning but no workers will be coming into Singapore the whole day.
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 as the following day is a working 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 public holidays falling on weekdays. 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.

5. Long Weekends

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

If the public holiday falls on Sunday / Monday, go on Sunday and stay as late as you want since majority of travellers and Malaysians will return to Singapore on Monday — some smarter ones will return on Sunday or early Monday morning.

If the public holiday falls on Friday, Saturday will be the best 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 noon. It may be slower at the checkpoints around Saturday noon but will not be as bad as normal Saturdays.

The morning of the last day of a long weekend — be it Sunday or Monday (or Tuesday, if the stars are aligned) — may also be good for shopping but do come back latest by 1pm — you will not like long-weekend congestions at the checkpoints. However, do aim to go over on the day before, where you can have a full day, rather than few hours on the last day.

If a normal Sunday congestion is considered “nightmarish”, a congestion on the last day of a long weekend will be “hellish” — and if any of the checkpoints’ auto-clearance system is to breakdown on that day, you will “regret” not choosing a lesser-congested “best” time to go shopping.