It's CDC vouchers season again! If you've been sharp, you would have noticed that your family would have recently received a letter in the mailbox asking your household to redeem your CDC vouchers online or in person.

CDC vouchers first came about in 2020 in a bid to support local and hawker businesses by encouraging households to shop at their heartland businesses with the $100 CDC vouchers (Community Development Council vouchers) that were distributed to all Singaporean households.

But wait, what are these vouchers and how do you get your hands on them? And more importantly, where can you actually use them!?

What are CDC vouchers?

The Community Development Council (CDC) Voucher Scheme was launched in 2020, in the thick of the Covid-19 pandemic with the aim of helping households cope with the cost of living, while at the same time helping local businesses.

CDC Vouchers can be used at participating local merchants and hawkers. To use your vouchers, you simply hand them to the participating merchant, who will then exchange them for cash from the government. You can use more than one CDC voucher in a single transaction.

CDC vouchers are likely to be in $2, $5 and $10 denominations to make it easier to use them for small purchases.

Who is eligible for CDC vouchers in January 2023?

In 2020, CDC vouchers were only given out to 'identified households', and each one got $50 worth.

In 2021, all Singaporean households received $100 CDC vouchers per household. (If you haven't claimed your 2021 vouchers… don't worry, you still can claim them.) In May 2022, all Singaporean households again received $100 CDC vouchers per household.

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In January 2023, all households will receive a total of $300 in CDC vouchers - $200 CDC vouchers from the Budget 2022 Assurance Package for GST, and another $100 CDC vouchers from the cost of living support measures announced 14 October 2022.

So long as there is at least one Singapore citizen in your household, you should qualify for the vouchers. 1.3 million households are expected to qualify for CDC vouchers in this exercise.

This upcoming CDC Voucher distribution exercise is part of 2022's $560 million Household Support Package, which also includes GST U-Save rebates, and education top-ups for Singaporean children.

How to collect your CDC vouchers 2022

At point of writing, Singaporeans households have been notified about their CDC vouchers 2022. The voucher collection process for 2022 commenced from 11 May 2022.

Back in 2020, eligible households received a notification letter indicating the date of collection. To collect the vouchers, a household member had to go in person to a designated community club or community centre together with the notification letter and their NRIC to collect the vouchers. Collection was rolled-out progressively in order to avoid crowding.

This year in 2022, you can choose to claim your CDC vouchers in person or online via SingPass.

Which merchants accept CDC vouchers?

A wide range of participating local businesses will be accepting CDC vouchers, including the following:

• Food and beverage businesses including hawker and food court stalls
• Bakeries
• Wet market stalls
• Provision shops and minimarts
• Hair salon and barber shops
• Pet shops
• Optical shops
• Photo shops
• Electronic shops
• Clinics and medical halls
• Florists

This list isn't exhaustive. It really depends on which local businesses in your area have decided to sign up as CDC merchants and been accepted for the scheme.

To find the list of participating merchants in your neighbourhood, visit the CDC Go Where website and key in your postal code to check what's available.

Honestly, if you're looking for your favourite economical cai fan stall on the list, it's going to be challenge. You'll find yourself with a list of hawker stall unit numbers such as #01-45, #01-46, #01-47, and so on. If you're in a hawker centre or Kopitiam, it's easier to walk up to the hawker stall and check for the CDC Voucher decal stuck to the front of their stall.

If you're looking for the cool shops to use your CDC vouchers at, search 'merchants' and plonk in keywords such as 'ice cream'.

CDC voucher merchants: ice cream and waffle shops

Some neighbourhood ice cream and waffle shops that accept CDC vouchers include:

• Ice Cream Man & Friends: Taman Jurong Shopping Centre
• FatCat Ice Cream Bar: Bedok North
• Yocha Ice Cream: Upper Serangoon, Tampines
• Udders Ice Cream: Kovan
• Smitten Ice Cream Bar: Bedok
• Denzy Ice Cream: Bishan, Bedok
• 2nd Serving: Holland

CDC voucher merchants: Korean BBQ and Thai Mookata

Some Korean BBQ and Thai Mookata restaurants in the heartlands that include CDC vouchers are:

• SSak3 Korean BBQ: Bras Basah
• Michin Korean BBQ & Hotpot: Fernvale
• 526 Jurong West Seafood BBQ: Jurong West
• Sixty BBQ Seafood & Satay: East Coast Park
• Soi Aroy Kitchen & Mookata: Hougang
• Tian Tian Lok Lok Mookata: Ghim Moh
• Thai Hao Chi Mookata: Upper Thomson
• Soi 47 Mookata: Ang Mo Kio
• Siam Square Mookata: Bukit Batok
• Jub Jub Mookata: Choa Chu Kang
• PremiumThai Mookata: Tampines
• U Thai Mookata: Crawford Lane

CDC voucher merchants: Lok Lok

There's a grand total of 10 Lok Lok hawker stalls that accept CDC vouchers:

• Lok Lok: 51 Old Airport Road
• Lok Lok 114: 221B Boon Lay Place
• 85 Lok Lok: 85 Bedok North St 4
• LC Lok Lok: 130 Jurong Gateway Road
• Hey Lok Lok: Jurong West
• 4896 Lok Lok: 500 Clemenceau Ave North
• Big Boss Lok Lok: Yung Sheng Road
• Tian Tian Lok Lok Mookata: Ghim Moh Road
• Seafdoo Combo & Lok Lok: 451 Bukit Batok Ave 6
• Lok Lok 1991's by Daniel & Meng: 340 Ang Mo Kio Ave 1

How to use CDC vouchers?

The easiest, most foolproof and fastest way to use the CDC vouchers is to print your CDC voucher QR codes out.

To print the entire webpage of vouchers, you need to visit your Community Centre or a CDC voucher site to get them to help you with it. Then, cut them up into individual 'vouchers' and carry them with you. The hawkers tend to happily accept these since they won't have to scan them in a hurry (and can scan them after work at night).

The other convenient (but slow and sometimes frustrating) way is to use your mobile phone. Click on the voucher that you want to use, load the QR code, and wait for the hawker aunty to take off her gloves, put on her long-sighted glasses before she scans the QR code. Also, if you're redeeming a $10 meal with five $2 vouchers, you have to repeat this process five times too.

This is a surefire way to get yelled at by the hawker aunties. Sometimes they will reject mobile CDC vouchers during peak lunch hours.

How to join as a CDC merchant

If you are a local business owner, you can sign up to be a merchant for the CDC Voucher Scheme here. Note that you cannot accept CDC vouchers for the sale of lottery products, petrol or diesel, alcohol or cigarettes.

The more CDC merchants are on the scheme, the more beneficial CDC vouchers will be - so if you know of any local businesses who are not yet on the scheme, do encourage them to sign up.

ALSO READ: Hawker eats that deserve your $100 CDC vouchers

This article was first published in MoneySmart.