HDB Approved Dogs: All 62 Breeds, and Why Yours Might Not Be

The rules, in plain terms

What makes a dog HDB-approved?

The full list of HDB approved dogs, all 62 breeds

Breeds we currently carry as puppies are linked to their guides.

Last checked against HDB's published list: 19 July 2026. Always confirm against the official HDB guidelines on keeping pets, as the list can be updated.

What if the dog you want is not HDB-approved?

Why is corgi not allowed in HDB?

Because the HDB-approved breed list is a list of named breeds, not a size test, and the Corgi is not on it. That is the whole answer, and it catches people out because a Corgi is smaller than several breeds that are approved.

There is no weighing, no measuring and no appeal. An unusually small Corgi does not qualify, a well-behaved one does not qualify, and a letter from a vet does not change it.

• What Corgi buyers do instead: a condo or a landed home, where HDB's list does not apply.
• Or: choose an approved breed with a similar temperament from the table above.

If the breed is what you want, our Corgi page is honest about the same thing in its first fold.

Why is beagle not allowed in HDB?

The same reason: the Beagle is not on the list. People usually assume it is about noise, because Beagles are famously vocal, but the mechanism is simply that HDB names the breeds it permits and the Beagle is not among them.

A quiet Beagle is as ineligible as a loud one, and a Beagle cross is judged on what it is, which is a question HDB answers rather than the seller.

How do I get my dog HDB approved?

Puppy Singapore publishes this list because buyers ask the question before they choose a breed, and because we would rather lose a sale than sell a family a dog it cannot legally keep.

For a pedigree that is not on the list, you cannot. There is no application, no exemption and no case-by-case route. That is the part most guides leave vague, and it is the part that matters before you pay a deposit.

• Pedigree off the list: no application exists.
• Local mixed-breed rescue: Project ADORE, with conditions.

For a local mixed-breed rescue there is one route, and it is real: Project ADORE, run jointly by HDB and AVS, which allows an adopted local mixed-breed dog in a flat under set conditions.

Project ADORE in practice

1. 1 Adopt through a participating welfare group rather than privately.
2. 2 The dog is sterilised, microchipped and licensed.
3. 3 The household agrees to the scheme's conditions, including training.

Our guide to how Project ADORE works covers the conditions in full. It applies to local mixed-breeds, not to a pedigree that missed the list.

The licence is a separate obligation

HDB decides which breeds may live in a flat. AVS licenses the individual dog. Satisfying one does not satisfy the other, and both are required.

• HDB: the breed must be on the approved list, one dog per flat.
• AVS: the dog must hold a current licence, tied to its microchip.

Our own breeder licence, AVS licence BR25052, is a different document again: it covers the farm, not your dog. A one-year licence is S$15 for a sterilised dog and S$90 for a non-sterilised one, less a 10% rebate if you pay online. Our guide covers what a dog licence costs and how to apply.

Condos, MCSTs and landed homes

HDB's list binds HDB flats. It does not bind private property, where up to three dogs are allowed and the breed list does not apply.

What often does apply is the MCST by-laws of a condominium, which can cap the number of pets, restrict lift use or set size limits of their own. Those rules are enforced by the management, not by HDB, and they vary building to building.

What happens if the dog is not approved

The usual trigger is a neighbour's complaint rather than an inspection. Under the Housing and Development (Animals) Rules, keeping a dog that is not on the approved list can attract a fine of up to S$4,000, and the dog has to go.

That last part is the reason this page exists. The penalty falls on the household, but the consequence falls on the dog, and it is entirely avoidable by checking a list before choosing a breed.

Crosses and designer dogs: how to read the list

The list names breeds. A cross is not a named breed, so no cross appears anywhere on it, and searching for one is how people end up assuming the answer must be no.

What you can check is whether both parent breeds are named. That is not a loophole and it is not a promise. It is simply the only thing about a cross that the list actually speaks to.

The Poodle caveat almost nobody mentions

Read the entry carefully. It does not say Poodle. It says Poodle in the Toy and Miniature sizes, so a cross out of a Standard Poodle does not stand on the same ground as one out of a small Poodle.

The question that settles it is one sentence long: which Poodle was the sire.

Two sheepdogs, and only one of them counts

The list carries the Shetland Sheepdog. It does not carry the Old English Sheepdog, and the two are nothing alike in size. Scanning the list, seeing the word Sheepdog and stopping there is one of the commonest ways to reach the wrong answer.

What we will not tell you

We will not tell you what people keep in their flats in practice, on any of these crosses. It may well be true and it is not ours to say, because if it goes wrong the consequence lands on your tenancy rather than on our sales figures.

Every cross in that table has its own page on this site with the reasoning set out in full, and every one of them ends the same way: confirm your own dog with HDB rather than relying on a seller, this one included.

Where the figures on this page come from

• The 62-breed list and the one-dog rule: HDB's own pet rules, checked in a browser on 25 August 2026 (the host blocks automated requests).
• The S$4,000 maximum fine: the Housing and Development (Animals) Rules, as stated on HDB's guidelines page and corroborated by two independent Singapore sources, checked 25 August 2026.
• Dog licence fees: the AVS licence fee page, read 2026-08-26. The published table these figures come from was headed "before 1 September 2026" and that date has now passed. AVS has scheduled a new fee table from 1 September 2026. Re-checked on the AVS fee page on 26 August 2026: the replacement had still not been published, and the live page still showed only the "before 1 September 2026" table, last updated 31 October 2025. Treat the figures as the last published schedule and check the AVS page before relying on them.
• Which approved breeds we carry and what they cost: this site's own breed data, the same file the breed pages read.
• Project ADORE conditions: the scheme as published by HDB and AVS, summarised on our own ADORE page.
• Buyer-side checks: Southend Dog Training, quoted above with a link to the source video. UK context, used for the principle rather than the rule.

List and figures last checked 25 August 2026.