An F&B kitchen exhaust in Singapore must satisfy three agencies at once. NEA governs where fumes are discharged and how they are treated. SCDF governs the fire safety of the duct and hood. SFA checks, at inspection, that the system is clean and that maintenance records exist. A Qualified Person (QP), who must be a registered architect or professional engineer, designs the system and submits it for approval before works begin. This guide sets out what each agency asks for, at which stage, and how to avoid the redesigns that delay a licence.

TL;DR

• NEA requires cooking fumes to be extracted immediately, treated to capture particulate matter, grease, oil and water vapour, and discharged above the roof or, where impractical, outdoors and away from adjacent buildings.
• The SCDF Fire Code 2023 addresses fire-rated ducts or prescribed clearances, a wet-chemical suppression system, and annual professional degreasing of the whole system.
• Operators keep cleaning records for inspection; SFA checks the exterior of the system and the records, and refers shops without proper records to SCDF.
• Installing or altering a kitchen exhaust system needs prior SCDF plan approval through a QP, unless a minor-alteration exemption applies.
• Settle the discharge point, duct route and fire protection at the design stage. Changes after construction are the costliest.

Table of Contents

• Who sets the rules for an F&B exhaust
• When is a mechanical exhaust system needed?
• NEA requirements: discharge and air cleaning
• SCDF Fire Code requirements for hoods and ducts
• Cleaning, inspection and records
• Approvals: what must be submitted and by whom
• Design for Safety and the exhaust system
• Common reasons a design is sent back
• Our perspective
• Getting your exhaust design submitted
• FAQ
• Sources

Who sets the rules for an F&B exhaust

No single rulebook covers a commercial kitchen exhaust. The requirements are split by purpose and reviewed at different stages.

A design that satisfies one agency can still fail another. A duct routed to the roof for NEA, for example, must still meet the fire protection expectations of SCDF along its entire length. This is why the QP coordinates the drawings rather than treating each agency as a separate exercise.

When is a mechanical exhaust system needed?

NEA’s Code of Practice on Environmental Health (COPEH) states the test in terms of outcome. Licensees must ensure that all fumes from the cooking range are extracted immediately and treated so that particulate matter, grease, oil and water vapour are captured and no visible smoke or fumes are exhausted. Any cooking range that produces fumes therefore needs a mechanical extraction path and a treatment stage. Operations involving open-flame cooking, deep frying or heavy oil use are the clearest examples, but the obligation attaches to the cooking range and its fumes rather than to a cuisine type.

For a unit that is not yet fitted out, the practical question is whether the planned cooking equipment generates fumes that must be captured. The QP confirms this against the proposed menu, the equipment schedule and the unit’s location in the building. Where a landlord, management corporation or JTC estate imposes extra conditions, these are added to the brief at the outset.

NEA requirements: discharge and air cleaning

COPEH sets the design siting requirements that a QP adopts at building plan stage, and the licensee’s obligations before operations begin. The current edition requires the following.

Discharge location

Kitchen exhaust fumes must be exhausted above the roof and must not face adjacent buildings. Where discharge at or above the roof is not practical, an alternative outdoor discharge point may be selected, again not facing adjacent buildings. COPEH also asks the designer to consider appearance, particularly near residential premises, and to screen the duct and outlets from the view of neighbours and the public.

Distance from cooling towers

Kitchen exhaust outlets must be sited more than 5 m from all edges or structures of cooling towers. On a rooftop shared with plant equipment, this single criterion often decides where the outlet can go, so it is checked against the mechanical roof layout before the duct route is fixed.

Air cleaning and no visible smoke

The treatment stage is the part that most affects equipment selection. Fumes must be treated so that particulate matter, grease, oil and water vapour are captured, with no visible smoke or fumes leaving the outlet. The hood alone does not meet this; a filtration or air cleaning stage sits between the hood and the discharge point, and its specification is submitted and verified at the pre-licensing stage.

COPEH sets minimum basic design criteria and gives QPs flexibility, provided the design outcomes satisfy its stated objectives. The QP carries the responsibility that follows: under COPEH, QPs are fully responsible for the safety, effectiveness and all other aspects of the design.

SCDF Fire Code requirements for hoods and ducts

A kitchen exhaust duct collects grease, which makes it one of the more common routes for a kitchen fire to spread through a building. The SCDF Code of Practice for Fire Precautions in Buildings 2023 (Fire Code 2023) therefore addresses the duct and hood in several ways:

1. Duct construction. Kitchen exhaust ducts are to be fire-rated, or to follow the specific clearance rules the Code sets out for ducts that are not.
2. Clearance from LPG. Non-fire-rated ducts must maintain a 3 m clearance from LPG cylinders and piping.
3. Fire suppression. The system is to be equipped with a wet-chemical fire suppression system.
4. Air intake separation. Intakes for mechanical ventilation and other systems must be located at least 5 m from any exhaust discharge openings, following the Fire Code 2023 amendments.
5. Cleaning. The duct must be kept free of grease through annual professional cleaning, covered in the next section.

The intake separation matters most on podium roofs, in mixed-use developments and in older buildings where fresh-air intakes and kitchen outlets compete for the same roof or façade area. A ventilation design checklist that tracks horizontal separation distances helps a design team test these spacings early, before louvres and duct risers are fixed on the drawings.

The Fire Code is amended from time to time, so the QP works from the edition current at the date of submission rather than from an earlier project’s drawings.

Cleaning, inspection and records

Compliance does not end at the Temporary Occupation Permit or the licence. The Fire Code 2023 requires that the entire kitchen exhaust system, including interior and exterior ducts and the kitchen hood, be degreased and cleaned at least once every 12 months by a specialist, with records kept by the owner or operator for verification by the authority.

SFA enforces the hygiene side. Under the Environmental Public Health (Food Hygiene) Regulations, foodshop and foodstall operators must ensure that kitchen exhaust ducts are clean, properly maintained and in good working order. According to SFA’s guidelines for licensed food retail premises, inspections check the exterior of the exhaust system and the maintenance records. SFA takes action for dirty exhausts and refers shops without proper records to SCDF.

What an operator should keep on file

• The cleaning contractor’s report for each annual clean, showing the date and the parts of the system covered (hood, interior duct, exterior duct).
• Service records for the air cleaning equipment.
• Fire suppression system servicing records.
• The approved plans and the QP’s design documents for the exhaust system.

Design decisions made now determine how easy this cleaning becomes later. Access to every section of the duct, a reachable outlet and a clear route to the roof lower the cost and the risk of each annual clean. We ask for these provisions at design stage because they are hard to retrofit.

Approvals: what must be submitted and by whom

Fire safety works, including the installation or alteration of kitchen exhaust systems, require prior plan approval from SCDF. A QP prepares and submits the plans before works begin, unless an exemption for minor alterations applies. The exhaust system is typically part of a wider submission, since the same fit-out may also alter the sprinkler layout, fire alarm, compartment boundaries or means of escape.

In practice the sequence for a new F&B unit runs as follows:

1. Brief and feasibility. The QP reviews the unit, the proposed cooking equipment, the available duct routes and the roof or façade discharge options.
2. Design. The exhaust, air cleaning stage, fire protection and clearances are drawn to COPEH and the Fire Code, coordinated with the M&E and architectural design.
3. Submission. Plans go to the relevant authorities. For the fire safety aspects, see our guides on how to obtain fire safety approval and who submits plans to SCDF.
4. Construction and supervision. Works follow the approved plans, with the QP supervising where the submission requires it.
5. Pre-licensing verification. The treatment and discharge arrangements are checked against the pre-licensing requirements before operations start.

Tenants converting a unit also need to consider whether the change triggers a fresh fire safety plan. Our article on change of use for shophouses explains when this applies, and for conservation buildings the constraints are covered in fire safety requirements for shophouse conservation. Smaller office-type fit-outs follow separate thresholds, which we describe in the 200 sqm renovation rule.

Design for Safety and the exhaust system

The Workplace Safety and Health (Design for Safety) Regulations 2015 require developers, designers and contractors to work together from planning and design to identify and eliminate or reduce foreseeable risks to affected persons throughout the lifecycle of a structure.

For a kitchen exhaust, the lifecycle includes the people who will clean and service it for decades. Design choices that reduce their risk include:

• Duct access panels placed where a technician can reach them safely.
• Rooftop equipment positioned with safe access and working space, away from edges.
• Outlet locations that do not force cleaners to work at height without proper provision.
• Heavy fans and filtration units installed where they can be maintained or replaced without hazardous lifting.

These points are cheap to include on drawings and expensive to add afterwards. Recording them in the design risk register also gives the developer a clear audit trail.

Common reasons a design is sent back

The pattern in rejected or delayed exhaust designs is consistent.

• Discharge facing a neighbouring building. The outlet is positioned for convenience and not oriented away from adjacent buildings.
• Outlet near a cooling tower. The 5 m separation is not checked against the rooftop plant layout.
• Intake too close to the outlet. Fresh-air intakes sit within 5 m of an exhaust discharge opening.
• Non-fire-rated duct without the required clearances. In particular, ducts routed near LPG cylinders or piping without the 3 m clearance.
• No treatment stage specified. The hood and fan are shown, but nothing addresses grease, particulate and vapour capture.
• No plan for cleaning. Access for the annual degreasing is missing, so the operator struggles to produce clean records later.

Each of these is a design-stage fix. Catching it before submission avoids a resubmission cycle and the knock-on delay to fit-out and licensing.

Our perspective

Kitchen exhaust failures are rarely caused by one bad component. They come from decisions taken in isolation: a duct route chosen by the fit-out contractor, a roof outlet placed without checking cooling towers and intakes, an air cleaning unit selected after the drawings were submitted.

We approach the system as one design problem across NEA, SCDF and SFA expectations. The QP’s drawings show the discharge point, the treatment stage, the duct construction and the fire protection together, so that each authority sees a coherent system and the operator inherits something that can be cleaned and documented.

Our work covers the engineering design, the PE and QP endorsement and the authority submissions, including SCDF and BCA, with M&E and architectural design handled alongside. For F&B tenants and developers, we regard early involvement as the cheapest form of compliance: the duct route, outlet and access are fixed while they can still move.

Aman

Getting your exhaust design submitted

If you are fitting out an F&B unit, converting a space for food use or altering an existing kitchen, we can coordinate the exhaust design with the architectural, M&E and fire safety work and handle the submissions. Our team prepares QP and PE-endorsed documents and manages SCDF and FSSD submissions alongside other statutory authority submissions.

Send us the unit address, the equipment schedule and the intended discharge options through our services page, and we will advise what the submission needs. For a broader view of how the process works, read our SCDF fire safety submission explained guide.

FAQ

Does every F&B outlet in Singapore need a mechanical exhaust system?

NEA’s Code of Practice on Environmental Health requires all fumes from a cooking range to be extracted immediately and treated, so any outlet with a fume-producing cooking range needs a mechanical extraction and treatment arrangement. Whether a particular set-up counts is confirmed by the QP against the equipment schedule and the unit location. Raise it before tenancy commitments are final.

Where can a kitchen exhaust discharge?

The fumes must be exhausted above the roof, not facing adjacent buildings. If that is impractical, an alternative outdoor discharge point may be used, again not facing adjacent buildings. Outlets must also be more than 5 m from cooling towers, and intakes for mechanical ventilation must be at least 5 m from exhaust discharge openings.

How often must the exhaust system be cleaned?

The Fire Code 2023 requires the entire system, including interior and exterior ducts and the hood, to be degreased and cleaned by a specialist at least once every 12 months. The operator keeps the records, because SFA and SCDF verify them during inspections.

Who submits the exhaust plans to SCDF?

A Qualified Person, who must be a registered architect or professional engineer, prepares and submits the plans before works begin. Minor alterations under specific exemptions are the exception, and the QP advises whether the exemption applies to your works.

Sources

• Code of Practice on Environmental Health (2024 Edition), NEA
• Code of Practice on Environmental Health (2025 Edition), NEA
• Code of Practice for Fire Precautions in Buildings 2023, SCDF
• Written Reply to PQ on Maintenance of Kitchen Exhaust Ducts, MSE
• Guidelines for Licensed Food Retail Premises, SFA
• Plan Approval, SCDF
• WSH Guidelines: Design for Safety
• Ventilation design checklist

Recommended

• The Ultimate Guide to Singapore Air Quality Requirements and NEA Submissions
• FC vs. FSC: Clearing Singapore Fire Safety Certification Confusion
• Five Approvals That Block Food Shop Licence Requirements in Singapore
• SCDF Fire Safety: A Compliance Guide for Singapore Developers