Last updated 27 September 2026 — by Adrian Tan, SDM. Marketing guidance, not legal advice. The Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act 2025 is administered by the Ministry of Home Affairs, and prosecutions require the consent of the Public Prosecutor. If a piece of content is already the subject of a complaint or a government order, speak to a lawyer, not an agency.
On 15 September 2026, the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act 2025 came into force. Most coverage has focused on its political architecture: a new Presidential Council for Racial and Religious Harmony, disclosure rules for race-based organisations, and powers against foreign influence. Very little has asked what it means for the people who produce most of the content Singaporeans see every day — brands, agencies and influencers.
The answer is more than you might expect. The Act gives the Minister for Home Affairs power to issue a racial content restraining order that can require a person, including a company, to take content down and stop distributing it, with effect the moment it is served and without prior notice. It creates new race offences carrying up to five and ten years’ imprisonment, in which motive is irrelevant. And it has a corporate liability rule under which a manager who “ought reasonably to have known” can share a company’s guilt.
None of this makes ordinary multicultural marketing risky. But it raises the ceiling on the cost of getting it badly wrong, and it changes what a brand’s review and takedown processes need to look like. This guide sets out the provisions that matter and a practical workflow.
What the Act does, in brief
The Act was passed on 4 February 2025 and assented to on 26 February 2025, with commencement fixed by the Minister at 15 September 2026. Its parts relevant to marketing are:
| Provision | What it does | Why a marketer should care |
|---|---|---|
| s 8 | Racial content restraining order (RO) made by the Minister | Can order a person to stop communicating specified material and to take it down |
| s 9 | RO lasts up to 2 years, extendable; no prior notice or consultation needed | The first you hear of it may be the order itself |
| s 10 | Failing to comply with an RO: up to $10,000 or 2 years; $20,000 or 3 years on repeat | Slow takedown becomes an offence in itself |
| s 38 | “Conduct” includes communicating to the Singapore public from outside Singapore | Overseas agencies and regional campaigns are in scope |
| s 39 | Urging violence on the basis of race: up to 10 years | Rarely relevant to brands, but it sets the scale |
| s 40 | Inciting enmity, hatred, ill-will, hostility, contempt or ridicule against a racial group, or insulting a person on the basis of race: up to 5 years | “Ridicule” is the limb that reaches humour and stereotypes |
| s 41 | Community remedial initiative | An alternative to prosecution in suitable cases |
| s 43 | Corporate state of mind and officers’ liability | Managers who ought to have known can be liable |
According to MHA, the Act replaces the race-related offences that sat in sections 298 and 298A of the Penal Code with the updated offences now in sections 39 and 40. It also amends the Online Criminal Harms Act 2023, which our guide to the online advertising Code of Practice discusses.
Restraining orders: the provision brands should read first
Section 8(1) allows the Minister to make a racial content restraining order against a person if satisfied that the person has committed, is committing, is likely to commit or is attempting “an act that causes feelings of enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility between different races in Singapore”, or an act that incites or encourages someone else to do so.
Two features make this the provision that matters most for brands.
- The test is about effect. Unlike the offence in section 40, section 8(1)(a) does not require the person to have known their act was likely to cause those feelings. The Minister acts on being satisfied about the act.
- It applies to companies. Section 8(3) says the main prohibitions and the takedown requirement “may be imposed on an individual or any other person”, which includes a company.
What an order can require
Under section 8(2), an RO may prohibit the person from addressing the public on a specified subject, prohibit them from communicating or distributing specified material or a specified description of material, require them “to take all reasonably practicable steps” to ensure specified material “is no longer available to the general public in Singapore”, and restrict involvement in publications.
Section 8(7) spells out what “communicating or distributing” covers, and it reads like a list of marketing activities:
- placing the material where the public can access it;
- giving it to an intermediary to communicate or distribute — a media owner, an ad platform, a publisher or an influencer;
- describing how to access it, for example sharing the link;
- displaying, screening or playing it where it can be seen or heard from a public place — digital out-of-home screens;
- making it available to end-users in Singapore through the Internet.
Section 8(6) closes the obvious gap: a prohibition is contravened if someone does an act on behalf of the person that would breach the order if the person did it. An agency that keeps a campaign running, or an influencer who keeps a sponsored post up after the brand is served, is acting on the brand’s behalf.
“Information or material” includes humanlike depictions
Section 8(8) defines information or material to include any form — oral, written, electronic, digital, visual, pictorial or graphic — and gives as an example “an anthropomorphic or humanlike depiction”. Caricatures, mascots, cartoon characters and AI-generated personas are all within the Act. Our guide to AI in content production covers the wider governance case for reviewing generated people before publication; this is a specific legal reason.
Timing
An RO takes effect when a copy is given to the person (s 9(2)), lasts up to two years and can be extended (s 9(1), (4)), and the Minister need not give notice or consult before making it (s 9(6)). Orders are subject to review by the new Presidential Council under Part 5. Non-compliance is an offence under section 10. The practical consequence is that a brand needs to be able to find and remove every copy of a campaign asset — including boosted posts, partner posts and screen playlists — quickly, not over a week of emails.
The section 40 offence: why “ridicule” matters
Section 40(1) makes it an offence to engage in conduct that incites feelings of “enmity, hatred, ill-will or hostility against, or contempt for or ridicule of” a group of persons in Singapore distinguished by race, knowing that the conduct is likely to have that effect. Section 40(2) covers insulting, vilifying, denigrating, threatening or abusing a person on the basis of their race, again knowingly.
For marketers, three details stand out.
- “Contempt for or ridicule of” sits alongside hatred and hostility. Humour built on a racial group — an accent, a stereotype, a caricature — is the obvious way a brand gets near this limb.
- Motive is irrelevant (s 40(4)). “It was meant affectionately” or “it was meant to be funny” does not answer the charge. The question is the conduct and the knowledge of its likely effect.
- A group is “distinguished by race” if all its members share a race, or if none of them belongs to a certain race (s 40(3)). Content targeting “everyone who isn’t” a group is covered.
Two defences are available on the balance of probabilities: that the conduct was private or domestic, reasonably expected to be perceived only by the parties to it (s 40(5)) — which a published campaign never is — and that it consisted of pointing out racist matters in good faith in order to bring about their removal (s 40(6)). The second protects a brand campaign that confronts racism honestly, which is an important reassurance for purpose-led work: the Act does not stop brands talking about race; it targets content that stirs enmity or ridicule.
Corporate liability: “ought reasonably to have known”
Section 43 decides how a company’s state of mind is proved and when individuals share its guilt. Evidence that an officer, employee or agent engaged in conduct within their actual or apparent authority, and had the relevant state of mind, is evidence that the company had it (s 43(1)). And where a company commits an offence, an officer or a person involved in management who was in a position to influence the conduct is guilty too if they consented or connived, were knowingly concerned, or “knew or ought reasonably to have known” that the offence would be committed and failed to take all reasonable steps to prevent or stop it (s 43(2)).
That last limb is the one that should shape process. A head of marketing who signs off creative without any cultural review, or who sees a complaint thread growing and does nothing, is the person the provision describes. Documented review and a documented takedown are the “reasonable steps”.
Section 38 extends “conduct”, for the offences in sections 39 and 40, to communication to the Singapore public from outside Singapore. A regional campaign produced in another market and pushed to Singapore audiences is not outside the Act because the agency is.
The case every Singapore brand team remembers
In July 2019, an advertisement for an e-payment campaign featured a Mediacorp actor playing four characters representing Singapore’s main racial groups, including an Indian man portrayed with artificially darkened skin. It was widely criticised as “brownface” and was removed within days. The creative agency, Havas, and the actor’s management company apologised “for any hurt that was unintentionally caused”, and the actor later apologised personally.
The episode long pre-dates the Act, and nothing here suggests it would have met the knowledge requirement of a criminal offence. It is relevant for a different reason: it shows how a campaign made without hostile intent can still cause exactly the harm the Act describes, and how the response turned on how quickly the asset came down. Under the new regime, that speed is no longer only a reputational question.
A review and takedown workflow for brands and agencies
Most multicultural marketing in Singapore is careful, and the Act is not aimed at it. The goal is a process that would survive the “reasonable steps” question in section 43 and meet an RO’s timetable.
- Casting and depiction. Cast people of the race you portray. Do not use makeup, filters or AI face-swaps to change someone’s apparent race.
- Humour. Ask who the joke is on. Accents, stereotypes about food, work or money, and caricatures of a racial group are the content closest to the “ridicule” limb.
- Cultural accuracy. Festive campaigns are where brands most often reach across cultures. Have them reviewed by people from the community being celebrated, not just translated. Our guides to Chinese New Year marketing and Hari Raya marketing cover the occasion-specific rules.
- Generated people and mascots. Review AI-generated personas and illustrated characters the way you would review casting, because section 8(8) treats humanlike depictions as material.
- Distribution map. Keep a live register of every placement: organic posts, paid boosts, partner and creator posts, whitelisted ads, email, app and digital screens. Section 8(7) reaches intermediaries, and section 8(6) reaches anyone acting on your behalf. For screens, see also our guide to film advertising rules.
- Takedown drill. Name who can pause campaigns and remove posts across every account, and test it. An RO is effective when served.
Comments and communities
Brand pages also host other people’s content. A thread of racist replies under a brand post is not the brand’s own act, but it is material available to the public on a channel the brand controls. Moderation rules that remove racially abusive comments promptly, and a log of what was removed, are both good community practice and evidence of reasonable steps. Our guide to community management in Singapore sets out moderation policy in detail.
Influencer and agency contracts
Add three clauses to creator and agency agreements: an obligation to take down campaign content within a stated number of hours on the brand’s instruction; a warranty that creative has been through the brand’s cultural review; and cooperation with any order or official request. Our guide to influencer and KOL marketing covers the rest of the contract.
Worked examples
1. The festive skit. A food brand’s Deepavali short video has a Chinese presenter imitate an Indian accent for laughs while describing the menu. Nobody on the team meant harm, but the joke’s target is a racial group, which is the “ridicule” limb of section 40, and section 40(4) makes motive irrelevant. The fix costs nothing at script stage: cast the community being celebrated and make the food, not the accent, the point.
2. The AI persona. A fintech app generates a set of “typical Singaporean” customer avatars for an explainer, and the generator gives one group exaggerated features. Section 8(8) treats humanlike depictions as material, so review generated people exactly as you would a casting shortlist.
3. The regional campaign. A regional office in another market pushes a humorous ad to all Southeast Asian audiences, including Singapore. Section 38 brings communication to the Singapore public from outside Singapore within the offences, so the Singapore team should have review and pause rights over anything targeted here.
4. The takedown request. A brand decides to pull a post after complaints, but three creators and a digital screen network still run it a week later. If an order had been served, section 8(6) would treat their continued distribution as acts on the brand’s behalf. The distribution map is what makes a same-day takedown possible.
Frequently asked questions
When did the Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act come into force?
On 15 September 2026. The Act was passed by Parliament on 4 February 2025, and its commencement date was set by the Minister for Home Affairs.
Can a company be issued a racial content restraining order?
Yes. Section 8(3) allows the main prohibitions and the takedown requirement to be imposed on an individual or any other person, which includes a company. An order takes effect when a copy is given to the person, and failing to comply is an offence.
Is racial humour in an advertisement an offence in Singapore?
It can be, where the conduct incites contempt for or ridicule of a racial group and the person knows it is likely to do so. Section 40 of the Act makes that an offence punishable with a fine, up to five years’ imprisonment or both, and says motive is irrelevant.
Does the Act apply to content made overseas?
Yes. Section 38 defines conduct to include communicating to the general public in Singapore from outside Singapore, so campaigns produced abroad and shown to Singapore audiences are within scope.
Does the Act apply to AI-generated characters and mascots?
Yes. Section 8(8) defines information or material to include visual, pictorial or graphic forms, and gives an anthropomorphic or humanlike depiction as an example.
The takeaway
The Maintenance of Racial Harmony Act 2025 is not an advertising statute, and it is not aimed at the careful multicultural marketing most Singapore brands already do. But it applies to everyone who communicates to the public, including companies, and it gives the Government a fast administrative tool — the restraining order — alongside criminal offences in which good intentions are no defence.
For brands and agencies, the response is procedural: review casting, humour, cultural references and generated people before publication; know where every copy of a campaign lives; and be able to take it all down quickly. Those are also the “reasonable steps” section 43 asks managers to show.
If your social content and community management need that review and takedown discipline built in, it is part of what our social media marketing team does; see our client case studies. Start with our guide to social media management in Singapore, and read this with our guide to using national symbols in marketing.
