Malaysia Visa

Ninety days on arrival for most visitors, a second immigration queue on the way to Borneo, and a retirement programme that has been rewritten more than once.

Last updated: August 2026.

Malaysia is among the easiest countries in the region to enter and among the harder ones to stay in. Most visitors apply for nothing, are admitted for ninety days, and never see a form beyond the digital arrival card. The complications sit elsewhere. Sabah and Sarawak run their own immigration controls, so the domestic flight from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching or Kota Kinabalu is a border crossing with stamps. Tourist extensions are not routine the way they are in Thailand or Indonesia. And the long-stay programme has been suspended, restarted and rewritten enough times that any figure more than a year old should be treated as suspect.

Three separate authorities matter here, and confusing them is the usual source of bad advice. The Immigration Department of Malaysia issues every pass and makes the final decision. The Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture runs the federal retirement programme. Sarawak’s state ministry runs its own, on its own terms.

Tourist Entry

Malaysia works by exception: the Immigration Department publishes a list of nationalities that must obtain a visa before travelling, and if yours is not on it you need nothing in advance for a holiday. That list is short and is kept on the department’s visa requirement by country page. Nationals who do need one apply through the official eVISA portal, which accepts applications from anywhere except inside Malaysia itself.

For everyone else the practical question is how long. Most visitors — including American, British, Canadian, Australian, New Zealand, Japanese, South Korean and EU passport holders — are normally admitted for 90 days. ASEAN nationals are treated differently and more briefly: the Immigration Department’s own note states that no visa is required for a stay of less than one month for ASEAN nationals other than Myanmar, and that stays beyond a month need a visa except for Brunei and Singapore citizens.

Whatever a website says, the number that governs you is the one written on your stamp. Read it before you leave the hall.

What you receive is a Short Term Social Visit Pass. The Immigration Department lists what it covers: tourism, social visits, visiting relatives, meetings and conferences, business discussions, seminars, journalism, sitting examinations and sports competitions. Paid employment is not on that list, and no amount of remote-work framing changes what the pass permits.

The digital arrival card

Foreign visitors must submit the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card before travelling — airlines may ask to see it at check-in. It is free, it takes a few minutes, and it exists only at imigresen-online.imi.gov.my. A large number of lookalike sites charge a fee to file a free government form; none of them is official. The portal itself sets out who must register and who is exempt, so check there rather than relying on a summary.

The same portal handles autogate eligibility, which is worth two minutes before a first trip. Malaysia has opened automated clearance to foreign visitors from a listed set of countries — Australia, Brunei, Germany, Japan, South Korea, New Zealand, Saudi Arabia, Singapore, the United States and the United Kingdom — as well as to MACS and long-term pass holders. The portal has a checker that tells you where you stand.

Sabah and Sarawak are separate

This is the point that catches experienced travellers, and it is not a formality. Both Borneo states retained control of their own immigration when Malaysia was formed, and they still exercise it. Sarawak controls entry into and exit from the state, and the residence status of non-Sarawakians, as a constitutional safeguard.

In practice, flying from Kuala Lumpur to Kuching or into Sabah is a domestic flight that still passes through immigration. Carry your passport rather than packing it, and expect entry and exit stamps in both directions. Foreign nationals entering Sarawak receive an additional state entry stamp on top of the federal one.

The consequence is the part people miss: the permitted stay you are granted for Borneo is issued by that state and is not necessarily the ninety days you were given on the peninsula. It can be shorter. Do not assume your peninsular stay carries across, and do not plan a two-month Borneo itinerary on the strength of a stamp you were given in Kuala Lumpur — check what you were actually issued on arrival in Kuching or Kota Kinabalu. Travelling between Sabah and Sarawak is another state boundary, and returning to the peninsula is another check.

Extensions and overstaying

Malaysia does not run routine tourist extensions. The Immigration Department’s own guidance is that an extension of a social visit pass may be granted on special consideration — it gives illness, accident and war in the home country as examples — that the visitor must furnish evidence, appear in person with their passport and Form IMM.55, and present a confirmed ticket home or a visa and ticket to a third country. That is a hardship provision, not a renewal counter. If you want more than ninety days in Malaysia, plan the exit rather than the extension.

Overstaying is treated seriously. The consequences, even for a few days, run to fines, detention, deportation at your own expense and a ban on returning.

Retirement & Long Stay

Malaysia My Second Home is the headline route, and it carries a warning before any figure. The programme has been closed, reopened and restructured repeatedly over the past several years, and the requirements have moved by large multiples between versions. Guides written even a year apart contradict each other, and many of the numbers circulating online belong to a version of the programme that no longer exists. The figures below come from the official programme site and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture’s own published category sheet; the official MM2H site is the authority, and it is the only thing you should act on.

The programme is administered by the ministry through its One Stop Centre, but immigration approval — and therefore the pass itself — rests with the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Immigration Department. Applications cannot be filed directly: they must go through an MM2H tour operating company licensed by the ministry under the Tourism Industry Act 1992.

The current categories

Category Fixed deposit Compulsory property Pass term Minimum age Work or business One-off participation fee
Platinum USD 1,000,000 RM 2,000,000 20 years, renewable 25 Permitted RM 200,000
Gold USD 500,000 RM 1,000,000 15 years, renewable 25 Not allowed RM 3,000
Silver USD 150,000 RM 600,000 5 years, renewable 25 Not allowed RM 1,000
SEZ / SFZ, ages 21–49 USD 65,000 Forest City, Johor — price set by state policy 10 years, renewable 21 Not allowed RM 1,000
SEZ / SFZ, ages 50+ USD 32,000 Forest City, Johor — price set by state policy 10 years, renewable 50 Not allowed RM 1,000

A processing fee of RM 5,000 for the principal and RM 2,500 for each dependant applies on top, and renewal fees differ by band — RM 5,000 for Platinum, RM 3,000 for Gold, RM 1,500 for Silver and RM 300 for the zone categories.

Several conditions matter more than the headline deposit:

Sarawak runs its own programme

Sarawak’s immigration autonomy extends to retirement. S-MM2H is a separate programme, run by the state’s Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts, with its own thresholds, its own application counter in Kuching and its own pass. Sarawak’s own material is explicit that the federal MM2H is a different scheme. It is also considerably cheaper, and it is tied to living in Sarawak rather than anywhere in Malaysia.

The state ministry’s published requirements set the age floor at 30 and require a fixed deposit of RM 500,000 placed in a bank in Sarawak, of which half may be withdrawn after a year towards a house, a car, medical costs or children’s education in the state. The financial tests also cover offshore income of RM 10,000 a month for an individual or RM 15,000 with a dependant, or savings of RM 100,000 and RM 200,000 respectively, evidenced by certified statements. A property purchase is optional — a significant difference from the federal programme — but if made, the floor is RM 600,000 in Kuching Division and RM 500,000 in other divisions, sellable after five years. The processing fee is a one-off RM 5,000 to the ministry, covering the first five-year pass.

The pass runs ten years as five plus five, and after ten years a participant must reapply as a new applicant rather than renew. The minimum stay is 30 cumulative days a year in Sarawak, and it falls on the main applicant only. Full-time work is not permitted; part-time work is capped at 20 hours a week and confined to professional roles in approved sectors — education, banking and securities, manufacturing and medical — with all work applications made to the state authority. Participants may hold a minority stake of at least 49% in a joint venture with a local partner, on paid-up capital of at least RM 250,000. Unlike the federal pass, S-MM2H does not transfer to next of kin on death and carries no route to permanent residence.

Two procedural points are easy to trip on. Applications must be submitted physically in Kuching — the state does not accept them online or by post — and a direct applicant needs a Sarawakian sponsor resident in the state, or must otherwise go through a licensed agent. Processing runs to 90 working days.

One caution specific to this programme: the tourism board’s public FAQ still carries an older set of figures, with lower deposits and different age bands, while the state ministry’s own enhanced requirements sheet sets out the terms above. Where the two disagree, the ministry is the authority — and it is worth confirming current figures with it directly before committing money.

Sabah is different again. Sabah exercises the same immigration autonomy as Sarawak, but it does not publish an equivalent state retirement scheme, so a retiree heading for Kota Kinabalu applies to the federal MM2H. Sabah’s separate immigration control still governs how long you may remain there on any given entry, so treat the pass and the permitted stay as two different questions.

Student Visas

Studying in Malaysia runs on a Student Pass issued by the Immigration Department, with Education Malaysia Global Services acting as the gateway for higher education. The sequence is fixed and the first step is the one people get wrong: you must be outside Malaysia when the application is submitted. Arriving as a tourist and converting on the spot is not the route.

Your institution files through the EMGS portal or the STARS system. EMGS carries out academic screening and issues an Approval to Study letter to eligible applicants, then forwards the file to the Student Pass Unit at Immigration headquarters for electronic Visa Approval Letter clearance, subject to travel document and security checks. Applicants whose nationality requires a visa then apply for a Single Entry Visa through the official eVISA portal — which can be done from anywhere except inside Malaysia. On arrival you have seven days to sit a post-arrival medical examination; once you pass it and EMGS issues its support letter, the institution takes the file to the nearest immigration office for the pass to be endorsed.

The Immigration Department’s own fees are modest — RM 60 for the Student Pass and RM 90 for a dependant’s or guardian’s social visit pass, plus a visa fee that varies by nationality. EMGS levies its own processing charges on top, and those are the larger number; take them from the EMGS fee schedule rather than from a prospectus. Your passport must have at least 18 months’ validity, and you need health insurance recognised in Malaysia covering at least 12 months.

Working while you study

Part-time work is permitted but tightly drawn, and the limits are worth reading before you count on the income. The Immigration Department’s Student Pass page caps it at 20 hours a week and restricts it to students at public universities and private higher education institutions — language centres, training and skills centres and accredited centres are expressly excluded. The permitted settings are a closed list: restaurants, petrol stations, mini markets, hotels and university or college premises. Front desk duties are prohibited, as is working as a student recruitment agent.

Permission is not automatic. You apply to the Student Pass Unit with a job offer letter, a copy of your passport and a supporting letter from your institution setting out your semester schedule and holiday dates — which is how the limit is policed. Approval is at the department’s discretion, and a student found breaching the conditions has the pass revoked.

Dependants are restricted too: only Master’s and PhD students may bring a spouse, children or parents to live with them, and dependants may not work or run a business.

Borneo, again

The state immigration point reaches into student paperwork. The department’s own checklist adds Sarawak-only documents — a letter of authorisation and a cover letter from the institution, and a pre-approval medical report from the country of origin — and school-level applications in both Sabah and Sarawak require a valid approval letter from the state government for the admission of international students. If you are heading for Kuching or Kota Kinabalu, budget time for the state layer.

After you graduate

Malaysia has no general post-study work visa, but it does run a Long-Term Social Visit Pass for graduates, which is the closest equivalent and is easy to miss. It is open to international students who have completed a bachelor’s degree or above at a Malaysian institution, with no age limit, but only to a fixed list of 32 nationalities — among them the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Canada, Japan, South Korea, Germany, France, Singapore, Brunei and most of PacificAir’s own countries.

It runs for 12 months, cannot be extended, and lets the holder travel, look for work, identify further study and work part-time in permitted sectors, with a multiple-entry visa and the ability to bring existing dependants. Your Student Pass must still be valid when you apply, your passport must have 18 months’ validity, you need 12 months’ health insurance and a personal bond with a Malaysian sponsor earning at least RM 1,500. The fee is RM 600 for the applicant and RM 600 per dependant plus the multiple-entry visa rate. Applications go through the EMGS portal and take about 14 working days. It does not lead to a Residence Pass or an Entry Permit, so treat it as a year to arrange something else rather than a step towards settlement.

Before You Fly

References

These sources were checked in August 2026. Malaysian immigration rules change without much notice and the MM2H terms in particular have moved repeatedly — the official government portals linked above are the authority, and the figures here should be confirmed against them before you book, apply or transfer money.

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