Malaysian foreign worker levy 2026: rates by sector and region

The levy is an annual charge an employer pays to the government for each foreign worker employed, on top of wages. It is not a one-time fee — it recurs every year the worker stays, and it is the employer's responsibility, not a deduction from the worker's wages. The amount is fixed by the worker's sector and region rather than by their wage, so two workers on different salaries in the same sector and state carry the same levy.

Because the levy is set by sector and region, the first step in estimating a hire's cost is simply to read your rate off the table below. Everything else — the security bond, FOMEMA, insurance, EPF and SOCSO — sits on top of it.

Malaysia groups sectors into a higher and a lower levy band. Manufacturing, construction and services sit in the higher band at RM 1,850 per worker per year in Peninsular Malaysia, while plantation and agriculture sit in the lower band at RM 640. Mining and quarrying is not separately published and is generally read as following the RM 1,850 band.^[1][3]

The split reflects policy priorities: the lower band supports labour-intensive food and commodity production, while the higher band applies to sectors the government is steering toward automation and reduced foreign-labour dependency. Sabah and Sarawak carry their own lower schedule across every sector.^[2]

Sarawak applies an additional fee of RM 1,854 under its Foreign Workers Transformation Approach (FWTA). This is charged on top of the basic Sarawak levy, not instead of it — so an employer in Sarawak budgets both the sector levy from the table and the FWTA fee. Treat this figure as provisional and confirm it against an official Sarawak or Immigration source before relying on it.^[4]

The levy is the largest recurring line, but it is not the only one. Employer EPF for non-citizen workers is mandatory at 2% of wages since October 2025, and the employer's SOCSO contribution under First Category is 1.75% of wages (1.25% Employment Injury + 0.5% Invalidity) for workers under 55 since 1 July 2024.^[5][6]

On top of these come annual FOMEMA medical screening, SPIKPA and FWIG insurance, PLKS pass renewal, and accommodation under Act 446 — plus the one-time recruitment agent fee, Visa with Reference, and a refundable security bond in year one. The calculator on each sector page adds all of these for you; this guide covers the levy that drives most of the total.

The much-discussed multi-tier levy (MTLM) for 2026 has not yet been gazetted. Until it is, the flat rates in the table below remain in force and are what the calculator uses.

When gazetted, the MTLM is expected to scale with a firm's reliance on foreign labour rather than stay flat — meaning the per-worker levy would rise as a company's foreign-worker dependency increases. We track developments on the MTLM tracker page and will update these rates the moment official figures are published.