There is a small ritual at Malaysian counters now. The bill arrives, your eye goes straight to the bottom line, and somewhere above it sits three letters and a percentage. SST Malaysia is not one tax with one rate, which is the first reason the arithmetic never quite matches what you expected. It is two separate taxes, run under two separate Acts, and only one of them ever appears on a receipt handed to an ordinary buyer.
Alamak, and then the rates moved. The scope was widened on 1 July 2025, and the Royal Malaysian Customs Department has since gazetted further orders while leaving several of its own explainer pages carrying the older numbers. What follows is what the current gazetted instruments say, read against RMCD’s own pages and checked on 21 September 2026. Where an official page and the gazette disagree, both are printed.
Quick Answer: service tax is the one you can see. The standard rate is 8 per cent, but fourteen categories of service — food and drink, telecommunications, parking, logistics, healthcare, education, construction and, since 1 January 2026, rental — are charged at 6 per cent instead. Sales tax is the one you cannot see, because it is charged once, upstream, on the manufacturer or the importer. And if you are a Malaysian citizen walking into a private clinic, the answer is that you pay no service tax at all.
- The number that decides most bills: 6 or 8. Everything turns on whether the service is on one specific list in the rate order, and the summary most people find online is shorter than the list actually is.
- The exemption nobody announces at the counter: citizenship. Private healthcare service tax is lifted for citizens by order, not by goodwill, and it is one of the largest consumer carve-outs in the whole scheme.
- The line to look for on the receipt: a separate one. A registered seller must print the amount before tax, the rate, and the tax itself as its own figure. A bill that only shows one total is not showing you what the rules require.
Table of Contents
Which taxWhat you payIf it's wrongTwo taxes, one abbreviation, and only one you can see
SST is a habit of speech, not a tax. Underneath it sit the Sales Tax Act 2018 and the Service Tax Act 2018, each with its own orders, its own rates and its own idea of who is supposed to hand money to the government.
Service tax, in RMCD’s own words, is “a tax charged and levied on taxable services provided by any taxable person in Malaysia in the course and furtherance of business”. Two words in that sentence are doing all the work. A taxable service is only what the regulations prescribe as one — there is a closed list, arranged in groups, and a service outside the list is not taxed no matter how expensive it is. A taxable person is a provider registered to charge it — usually because they crossed a registration threshold, though a provider below the threshold may also register voluntarily — and those thresholds differ by group. This is why two salons on the same street can bill you differently and both be correct.
Sales tax works from the other end. RMCD calls it “a single stage tax levied on imported and locally manufactured goods, either at the time of importation or at the time the goods are sold or otherwise disposed of by the manufacturer”. Single stage is the important part: it is charged once, at the factory gate or the port, and then it travels down the chain inside the price. The invoicing duty under sales tax is described by RMCD as mandatory for the registered manufacturer who sells taxable goods. Nothing in that arrangement puts a sales tax line on the till receipt you get at a supermarket. If you are looking for sales tax on your grocery bill, you will not find it — it is already inside the number.
Timing matters too. Service tax becomes due “when payment is received for taxable service provided to customer by the taxable person”, and registered businesses account for it on a taxable period that is bimonthly. If the provider is never paid, the tax still falls due the day after 12 months have run from the date the service was provided.
The rate that applies to you: 8 per cent, 6 per cent, or RM25 a card
The rate order was rewritten on 9 June 2025 and came into force on 1 July 2025. It sets a default and then carves two schedules out of it. The default is blunt: “The rate of service tax which shall be charged and levied on all services is fixed at eight per cent.” Then the exception: the services named in the First Schedule are “fixed at six per cent”, and the Second Schedule carries a specific amount instead of a percentage.
| Where the service sits | What is charged |
|---|---|
| Anywhere else | 8 per cent of the price of the service |
| First Schedule, items 1 to 13 | 6 per cent — prepared or served food, non-alcoholic beverages, food with beverages, telecommunications, telecommunications with subscription broadcasting, parking space for motor vehicles, logistics, healthcare, traditional and complementary medicine, allied health, construction works, education |
| First Schedule, item 14 | 6 per cent — rental or leasing, added by an order gazetted on 13 March 2026 and deemed to have started on 1 January 2026 |
| Second Schedule | RM25 for each principal or supplementary credit or charge card, on activation or renewal and every twelve months after |
Here is where a careful reader gets tripped. RMCD’s own general service tax FAQ still summarises the position as “The tax rate is 8% for all taxable services except; F&B, Logistics, Telecommunications, and Parking are at a rate of 6%”. That was accurate before the expansion. It is now four items describing a schedule of fourteen, and the categories it leaves out — healthcare, traditional medicine, allied health, construction, education and rental — are precisely the ones a household is billed for. The schedule in the order decides your bill; the FAQ summarises an older version of it.
For context on how recent all of this is: the rate was 6 per cent from 1 September 2018 to 29 February 2024, moved to 8 per cent on 1 March 2024 with food and beverage, parking, logistics and telecommunications held at 6 per cent, and the 6 per cent band has widened twice since. The card charge has been a flat RM25 throughout, and it attaches to the card rather than to any spending, which is why it appears in a month you bought nothing.
What sales tax does, quietly, before the shelf
Sales tax got its own new order on the same day. The structure is the mirror image of the service tax one: a high default, a lower schedule, and a specific-amount schedule.
| Category of goods | Rate of sales tax |
|---|---|
| Anything not listed in either the rate order or the exemption order | 10 per cent. RMCD states it plainly: if the goods are not listed in either order, the rate is 10 per cent |
| Goods named in the First Schedule to the rate order | 5 per cent |
| Goods named in the Second Schedule | A specific amount — unblended motor spirit, for instance, is charged at RM0.60 per litre rather than by value |
| Goods named in the exemption order | Nothing |
| Goods you carry in yourself, not for commercial use | Outside the 10 per cent charge — except motor vehicles, alcoholic beverages, spirits, cigarettes, tobacco products, smoking pipes, electronic cigarettes and vaporizing devices, the liquid or gel used in them, tyres and tyre tubes |
Two things follow for an ordinary buyer. The first is that the baggage line is genuinely useful: goods brought in with a person entering Malaysia, in their baggage and not for commercial use, sit outside the 10 per cent charge — and the order then names ten categories pulled straight back in, so a motor vehicle, alcohol, cigarettes, tobacco, a vape device or its liquid, or tyres will not qualify.
The second is that the list moves fast. An amendment gazetted on 30 June 2025, for rules starting 1 July 2025, shifted fresh dates, fresh oranges, mandarins and apples into the exempted-goods schedule. A year later, on 31 July 2026, another deleted five vessel headings from the 5 per cent list with effect from 1 August 2026. None of it is visible at a checkout, which is rather the point: sales tax reaches you as a price, not as a line.
One threshold is worth knowing even as a buyer, because it explains why the small manufacturer at the pasar malam is not charging anything: a manufacturer only has to register once the sale value of taxable goods has exceeded RM500,000 over a 12 months period.
What 1 July 2025 added, and the two numbers that moved afterwards
The expansion added five families of service to the taxable list. Each arrived with its own registration threshold, which is the figure that decides whether the provider in front of you is in the scheme at all.
| Service | Rate now | Provider registers at |
|---|---|---|
| Private healthcare, private traditional and complementary medicine, private allied health | 6 per cent | RM1,500,000 each |
| Private school education, pre-school to post-secondary | 6 per cent | No threshold figure — the trigger is fees exceeding RM60,000 per student for each academic year. Higher education and language centres are taxed on a different rule: only on services to a non-citizen, no threshold. |
| Construction works, excluding a residential building and its related public facility | 6 per cent | RM1,500,000 |
| Rental or leasing of tangible assets, excluding housing accommodation | 6 per cent from 1 January 2026 | RM1,000,000 |
| Beauty treatment, at a wellness centre or massage parlour — not a new group, but often lumped in with the expansion | 8 per cent, flat, for citizens and non-citizens alike | RM500,000 |
Two of those numbers are not what RMCD’s most-visited explainer says, and it is worth being precise about why.
The rental threshold first. RMCD’s expansion FAQ answers the question directly: “The threshold value for rental or leasing services is RM500,000.00.” But an amending regulation gazetted on 30 June 2025 — one day before the rules began — substituted “RM1,000,000” for “RM500,000” in that very column. The gazette is the law; the FAQ is dated 17 June 2025 in RMCD’s own announcements table, which is before the amendment existed. Anyone checking the obvious page will find the superseded figure.
The rental rate second. The same FAQ says “The tax rate for rental or leasing services is 8%”, which was right for the first half-year. An order gazetted on 13 March 2026 inserted “Provision of rental or leasing services” into the 6 per cent First Schedule as item 14, “deemed to have come into operation on 1 January 2026”. RMCD’s own background page agrees. Two official pages, two answers; the gazette settles it.
What the expansion pointedly did not touch is as important as what it added. Construction of a residential building and the public facility related to it stayed outside the charge. So did the rental or leasing of housing accommodation. So did every service that is simply not in the regulations at all.
Where a Malaysian citizen simply does not pay
One of the largest consumer carve-outs in the scheme is not a discount and not a policy statement. It is item 7 of a gazetted exemption order, and its condition column reads: “The person referred to in column (2) is a citizen”. The service exempted is the one specified in items 14, 15 and 16 of Group I — private healthcare, private traditional and complementary medicine, and private allied health. RMCD puts the same thing in plainer language in its FAQ: asked whether Malaysian citizens are subject to service tax when obtaining those services, the answer is “No. Malaysian citizens are exempted from paying service tax”.
| Who or what | What the instrument actually says |
|---|---|
| A citizen at a private clinic or hospital | Exempt from payment, by order. Condition: the person is a citizen |
| A doctor’s consultation fee | Exempt — but only where the invoice itemises it separately. Where it does not, service tax is imposed on the total value of the invoice |
| A newborn without citizenship status yet | Exempt where one parent is a citizen with valid identification documents from the National Registration Department, on proof submitted at registration |
| Private school fees above the threshold | The gazetted condition is “a citizen and a holder of a valid Kad OKU”. RMCD’s FAQ sentence is commonly read as covering citizens generally — the two readings do not match |
| Parent Teacher Association fees, and study trips abroad | Not subject to service tax |
| Household electricity | The first 600 kWh in a billing cycle of at least 28 days is outside the charge; only consumption above that is taxed |
The consultation fee line deserves a second look, because it is the rare rule that turns on how your bill is typed. Service Tax Policy No. 5/2025 (Amendment No. 4), dated 17 August 2026, exempts consultation fees charged by professional doctors at registered private healthcare facilities, traditional and complementary practitioners and allied health providers. The condition is administrative: “The consultation fee shall be itemized separately from other medical treatment charges within the same invoice.” Then the sting: “Where the issued invoice does not specify the value of the consultation fee separately, service tax shall be imposed on the total value of the invoice.”
The education exemption needs care of a different kind. The order’s condition column reads “The person referred to in column (2) is a citizen and a holder of a valid Kad OKU issued under the Persons with Disabilities Act 2008 [Act 685]”. RMCD’s FAQ answer to the same question reads “Malaysian citizens and holders of a valid Disabled Persons (OKU) card … are given service tax exemption”, which most people take as two separate groups. On the gazette’s wording both conditions attach to the same person. That is a question for RMCD or the school’s bursar, not one to assume.
Two smaller points. RMCD lists four university specialist centres — University Malaya, Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia, Universiti Teknologi MARA and International Islamic University Malaysia — as private healthcare facilities that need no SST registration at all. And health examination management services, the layer that arranges screenings, became taxable under Management Services from 1 May 2026.
Rent, renovation and the condominium maintenance bill
Three questions arrive together from anyone who lives in a strata building, and the answers come from three different places.
Your rent. Group K covers the provision of all types of rental or leasing of tangible asset services, and then excludes four things, the first of which is “for rental or leasing of housing accommodation”. A note to the group extends that phrase: housing accommodation “shall include a small office home office, serviced apartment, serviced condominium, serviced suite or residential suite”. RMCD works it through with an example of a landlord renting out a residential property at RM1,500.00 a month and a warehouse at RM20,000.00 a month, and concludes that “the rental of residential property is not subject to service tax”. If you rent a home to live in, the tax is not part of the conversation. A shop lot or an office is a different matter, and there the landlord’s own turnover against the RM1,000,000 threshold usually decides it — though a landlord below that threshold may also choose to register voluntarily.
Your renovation. Construction works became taxable, but the group excludes building a residential property and its related public facility — which left a gap for work on a home that already exists. Service Tax Policy No. 2/2026, dated 18 June 2026, closes it: occupants or owners of residential buildings “are exempted from paying service tax on construction work services carried out on completed residential buildings”. It is interim, pending a gazetted amendment, and it carries conditions: the contractor must be registered under Group L and must hold proof the building is residential — a strata or individual title, the sale and purchase agreement, a utility bill or approved building plans — and your name and the property address must appear on the invoice.
Your maintenance charge. Service Tax Policy No. 3/2026, dated 24 June 2026, is the cleanest sentence in the entire pile: “the maintenance charges and sinking fund contributions for both residential and non-residential buildings charged by any Joint Management Body (JMB) or Management Corporation (MC) to property owners are not subject to service tax”. Read the rest of it before celebrating, though. The treatment “will only take effect after it is gazetted in the Service Tax Regulations 2018”, and in the meantime owners of non-residential premises are exempted under the Minister’s power, with effect from 1 July 2026 — and the policy states in terms that no exemption is granted for the period before that date. Separately, where a JMB or MC buys in taxable services from a third party and pays with maintenance money, it still pays service tax on those services.
And the deposit: RMCD says deposits collected for security purposes and refundable are not subject to service tax, while a deposit treated as part of the payment for the service is. Rental under a hire purchase contract, where ownership passes to you at the end, is not taxed at all.
Reading the receipt: what a registered seller must print
Regulation 10 of the Service Tax Regulations 2018 sets out what an invoice from a registered person has to carry. RMCD lists it in order, and the practical value of that list is that it turns a vague suspicion into a checkable thing.
| What must be on it | Why it matters to you |
|---|---|
| An invoice serial number and a date | Gives you something to quote if you query the charge later |
| The registered person’s name, address and identification number | That identification number is what you take to the registration lookup |
| The amount payable excluding service tax, the rate, and the tax shown as a separate amount | A single lump sum with no rate shown is not what the rule asks for |
| The total payable including the tax, and any discount given | Lets you check the arithmetic rather than trust it |
| Nothing altered by hand | Alteration is prohibited; a wrong invoice is void and must be marked CANCELLED |
The invoice must be in Bahasa Melayu or English, on paper or electronic. Where a charge is reduced or cancelled afterwards the mechanism is a credit note, which carries its own particulars including the number and date of the original invoice — the paper trail to ask for when a refund is agreed but the tax has already been charged.
For hotel and accommodation pricing specifically, the rule does not force a business to quote tax-inclusive prices. Asked whether a displayed price for accommodation, food and beverage has to be inclusive or exclusive of service tax, RMCD’s answer is that it “may be inclusive or exclusive”. The menu price and the final line are allowed to differ, so long as the invoice itself breaks the tax out.
The three lines people argue about at the counter
The service charge. This is the one that generates the most heat, and RMCD’s own FAQ gives two answers in two different sections. Under Food and Beverages: “Is service charge subject to service tax? No, service charge is not subject to service tax.” The identical answer appears again under Professional Services. But under Accommodation, answering a question about tips, the page says that if a tip “is included in the customer’s bill as a service charge, then service tax is chargeable”, and adds that “Service tax is to be calculated on the value of the services inclusive of the service charge”. Those two answers point in opposite directions on whether the tax base includes the service charge. Both answers stand here, unreconciled; if it matters to a bill in front of you, that is a question for the SST helpdesk, quoting both answers. What both sections agree on is that a genuinely voluntary tip is not taxed.
The clinic bill. If you are a citizen, the healthcare service tax should not be there at all. If you are not, the consultation fee itemisation rule above decides whether the tax lands on part of the bill or all of it. And two related charges that people assume are outside the scheme are not: RMCD’s Service Tax Policy No. 6/2025 puts ancillary services such as luggage storage, and the rental of medical machines or equipment for treatment, inside the scope of healthcare services at 6 per cent for non-citizen patients.
The electricity bill. Domestic supply is taxable, but only above a line. The taxable service is described as the provision of electricity to a domestic consumer “excluding for the first 600 kWh for a minimum period of twenty-eight days per billing cycle”. RMCD works an example: a 750 kWh bill at RM0.218 per kWh gives a value not subject to service tax of RM130.80, being 600 kWh, and a value subject to service tax of RM32.70, being the remaining 150 kWh. If your bill shows tax on the whole amount, that is a question worth asking.
When you think the charge is wrong
Start with the cheapest check, because it settles a surprising share of arguments. RMCD runs a public SST Registration Status page, no login, with four ways to search: SST registration number, business registration number, name of business, or GST registration number. Take the identification number off the invoice and look it up.
Be careful with the inference, though. Being below a threshold does not mean a provider cannot be registered — RMCD allows voluntary registration for anyone supplying taxable services. So a small salon or a small clinic charging service tax is not automatically doing something wrong, and the lookup is the way to tell the difference.
If the lookup does not settle it, the published channels are these. The Customs Call Centre takes general enquiries on 1-300-888-500, Monday to Friday from 8.00 am to 5.00 pm, closed on weekends and public holidays, e-mail [email protected]. The SST Helpdesk runs Monday to Friday, 8.30 am to 5.30 pm, in states whose weekend falls on Saturday and Sunday, and Sunday to Thursday at the same hours where the weekend falls on Friday and Saturday. RMCD publishes direct helpdesk numbers for every state and for KLIA, so a local office is usually the faster door. And when the Ministry of Finance announced transitional arrangements on 4 July 2025, it addressed the notice to “orang awam dan para peniaga” — the public as well as traders.
One thing to be clear about: the formal review and appeal route is built for the taxpayer, not the shopper. A person aggrieved by the decision of an SST officer may apply for a review to the Director General within 30 days of notification, or appeal to the Tribunal within 30 days of the decision. In practice this responds to a registered business disputing an assessment issued against it, since that is who receives a formal SST officer’s decision in the first place. A consumer who thinks a charge is wrong has no such decision to appeal from — the route is raising it with the business first and with RMCD second.
Walaoeh Verdict
Four things are worth carrying out of all this. The rate on a service bill is 8 per cent unless the service is on a specific list of fourteen, in which case it is 6. Sales tax is never a line on your receipt, so hunting for it is wasted effort. If you are a citizen, private healthcare service tax should not appear on your bill at all. And a registered seller has to show the tax as a separate amount with the rate next to it, which means a bill you cannot check is a bill worth querying.
The uncomfortable part is how fast the ground moves. Two of the 2026 policies used here — on maintenance charges and on renovating a completed home — are expressly interim, holding a position until the regulations catch up, and one rate order was gazetted on 13 March 2026 for a rate deemed effective from 1 January 2026, a date already past. So the sensible habit is not to memorise a figure, including one from this page, but to check the rate order and the exemption order on RMCD’s own SST Orders index before anything expensive. This guide carries the date it was checked for exactly that reason.
And if a counter cannot explain a line, the least confrontational move is also the most effective: ask for the invoice to be itemised. The rules already require it, the consultation fee exemption depends on it, and most disagreements dissolve once the numbers are separated. The tax on what you earn is a different agency and a different act — that side is in e-Filing Malaysia 2026: Deadlines, Steps & Penalties.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is SST 6 per cent or 8 per cent?
Both, depending on the service. The rate order fixes service tax at eight per cent on all services, then carves out a First Schedule fixed at six per cent. That schedule ran to thirteen items from 1 July 2025 — prepared or served food, non-alcoholic beverages, food with beverages, telecommunications, telecommunications with subscription broadcasting, parking, logistics, healthcare, traditional and complementary medicine, allied health, construction works and education — and rental or leasing was added as item 14 by an order gazetted on 13 March 2026 and deemed effective from 1 January 2026. Anything off that schedule is 8 per cent. Credit and charge cards are neither: a flat RM25 per card on activation or renewal and every twelve months after.
Why can I never find sales tax on my shopping receipt?
Because it isn’t charged at your point of sale. RMCD describes sales tax as a single stage tax levied on imported and locally manufactured goods, either at importation or when the manufacturer sells or disposes of them, and the invoicing duty falls on the registered manufacturer selling taxable goods. By the time the item reaches a shelf the tax is inside the price rather than beside it. The structure is 10 per cent by default, 5 per cent for goods in the First Schedule to the rate order, a specific amount for the Second Schedule, and nothing for goods in the exemption order — and RMCD states that a tariff code listed in neither order is taxed at 10 per cent.
Do Malaysians pay service tax at a private hospital?
No. Item 7 of the Schedule to the Service Tax (Persons Exempted from Payment of Tax) Order 2018, inserted with effect from 1 July 2025, exempts a person receiving the taxable services specified in items 14, 15 and 16 of Group I — private healthcare, private traditional and complementary medicine and private allied health — on the condition that the person is a citizen. RMCD says the same in its expansion FAQ: “No. Malaysian citizens are exempted from paying service tax.” A newborn without citizenship status yet is also exempt where one parent is a citizen with valid identification documents from the National Registration Department.
Is my house rent subject to SST?
Not if it is a home. Group K of the First Schedule to the Service Tax Regulations 2018 covers rental or leasing of tangible assets but expressly excludes housing accommodation, and a note to the group says that phrase includes a small office home office, serviced apartment, serviced condominium, serviced suite and residential suite. RMCD’s worked example has a landlord renting a residential property at RM1,500.00 a month and a warehouse at RM20,000.00 a month, and charges the tax only on the warehouse. Commercial space is different, and there the landlord’s turnover against the RM1,000,000 registration threshold usually decides it, though voluntary registration below that figure is possible — a figure RMCD’s expansion FAQ still prints as RM500,000.00, superseded on 30 June 2025.
Does my condominium maintenance fee have SST on it?
Service Tax Policy No. 3/2026, dated 24 June 2026, states that maintenance charges and sinking fund contributions for both residential and non-residential buildings charged by a Joint Management Body or Management Corporation to property owners are not subject to service tax. Two conditions sit around that sentence. The treatment only takes full effect once it is gazetted in the Service Tax Regulations 2018; until then non-residential owners are exempted under the Minister’s power with effect from 1 July 2026, and the policy states that no exemption is granted for the period before that date.
What should the tax line on my receipt look like?
Regulation 10 of the Service Tax Regulations 2018 requires a registered person’s invoice to carry a serial number, the date, the registered person’s name, address and identification number, a description of the services, any discount, and — the part that matters most — the total payable excluding service tax, the service tax rate, and the total service tax charged “shown as separate amount”, followed by the total including tax. It must be in Bahasa Melayu or English, on paper or electronic. Altering it is prohibited: a wrong invoice is void and must be marked CANCELLED. A displayed price, by contrast, may be inclusive or exclusive of the tax.
What can I do if I think a business overcharged me SST?
First, check whether it is registered. RMCD runs a public SST Registration Status lookup that takes an SST registration number, a business registration number, a business name or a GST registration number, with no login. Bear in mind that a provider below a threshold may register voluntarily, so being small proves nothing. If that does not settle it, the published channels are the Customs Call Centre on 1-300-888-500, Monday to Friday 8.00 am to 5.00 pm, the e-mail address [email protected], and the state SST helpdesks on the MySST site. The formal review or Tribunal appeal, both within 30 days, responds to a decision issued to a registered business — not something a shopper receives in the first place.
Sources
Every figure above comes from one of these, all checked on 21 September 2026.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Service Tax (Rate of Tax) (Amendment) Order 2025 [P.U. (A) 173/2025], gazetted 9 June 2025, in operation 1 July 2025. The new paragraph 3, the First Schedule and the Second Schedule.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Service Tax (Rate of Tax) (Amendment) Order 2026 [P.U. (A) 125/2026], gazetted 13 March 2026, deemed in operation 1 January 2026. The insertion of item 14.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Service Tax (Amendment) Regulations 2025 [P.U. (A) 172/2025], and the further amendment [P.U. (A) 201/2025] that raised the Group K threshold to RM1,000,000. Groups I, K, L and M of the First Schedule.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Service Tax (Persons Exempted from Payment of Tax) (Amendment) Order 2025 [P.U. (A) 174/2025]. Items 7 and 10 of the Schedule.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Sales Tax (Rate of Sales Tax) Order 2025 [P.U. (A) 170/2025], paragraph 2 and the two schedules, and the amendment gazetted 31 July 2026 [P.U. (A) 281/2026].
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Sales Tax (Goods Exempted from Sales Tax) (Amendment) Order 2025 [P.U. (A) 200/2025], which moved fresh dates, fresh oranges, mandarins and apples into the exempted schedule.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — Service Tax Policy No. 5/2025 (Amendment No. 4) dated 17 August 2026, No. 6/2025, No. 1/2026, No. 2/2026 and No. 3/2026.
- MySST portal — Understanding SST, Background, Issuing Invoices, Registering Business, Assessment Disputes and Call Center / Helpdesk.
- MySST portal — FAQ Expansion of Service Tax Scope 2025, FAQ Transition of Sales Tax Rate Changes 2025, FAQ Business and FAQ Service Tax. The conflicting service charge answers and the superseded rental figures are on these pages.
- Royal Malaysian Customs Department — SST Registration Status lookup, and the Ministry of Finance media release Kemudahan bagi Pelaksanaan Peluasan Cukai Jualan dan Perkhidmatan, Putrajaya, 4 July 2025.
About this guide. Written by an independent Malaysian and re-checked against official sources on a schedule — here, the gazetted sales tax and service tax orders and regulations, the Royal Malaysian Customs Department’s service tax policies, and the pages of its own MySST portal. It sets out what the rules say; it is not tax or legal advice, and how a particular charge on a particular bill should be treated is a matter for RMCD or for a licensed tax professional. Rates, thresholds and exemptions in Malaysia change, sometimes retrospectively — one of the orders cited here was gazetted in March 2026 and deemed to have started in January 2026 — and two of the 2026 policies say on their face that they hold only until the regulations are amended. Before anything expensive, check the current orders on the MySST SST Orders index, or call the Customs Call Centre on 1-300-888-500, Monday to Friday, 8.00 am to 5.00 pm.