MM2H Malaysia 2026: Tiers, Deposits and Fees

Ask around about MM2H in Malaysia and you get three answers, all confident, none sourced. Somebody’s uncle got in for a number that no longer exists; a brochure promises a category that was renamed. Alamak. Meanwhile the ministry that runs the programme publishes the entire rulebook — four categories, every threshold, every fee, an eleven-step flowchart, a document checklist — free, on one website, and hardly anyone quotes it.

So here is that rulebook, with the dates on it. Everything below comes from MOTAC’s MM2H site, its own guide and announcement PDFs, the Immigration Department’s MM2H page, and the Tourism Industry Act 1992. Where two official documents say different things — and they do, in four places — both versions are printed rather than one quietly picked.

Quick Answer: there are four categories, not three — Platinum, Gold, Silver and SEZ/SFZ — and each is a fixed deposit plus a compulsory house. Silver is the lowest door among the three general categories: USD 150,000 on deposit, a RM1,000 participating fee, a RM5,000 processing fee for the principal and RM2,500 for each dependent, and a home worth RM600,000 or above that you may not sell for 10 years. You cannot file it yourself: it goes through a licensed MM2H company into the One Stop Centre in Putrajaya, and the final call belongs to the Ministry of Home Affairs through Immigration.

• The deposit: USD 150,000 Silver, USD 500,000 Gold, USD 1,000,000 Platinum, and USD 65,000 or USD 32,000 for SEZ/SFZ depending on your age. Half of it can come back out later, for four named purposes only.
• The house is not optional: buying and owning a residence is compulsory in every general category, at RM600,000, RM1,000,000 or RM2,000,000 and above (SEZ/SFZ has its own designated property instead), and selling it in breach of the terms inside 10 years costs you the pass — though you can upgrade to a higher-value residence.
• Work: permissible on Platinum. On Gold, Silver and SEZ/SFZ, conducting business, investing or pursuing career opportunities are all not allowed.
• The clock that catches people: once the conditional approval stage is reached, five documents have to be ready within 90 days — and one of them, the personal bond form, has to be stamped by the Inland Revenue Board first.

Which tierMoney inThe house

What MM2H Is, and Which Department Actually Decides

Malaysia My Second Home is not a visa you queue for at an embassy. It is a programme run by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — MOTAC — which the ministry’s own page says was introduced in 1996. Participation is open, in MOTAC’s words, to “every eligible foreign individual from sovereign countries that has diplomatic relations with Malaysia”, and once approved you stop being an applicant and become the principal, which is the word every later rule uses.

Two things follow from a tourism ministry running an immigration programme, and both matter more than the thresholds. The first: you cannot lodge the application yourself. MOTAC’s general requirements say it plainly — the application “should be submitted and completed through any MM2H tour operating business that has been licenced by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts & Culture under the Tourism Industry Act 1992 [Act 482]”. Step one of the official flowchart is the same sentence in a green box: apply through registered MM2H agents.

That licence is not decoration. Section 5(2) of Act 482 says no person shall carry on a tour operating business “unless it is a company and holds a valid licence granted under this Part”, and section 5(3) sets the penalty at a fine not exceeding RM50,000 or imprisonment not exceeding five years or both, with a daily fine of up to RM5,000 while it continues. So “is this company allowed to do this” has a documented answer: the Agents page lists every licensed company with its licence number, contact details and a validity window.

Read that validity column. As printed on 21 September 2026 the page carried 247 rows, and 36 showed an end date already passed — the earliest on 18 May 2026, the latest running to 2031. That is not an accusation about any company; it is a reason to check the two dates next to a name before anybody gets paid, and to ask for the current licence if the printed window has closed.

The second consequence: MOTAC does not have the last word. Every application runs through the One Stop Centre MM2H, but “all matters concerning immigration including the final approval are under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Home Affairs through the Immigration Department”, and appeals are under that ministry too. Two ministries, one file — which also explains the mismatch this article keeps returning to, because the two of them maintain separate MM2H pages that no longer say the same thing.

One thing to note before the numbers: every page on MOTAC’s MM2H site carries the footer line “Last Update: 10/02/2026” — day-first, like every other date on the site — which is the fastest way to tell whether anything has moved since this was written.

The Four Categories, as MOTAC Prints Them Today

Four, not three. Platinum, Gold and Silver are the general categories; the fourth, SEZ/SFZ, is tied to the Special Economic Zone and Special Financial Zone and splits into two age bands with different deposits. The main applicant must be 25 years old and above for Silver, Gold and Platinum, and 21 years old and above for SEZ/SFZ.

The fourth category is a different animal, and the difference is geographic. SEZ/SFZ carries the lowest deposits, but the compulsory property has to be in Forest City, Johor, bought from a Forest City developer and not a third party — and, unlike the other three, owned or purchased before the pass is endorsed. MOTAC also requires the operating company to report the sale to the Invest Malaysia Facilitation Centre Johor.

Everything above is what the ministry prints today, and none of it is the programme people remember from a decade ago — the older generation ran on offshore income and liquid assets, and those tests are gone from MOTAC’s current material. If a figure you have been given is not in the two tables above, it is either out of date or it is not MOTAC’s.

The Money You Put In, and the Half You Can Take Back Out

The deposit has to sit in “any Malaysian financial institution licenced under the Financial Services Act 2013 [Act 758] or Islamic Financial Services Act 2013 [Act 759]”. A wide field rather than a shortlist — but also a hard boundary: an account outside Malaysia, or at an institution not licensed under those two Acts, does not satisfy it. How Malaysian fixed deposits are quoted and compared is covered in Fixed Deposit Rates Malaysia: How to Compare Promos.

The figures are quoted in US dollars, but the money does not have to be: MOTAC’s programme announcement says the deposit is encouraged in Malaysian ringgit at a value equivalent to the US dollar figure for each category. MOTAC does not publish which exchange rate, or which date, sets that ringgit equivalent — that is a detail to confirm with the bank or the One Stop Centre, not something this article invents — and no fixed ringgit equivalent is published, so any ringgit figure quoted for a category is somebody’s conversion, not MOTAC’s threshold.

Half of the deposit can come back out. MOTAC allows a maximum withdrawal of 50% of the principal value, and it names the purposes: purchasing a residence, education, or medical and tourism related activities in Malaysia. Not a car, not a business, not living expenses. Nor is it self-service — MOTAC runs a “Verify FD Withdrawal Status” page that asks for a file number and a MOTAC reference number, and Immigration publishes a counter charter of 3 working days for a withdrawal application by an existing participant in Malaysia.

Here is the first place the official documents disagree, and it is about timing. MOTAC’s printed guide says the 50% may be withdrawn “starting from the second year onwards after the approval”. Its own one-page summary heads the same row “FIXED DEPOSIT WITHDRAWAL ALLOWED AFTER 1 YEAR”. The live website drops the timing entirely. Two documents impose a waiting period and one does not mention one, so if your plan needs that money early, put it to the One Stop Centre in writing rather than to a brochure.

A second condition on that withdrawal is almost never mentioned. If the 50% is going toward a house, the announcement sets a look-back: for Platinum, Gold and Silver the purchase must fall within 2 years before the date of pass endorsement, and for SEZ/SFZ within 6 months, with the value meeting the category minimum. Buy too early and the deposit will not follow the purchase.

On tax, MOTAC states that participants “receive tax exemption on foreign funds or income, such as their fixed deposit (FD)”, and its table words it as no tax on foreign funds or income and profit on fixed deposits in Malaysia. That is a tourism ministry describing a tax outcome. How any particular income stream is actually treated is the tax authority’s call and a licensed tax professional’s to confirm.

The House You Must Buy, and the Ten Years You Cannot Sell It

This is the part people underestimate. Buying a residence is not a perk of MM2H, it is a condition of it: “It is COMPULSORY to purchase and own a residence after obtaining the approval as MM2H participant”, in MOTAC’s capitals. The floors are RM600,000 for Silver, RM1,000,000 for Gold and RM2,000,000 for Platinum, or above. State minimum purchase prices for foreign buyers sit on top, and the transaction itself — legal fees, stamp duty, the handover timeline — can differ for a non-citizen buyer, so confirm the current rates rather than assuming they match a citizen’s: see Buying a House in Malaysia 2026: Process, Fees, Timeline.

Then the lock. “Selling of the residence is not allowed for 10 years” — with one exception, that the house may be upgraded by buying one of higher value. The consequence is on the same page, in the same breath: “Failure to comply to any of the the terms will result in the MM2H pass to be revoked.” The typo is MOTAC’s; the rule is not ambiguous.

Notice what that does to Silver. The Silver pass runs 5 years and the property lock runs 10, so the obligation outlives the first pass term. Nothing on MOTAC’s pages explains what happens to the lock if the pass lapses — a silence worth putting to the One Stop Centre before committing, because it is the difference between a 5-year decision and a 10-year one.

You also do not get forever to complete the purchase: MOTAC’s programme announcement gives Platinum, Gold and Silver participants one year from the date of pass endorsement to finish the house-buying. The SEZ/SFZ rule runs the other way round — own or buy the property before the pass is endorsed, only from a Forest City developer.

Days in the Country, Work, School, Hospital

Presence first. Participants aged below 50 must be present in Malaysia for 90 days, cumulative, in one year; above that age there is no minimum requirement to stay at all. And there is a concession that is easy to miss: for participants between the ages of 25 and 49, MOTAC says the length of stay “can be fulfilled by the principal and/or their dependents” — counted across the family rather than demanded of one person.

Work is the shortest rule and the one people most often get wrong. Under Platinum, conducting business, investing and pursuing career opportunities are all permissible. Under Gold, Silver and SEZ/SFZ, one MOTAC sentence covers all three: “Conducting business, investing, or pursuing career opportunities are not allowed.” No partial version, no threshold, no remote-work carve-out anywhere in the current material. If somebody says a Silver holder can run a company quietly, ask which MOTAC page says so.

School is more generous than most people expect. Dependent children may study up to tertiary level at any government-recognised higher learning institution in Malaysia, on the existing MM2H pass or a Student Pass given automatically. Immigration handles that with a charter of 14 working days for permission to study, and a boundary: the application is for a child below 18 years old, while a child above 18 applies for a Student Pass instead.

Healthcare runs on two rules that are easy to confuse. The benefit: long-term medical treatment is allowed in Malaysia within the MM2H pass validity period. The obligation: a medical check-up is compulsory, at a panel clinic or hospital appointed by MOTAC, for the principal and their dependants, after approval. MOTAC publishes the panel list and a separate list of insurance companies on its References page; the health insurance must come from a Malaysian or foreign provider with worldwide coverage, and the flowchart marks it as applicable for applicants aged 60 and below.

What MM2H is not: a route to permanent residence. The Immigration Department’s permanent residence guideline expressly puts MM2H holders outside the Fully Foreign National category and does not count the years spent on the pass. The separate errand, with its own conditions and its own fee, is set out in Permanent Resident Malaysia 2026: Entry Permit Rules.

Who You Can Bring, and Where the Two Departments Disagree

MOTAC’s dependant list has four entries and one footnote. A spouse. Biological, step or adopted children below the age of 21, and those between 21 and 34 years old provided they are unemployed and single while in Malaysia. Medically certified disabled children, no age limit. Parents and/or parents-in-law. The footnote: Platinum participants may bring in foreign maids — the only category with a fifth line.

And here the documents start contradicting each other in earnest. MOTAC’s comparison table caps a dependent child at 34, as does the printed guide; its own one-page category summary says 35. One year, two official documents, no way to tell which is current.

The bigger gap is between ministries. MOTAC lets a child stay on as a dependant from 21 to 34 if unemployed and single. The Immigration Department’s MM2H page, under its guidelines for transferring an endorsement into a new passport, states something that does not fit inside that: “Applicant who is 21 years and above and holding MM2H dependant pass will not be given further extension.” Both sentences are live on government websites today. Neither page acknowledges the other.

Immigration’s own counter guidelines then use MOTAC’s numbers anyway — its charter for issuing a dependant pass is headed “for spouse/children (until 34 years old)” and runs 30 working days, the same as for parents. The two departments agree at one counter and disagree at another. The practical answer is the boring one: if a child in that band is part of the plan, get it confirmed in writing before the deposit is placed, not after.

A smaller oddity: on the Silver, Gold and SEZ/SFZ pages the dependants list ends mid-sentence, “parents and/ or parents in law; and”, with nothing after the “and”. The printed guide’s version simply stops at parents-in-law, and that is the complete one.

Finally, the rule nobody wants to need. If the principal dies, the MM2H pass is transferable to the next-of-kin among the registered dependants. Immigration treats a change of principal as a separate application that goes to an MM2H special committee rather than carrying a fixed charter, with a document list that includes the death certificate, the conditional approval letter and a certificate of good conduct from the new principal’s country of origin.

Every Fee, From the First Form to the Renewal

The deposit is not a fee — it stays yours, under lien. The items below are one-off fees, a different thing from the deposit; none of the sources read for this article publish a refund policy for them.

The Platinum participating fee is not a typo and not in the same universe as the others: RM200,000, one-off, against RM3,000 for Gold and RM1,000 for Silver. Platinum is the only category where business, investment and career opportunities are permissible, and that is where the privilege is priced.

Renewal is two different exercises depending on where you are in the programme, and MOTAC prints them as two separate blocks.

Two details in that table cost people money. The renewal fee is per head, not per family — MOTAC’s panel spells it out as “for every principal and each dependant”, so a family of four on Gold pays four times RM3,000. And the fixed pass fee of RM500 is charged per year, which makes a five-year sticker renewal an arithmetic exercise rather than a flat charge.

One more that catches long-stayers: the pass is tied to your passport. “If the validity of the participant’s passport expires before the end of the MM2H pass, the participant is required to renew the security sticker to be included in the new passport.” A 20-year Platinum pass outlives several passports, and each one means another trip to Immigration — a 1 working day charter, with old and new passports both produced.

Eleven Steps, a 90-Day Window, and a Counter That Shuts at 1pm

MOTAC publishes the whole route as a flowchart, colour-coded by who does what: applicant, ministry, Immigration, agent. Eleven steps. Apply through a registered MM2H agent, hand that agent your documents, the agent submits to the One Stop Centre MM2H, and the One Stop Centre reviews it. That diamond has two exits: rejected returns to the agent, who notifies you; accepted issues an acceptance document receipt, then a notice of application and conditional approval letter to the agent.

Step eight is where the clock starts, and it is the most useful thing on the chart. Applicants have 90 days to prepare five documents: the fixed deposit certificate, health insurance (applicable for applicants aged 60 and below), the medical check-up report, the personal bond form stamped by the Inland Revenue Board, and a valid passport. Then steps nine to eleven — hand them to the agent, pay the processing fee, participation fee, pass and visa, and the endorsement pass is issued.

Two of those five are slower than they look: the deposit has to be placed in a bank licensed under Act 758 or Act 759 and tagged under lien, and the personal bond has to be stamped by the Inland Revenue Board first — a separate counter, at RM10.00 on Immigration’s own checklists.

The before-approval half is lighter and lives in MOTAC’s printed checklist: two copies of form IMM.12, the passport biodata page for the principal and for each dependant, a certificate of good conduct or police certificate for the principal and any dependant above the age of 18, and “other documents as required by OSC MM2H” — that last line is MOTAC’s wording, not a hedge added here.

Documents from outside Malaysia carry their own chain: Immigration requires everything translated into English by the Institute of Language and Literature or by a Malaysian mission abroad, and a certified true copy of a marriage or birth certificate has to come from such a mission or a public notary in Malaysia. The forms — IM38, the personal bond form, Medical Form II, IMM.12, the resume format and the sale and purchase acknowledgement form — are on MOTAC’s References page.

Three recent changes sit underneath all of this. New applications have run through the MM2H information management system since 1 August 2025, and operating companies have had to book MM2H matters through the online appointment system in that same portal since 1 October 2025. MOTAC has also announced that the Royal Malaysia Police will conduct random interview sessions with prospective participants on top of the existing security screening, plus a housing information confirmation form and an indicative approval letter attached to the Conditional Approval Letter where a file needs more detail on employment, income or dependants.

If anything goes over a counter, the useful hours are narrower than the opening hours. Since 3 June 2025 the One Stop Centre MM2H counter runs Monday to Thursday 8.00 am to 1.00 pm and 2.00 pm to 5.00 pm, Friday 8.00 am to 12.15 pm and 2.45 pm to 5.00 pm, closed weekends and public holidays. But applications are taken only between 8.00 am and 1.00 pm, documents handed in after 2.00 pm are not accepted and have to come back the next working day, and the drop box takes submissions only between 8.00 am and 10.00 am.

Sarawak is separate entirely. The state runs its own Sarawak-Malaysia My Second Home programme through the Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Sarawak, with its own requirements, forms, agent list and rules — personal sponsors there have been limited to immediate family members since 16 May 2025. None of the federal thresholds above should be assumed to apply. For Sabah, this research did not confirm a separate state programme page on a .gov.my address — check with the Sabah state tourism authorities directly, and do not assume the federal thresholds above apply there either.

Which leaves the question the chart does not answer: how long the whole thing takes. Nothing on the MM2H site itself, its guide or announcements, or on Immigration’s MM2H page publishes an approval time. MOTAC’s own client charter (Piagam Pelanggan) does carry a service target for the programme — 90 working days to process an application from the date a complete submission is received, subject to bank confirmation within that period — but that is a processing target, not a guaranteed approval or endorsement date. Beyond that are counter charters — 1 working day for the pass sticker, 30 working days for a spouse or child pass, 14 working days for permission to study, 3 working days to terminate a pass — and the 90-day window on your side to prepare documents. Anyone quoting a total end-to-end time beyond these published figures is quoting experience, not a published one.

Walaoeh Verdict

MM2H in 2026 is a deposit-and-property programme wearing a retirement brochure. Strip the marketing off and the shape is simple: park a fixed deposit in a Malaysian bank at a value pegged to a US dollar figure, buy a house above the required threshold, pay fees published to the ringgit, and get a renewable long-stay pass that does not let you work unless you took the RM200,000 door.

The good news is how much of it is knowable in advance. MOTAC publishes more than most people ever read — thresholds, flowchart, document checklist, counter hours, and the operator list with licence numbers on it. Almost every MM2H argument with a salesperson can be settled by opening those pages on your phone.

The part to be careful about is the seams. Official documents disagree about a child’s maximum age and about when the deposit unlocks; Immigration’s MM2H page is still written around a programme generation MOTAC no longer describes, down to a five-year renewal on proof of RM10,000 a month in offshore income; and 36 of the 247 rows on the operator list were showing lapsed validity windows on the day this was written. None of that is a reason to stay away. All of it is a reason to get your own file’s answer in writing from the One Stop Centre, and to re-open the source pages before acting on any number — including these, which were true on 21 September 2026 and carry a date for exactly that reason.

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Every figure above comes from one of these, checked on 21 September 2026.

• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — MM2H Requirements and Regulations. General requirements and items 01 to 14, including the application flowchart and renewal terms.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — MM2H Category Overview, plus Platinum, Gold, Silver and SEZ / SFZ. Every footer reads “Last Update: 10/02/2026”.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — Guide Malaysia My Second Home. The two-part document checklist is on pages 50 and 51.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — Insights on The Categories. The one-page sheet whose rows read “maximum age of child 35 & single” and “fixed deposit withdrawal allowed after 1 year”.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — Pengumuman Terkini Program MM2H, 28 May 2025. Sections A to E: the purchase window, Forest City conditions, ringgit deposit, withdrawal look-back and police interviews.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — Pengumuman Terkini Sistem MM2H and the online appointment notice. The system from 1 August 2025, appointments from 1 October 2025, and the RM500 excluding SST fee per application.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — counter operating hours notice, effective 3 June 2025, with the submission and drop box windows.
• Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture — list of licensed MM2H companies, References and forms, and the Verify FD Withdrawal Status page.
• Immigration Department of Malaysia — Malaysia My Second Home (MMH2). Counter client charters, translation and certification rules, the personal bond stamp duty, the dependant extension sentence and the legacy items. And Visa Fees, the per-country table behind the RM0-RM50 range.
• Attorney General’s Chambers — Tourism Industry Act 1992 [Act 482], sections 5(2) and 5(3). This reprint incorporates amendments up to 1 January 2006.
• Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry & Performing Arts Sarawak — Sarawak Malaysia My Second Home (SMM2H) Application Requirements, for the state programme and its sponsor rule.