Stamp duty on a home in Malaysia: the transfer scale, the loan, the first-home exemption

Two instruments are stamped when you buy a home: the transfer and the loan. The Memorandum of Transfer (Form 14A under the National Land Code, or the deed of assignment where the strata title has not issued) carries an ad valorem duty on a rising scale. The loan agreement carries a flat 0.5%. Both are paid before the transfer registers, and both are waived for a qualifying first home.

The transfer scale (Malaysian citizens and permanent residents)

It is a marginal scale: each slice is taxed at its own rate, so a RM500,000 home pays RM1,000 on the first slice and RM8,000 on the second, RM9,000 in all, not 2% of the whole. Duty is charged on the price or the market value, whichever is higher; a price well under the record invites the valuer’s figure instead.

The loan agreement

0.5% of the sum borrowed, whatever your citizenship. At a 90% loan on RM500,000 that is RM2,250.

Worked examples at a 90% loan

Every scheme page shows this sum on that scheme’s own median, under “Read next”. On the national high-rise median of RM320,000 the transfer duty is RM5,400.

The first-home exemption

A Malaysian citizen buying a first residential home priced at RM500,000 or less pays no duty on either instrument (the transfer and the loan are both exempt in full), provided the Sale and Purchase Agreement is signed on or before 31 December 2027. “First” means never having owned a residential property, alone or jointly, including one inherited or given. One unit only.

Two things older articles still repeat and which no longer hold: the 75% exemption for homes between RM500,001 and RM1,000,000 ended on 31 December 2023 and was not brought back; and the earlier deadline of 31 December 2025 was extended by two years in Budget 2026. Above RM500,000 there is no first-home relief at all: a RM500,001 home pays the full RM9,000 on transfer while a RM500,000 home pays nothing, which is worth knowing before you agree a price a few ringgit over the line.

Buyers who are not citizens or permanent residents

From 1 January 2026 the transfer of any residential property to a foreign company or to an individual who is neither a citizen nor a permanent resident is stamped at a flat 8% of the price or market value, whichever is higher, in place of the 1–4% scale. On RM1,000,000 that is RM80,000 against RM24,000 for a citizen. The loan duty is the same 0.5%. State minimum-purchase thresholds for foreign buyers are a separate matter and vary by state.

What this guide does not cover

Legal fees on the SPA and the loan follow the Solicitors’ Remuneration Order and are a conveyancing lawyer’s quote, not a tax; agent commission is a matter between seller and agent; valuation and disbursement fees come from the bank. None of them is here, on purpose. The stamp duty scale is statute and does not move between lawyers; the rest does.

Check the price you are about to stamp against the record first: the scheme pages show what the same homes sold for.