Can a foreigner buy property in Johor? The complete rules

On most Johor launches, a foreigner cannot buy a single unit

This is the thing agents leave until the end of the meeting, and it decides whether the rest of the conversation is worth having.

The landed cases are the ones that surprise people. Sanubari Phase 3 at Bandar Dato’ Onn tops out at RM1,935,000 on its advertising permit. That is a substantial house by any measure — and it is RM65,000 short of the RM2,000,000 landed floor. A buyer who has been told “the Johor limit is one million” will look at that permit, see RM1.9 million, and reasonably conclude they qualify. They do not.

The second consequence is the one almost nobody prices in: the floor applies to your buyer when you sell, too. If you buy a RM1.05 million unit as a foreigner and the market later softens, you cannot sell it to another foreigner at RM950,000 — that transaction is not permitted. Your exit is restricted to Malaysian buyers, or to a foreign buyer at a price above the floor. In a building where the median transaction sits well below RM1 million, that is a real and permanent constraint on liquidity, not a theoretical one.

Every unit clears the floor

The shortest list on this page. On these developments you can shop the whole price list rather than the top three stacks.

Only part of the project clears the floor

These are the projects where the answer is “which unit?” rather than “yes” or “no”. Ask for the price list before you fall in love with a layout.

Special-zone rules — Medini and Forest City

Two places in Johor are administered under their own frameworks. Both are real; both are more conditional than the marketing suggests. Read the section further down before you rely on either.

Twenty projects where not one unit qualifies

Published ceiling below the applicable floor. These pages exist on this site and are worth reading if you are a Malaysian buyer — but if you hold a foreign passport, there is nothing here you can legally buy.

• Aliva Mount AustinRM445,000 – RM781,000strata
• Amberwood Resort ResidencesRM390,000 – RM819,000strata
• Avenue ResidencesRM407,000 – RM789,000strata
• Calia Residences by PGBRM400,905 – RM815,296strata
• Paragon GatewayRM348,653 – RM970,290strata
• Paragon Signature SuitesRM581,400 – RM650,285strata
• Sky Curve @ Taman PerlingRM454,000 – RM809,000strata
• Southkey NADI Residencestop published price RM694,000strata
• Adison @ W City LarkintonRM428,800 – RM833,000strata
• The Straits View DUOhighest asking price about RM733,000strata
• Monterra Johor Bahruentry RM382,200; nothing published reaches RM1mstrata
• The Asteriaz @ Kebun Tehtwo layouts only, 560 and 915 sq ftstrata
• The Celestz @ Kebun Tehlargest layout 915 sq ftstrata
• Lanna @ Eco TropicsRM743,000 – RM1,144,000landed
• Jasmine 3 @ Meridin EastRM811,200 – RM1,166,400landed
• Sanubari Phase 1RM1,100,977 – RM1,578,707landed
• Sanubari Phase 2RM1,200,000 – RM1,878,000landed
• Sanubari Phase 3RM1,288,000 – RM1,935,000landed
• Riveria Garden — Aluna Terrace2,219 sq ft terrace, below the RM2m floorlanded
• Riveria Garden — Elora Cluster & Semi-D2,470 – 2,592 sq ft, below the RM2m floorlanded

What actually stands between you and the keys

1. Two floors, not one

Johor sets a minimum purchase price for non-citizens of RM1,000,000 for strata property — condominiums, serviced apartments, SoHo units, anything held under a strata title — and RM2,000,000 for landed property. The gap between those two numbers is where most of the confusion in this market lives. It exists because landed housing is politically the more sensitive category, and the state deliberately keeps the bar higher.

Landed housing held under a strata title — cluster villas, gated townhouse schemes — is the awkward middle case, because it is landed in form and strata in title. Aurora Resort Villas is exactly that hybrid. Do not accept a verbal answer on which floor applies. Get it from the state, in writing, before any booking fee moves.

2. State consent and the endorsement on your title

Clearing the price floor does not complete the purchase. A transfer of Malaysian land to a non-citizen requires the written consent of the state authority under section 433B of the National Land Code. In Johor that application goes to the state land office and is measured in months, not weeks.

Look at the title itself, at the field marked Sekatan Kepentingan — restriction in interest. This is a limitation the state has endorsed on the document, typically in the form “tanah ini tidak boleh dipindahmilik, dipajak atau digadai tanpa kebenaran” — this land may not be transferred, leased or charged without consent. Some of the projects on this site carry it explicitly: the Skyline One Sentosa permit and the Lanna @ Eco Tropics permit both state it in terms. If a seller or an agent cannot show you the title page, you do not yet know what you are buying.

The practical failure mode: consent is refused after you have signed and paid a deposit. Read the sale and purchase agreement for what happens then — whether the contract is automatically terminated and your money returned, or whether you are left carrying the risk. Ask your conveyancing lawyer to point at the clause and read it out to you.

3. The Johor foreign buyer levy — and the RM50,000 trap

Under Johor Land Office Circular 03/2025, from 1 July 2025 the levy on a foreign acquisition rose from 2% to 3% of the property value, or RM30,000, whichever is higher, for residential, commercial and agricultural property. For industrial property it went from 2% to 4% — and there is no minimum amount on the industrial rate. Two different rates for two different land categories; do not let anyone apply one set of numbers to both.

There is a transitional window, and almost nobody mentions it. The old scale — 2% or RM20,000, whichever is higher, under PTG Circular 02/2014 — still governs a purchase where the sale and purchase agreement had already been signed and stamped and the complete consent application reached the Johor Land Office on or before 29 August 2025. If that describes your file, you are not on the 3% scale. Ask your lawyer for the PTG acknowledgement date before anyone bills you at the new rate.

4. Stamp duty: flat 8%, residential only

Since 1 January 2026, under Budget 2026, non-citizens and foreign-owned companies pay a flat 8% stamp duty on the transfer of residential property, up from the flat 4% that applied from 2024. Three qualifications matter:

It is residential only. The amended definition of residential property expressly captures serviced apartments and SoHo units used as dwellings — so a JB serviced residence is caught, whatever its land title says. Commercial and industrial property is not caught, and stays on the ordinary tiered rates. That is why an industrial buyer at Alpha Austin pays a higher levy (4%) but no 8% duty.

Malaysian permanent residents are excluded. PRs continue on the citizen tiered scale — 1% on the first RM100,000, 2% on the next RM400,000, 3% on the next RM500,000, 4% above RM1,000,000. On a RM1,000,000 purchase that is roughly RM24,000 for a citizen or PR against RM80,000 for a non-citizen. The PR distinction is worth more than most people realise and is routinely blurred in marketing.

There is no first-home exemption for you. The citizen reliefs do not carry across.

5. Financing at 60–70%

Malaysian banks typically lend a non-citizen a margin of finance of around 60% to 70% of the purchase price, against up to 90% for a citizen on a first or second home. Two things tighten it further. A commercial land title — which most JB serviced apartments sit on — usually attracts a lower margin than a residential title at the same bank. And a borrower with no Malaysian income will be assessed on foreign income, which some banks discount or decline outright.

Run the arithmetic before you commit. On a RM1,050,000 unit at a 65% margin you are funding RM367,500 of equity, plus RM84,000 of stamp duty, plus a RM31,500 levy, plus MOT registration and legal fees — comfortably over RM490,000 in cash before you own anything. Get an indicative margin from a Malaysian banker on the specific project, not a general one, because the answer moves by project.

6. Medini and Forest City: real, but conditional

Medini is a 2,230-acre zone in Iskandar Puteri administered under the IRDA framework, and new strata property bought from the developer there has historically been exempt from the RM1 million floor. That is why The M, Verte and Elysia Park are frequently marketed to foreign buyers at prices that would be impossible 15 km east. What I will not do is tell you the exemption is guaranteed to be there on your completion date, or that it extends to sub-sale, because I have not seen a current government document that says so in terms. Get the position confirmed in writing by IRDA or by a Johor conveyancing lawyer for your specific unit and your specific transaction type.

Forest City is different again. It was designated a Special Financial Zone in August 2023, with incentives announced in September 2024. The route that matters to a residential buyer is SFZ MM2H, which starts at RM500,000 — but only for a unit bought directly from the developer, with a fixed deposit of US$65,000 (ages 21–49) or US$32,000 (50 and over), a 10-year renewable visa, completion within 90 days of the approval letter, and a 10-year no-resale condition. There is also a 50% remission on transfer and loan stamp duty for eligible individual buyers, conditional on the unit having been completed before 1 September 2024 and the agreement being signed between 1 September 2024 and 31 December 2034.

Read the no-resale condition twice. A ten-year lock on an asset you bought at RM500,000 is a very different proposition from a RM1 million unit you can sell in year three. It is not a loophole in the threshold; it is a trade.

7. What is off-limits regardless of price

Malay reserve land, Bumiputera-quota units within a development, and state-designated affordable housing are closed to non-citizens no matter what you are willing to pay. The Eclipse’s 250 affordable RMMJ units are a live example in this portfolio. Agricultural land carries its own separate consent regime. If a deal looks unusually cheap for its size, this is the first thing to check.

What a RM1,050,000 unit actually costs a foreign buyer

Residential strata, Johor, transacting today. Figures are the statutory ones; legal fees and disbursements vary by firm.

• Purchase priceRM1,050,000must be at or above RM1,000,000
• Stamp duty on transfer, non-citizenRM84,000flat 8% since 1 Jan 2026
• Johor foreign buyer levyRM31,5003%, above the RM30,000 minimum
• MOT registration feeRM4,750fixed tier: RM4,500 + RM250
• State consent applicationSeveral thousand ringgitplus a processing period in months
• Statutory outlay before legal feesAbout RM120,250roughly 11.5% of price

For comparison, a Malaysian citizen or permanent resident buying the same unit pays about RM25,500 in stamp duty and no levy. The gap is close to RM90,000 on a RM1.05 million purchase — which is the number to put into your model, not the headline price difference between Johor and Singapore.

On exit, real property gains tax for a non-citizen is 30% of the chargeable gain within the first five years and 10% from year six onward. A foreigner never reaches 0%, whereas a citizen does after year five.

Foreign buyers in Johor — frequently asked

Published 2026-08-05 · Thresholds, levy and stamp duty verified against Johor Land Office Circular 03/2025 (effective 1 July 2025) and the Budget 2026 stamp duty changes (effective 1 January 2026). Project prices are the developers’ own published advertising-permit figures or recorded transactions, verified project by project during 2026. Rules change — confirm your own position with a Johor conveyancing lawyer before you pay a deposit. This page is information, not legal or financial advice.