Can a foreigner buy property in Malaysia?

Yes, subject to two gates applied in this order, in every state on this page. First the price: the federal guideline set by the Ministry of Economy, formerly the Economic Planning Unit, is that foreign interests may not acquire real estate valued at less than RM1,000,000 per unit. Each state then sets its own floor on top, and in several states that floor is higher.

Second the consent. On the peninsula, a transfer to a non-citizen needs the prior written approval of the State Authority under section 433B of the National Land Code, applied for in writing. Section 433C makes any dealing in contravention null and void, so this is a condition of the dealing being registrable at all, not a formality you catch up on after signing. Sabah and Sarawak do not use the National Land Code and run their own consent procedures.

One definition catches people out: foreign interest includes Malaysian permanent residents. Holding PR does not move you to the citizen side of the line.

Two different price floors: RM1,000,000 for a strata unit and RM2,000,000 for a landed home. Most buyers only know the first number and get caught by the second — Sanubari Phase 3 at Bandar Dato’ Onn tops out at RM1,935,000 on its advertising permit, RM65,000 short of the landed floor, so not one house in it qualifies.

The levy is 3% of the purchase price or RM30,000, whichever is higher, and it belongs to Johor alone. Neither Kuala Lumpur nor Selangor charges anything equivalent, so do not carry this figure to another state. Three variations matter: a serviced apartment bought below RM1,000,000 carries a minimum levy of RM50,000 rather than RM30,000; industrial property is charged at 4% with no minimum, and the 8% non-citizen stamp duty does not apply to industrial at all; agreements signed and lodged before 29 August 2025 fall under the earlier rate of 2% or RM20,000.

The levy falls due on state approval and sits on top of the flat 8% stamp duty that has applied to non-citizens buying residential property since 1 January 2026. Budget both before you commit to anything. Above the price you still need written state consent — Kebenaran Pindah Milik — before the transfer can be registered, and the title will carry a Sekatan Kepentingan restriction in interest.

RM1,000,000 per unit — and unlike Selangor, that single figure covers both strata and landed property in the Federal Territory. The test is applied to the transaction, unit by unit, at the price written into your sale and purchase agreement.

Consent comes from the Kuala Lumpur Land Working Committee, Jawatankuasa Kerja Tanah Wilayah Persekutuan Kuala Lumpur, applied for through the Federal Territory Land and Mines Office after the agreement is signed. It is a Land Working Committee, not a Land Executive Committee, and it is not the Economic Planning Unit, whatever an older article tells you.

Kuala Lumpur charges no state levy on foreign buyers. Johor and Penang both do, so a KL budget and a Johor budget are not interchangeable.

Because Selangor is zoned and Kuala Lumpur is not. In Zone 1 — Petaling, Gombak, Hulu Langat, Sepang and Klang — and in Zone 2 — Kuala Selangor and Kuala Langat — the residential floor for a non-citizen is RM2,000,000. In Zone 3 — Hulu Selangor and Sabak Bernam — it is RM1,000,000. Commercial and industrial property is a separate and higher line again: RM3,000,000 across the whole state, regardless of zone.

That means the RM1,000,000 figure people quote for Kuala Lumpur is wrong for almost all of Selangor, and it is wrong by a factor of two in exactly the districts most buyers are looking at. Petaling Jaya, Subang Jaya, Shah Alam, Puchong, Cyberjaya and Bangi all sit in Zone 1. Consent comes from the Selangor state land office, not the Federal Territory committee.

And the figure that will not die: the reduction to RM1,500,000 was a temporary measure introduced in 2020 and it has lapsed. Articles and agent pages still repeat it. Thresholds are a state matter and they move — have a Selangor conveyancing solicitor obtain written confirmation from the Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Selangor for your specific unit, district and price before you pay a booking fee, not after.

Only if it is strata landed. Selangor opens strata property and strata landed property to non-citizens; landed residential property held on an individual title is not open to a foreigner at any price, in any zone, however far above RM2,000,000 you are willing to go.

There is a second gate on top of that. Selangor applies a Bumiputera quota to residential developments, and the non-Bumiputera allocation is capped, so a unit can be unavailable to you for reasons that have nothing to do with your passport or your budget.

Before you fall in love with a terrace or a semi-detached in Petaling Jaya, ask the developer in writing whether the title is an individual title or a strata title. Those two words decide whether the transaction is possible at all.

The answer splits in two, because Penang applies different floors to the island and to the mainland. For a sub-sale purchase on Penang Island the floor is RM1,000,000 for a strata unit and RM3,000,000 for a landed home. On the mainland, Seberang Perai, it is RM500,000 for strata and RM1,000,000 for landed.

That RM3,000,000 landed figure is the highest foreign-buyer floor for landed residential property anywhere in Malaysia. It is one and a half times the Johor landed floor and three times the mainland one, in a state you can cross in twenty minutes.

Penang also charges a levy of 3% of the transacted price, payable upon state approval, at the rate the state introduced from 1 February 2014. Penang is one of only four states recorded as charging an express foreign levy; the others are Kedah, Pahang and Johor. Consent comes from the Penang state authority through the Penang Land and Mines Office.

Do not assume it is. Penang offered a lower tier for units bought direct from a developer as overhang stock — RM700,000 strata and RM1,500,000 landed on the island, RM400,000 strata and RM750,000 landed on the mainland — under its Home Ownership Campaign, and that tier applied to sale and purchase agreements signed between 1 January and 31 December 2024.

Whether any reduced tier is available for a signing today is something only the Penang Land and Mines Office can confirm in writing. An agent telling you about a campaign price is not confirmation, and neither is this page.

If the reduced tier is not extended, the ordinary sub-sale floors apply and a large part of the island’s stock moves out of reach again.

No. Perak is recorded as barring non-citizens and foreign companies from acquiring, owning, holding or inheriting freehold property, a position taking effect from September 2023. That restriction belongs to Perak — it does not exist in Johor, Kuala Lumpur, Selangor or Penang, and neither the rule nor its absence should be carried between states.

What remains open to a non-citizen here is leasehold title. On any leasehold offer, ask for the expiry year rather than the original term: a 99-year lease granted in 1960 and a 99-year lease granted in 2020 are not the same asset, and only one of them is financeable.

The price side is unusual too. Sub-sale residential purchases by foreigners in Perak are recorded as not permitted at all, at any price. For residential property bought direct from a developer, Perak runs a zoned band: Zone 1 is Ipoh, and the developer-direct band starts at RM500,000 for strata and RM700,000 for landed, running up to RM2,000,000 across the zones. So a foreign buyer in Perak has to satisfy three conditions at once — leasehold title, direct from the developer, above the zone floor. Perak’s rules are unusual enough that I would not act on them from any website, including this one. Get written confirmation from the Perak Land and Mines Office through a Perak conveyancing solicitor.

Neither, on its own. Two published figures contradict each other, so here are both. The Bar Council Conveyancing Practice Committee’s state-by-state table records Sabah’s minimum purchase price for residential property acquired by a non-citizen as RM1,000,000. A separate and widely quoted figure of RM600,000 for high-rise strata, with RM1,000,000 for landed, is attributed to a 2022 state circular that I have not been able to read in text form.

I will not average them, pick the convenient one, or borrow a number from the peninsula. The gap is not academic. At Residensi Bayu Damai the highest gazetted price is RM971,800: under the first figure not one of its 762 units is transactable to a non-citizen, short by RM28,200, and under the second, effectively the whole development is open.

So the answer is a process rather than a number. Instruct a Sabah conveyancing solicitor to obtain written confirmation from the Sabah Lands and Surveys Department for the specific unit, type and price you intend to buy, before you pay a booking fee. Note also that Sabah commercial property is restricted to foreign companies incorporated in Malaysia, a restriction expressly extended to property intended for tourism use, with RM1,000,000 recorded alongside it.

By writing to the land office, and by not accepting any of the three at face value. Figure one is RM500,000: the Bar Council Conveyancing Practice Committee’s table, issued as Circular No 444/2024 on 23 December 2024 with the table stated to be as at October 2024, records Kelantan’s threshold at RM500,000 — the joint lowest in the country, alongside Perlis and Sarawak, and half the figure applying in Terengganu next door.

Figure two is RM1,000,000: the same circular reproduces the federal guideline set by the Ministry of Economy, under which foreign interests may not acquire real estate valued at less than RM1,000,000 per unit. That is a national floor, and it sits directly on top of the state figure. Figure three is RM1,000,000 again, from a different direction: several current 2026 practitioner guides state Kelantan’s minimum as RM1,000,000 rather than RM500,000.

I will not average them, choose the convenient one, or borrow a number from another state. The position must be confirmed in writing by the Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Kelantan, obtained through a Kelantan conveyancing solicitor, for the specific unit and price you intend to buy, before you pay a booking fee. And ask the land office in writing for the current consent fee schedule while you are there — the Bar Council table records an express foreign levy for Kedah, Penang, Pahang and Johor and none against Kelantan, but the absence of an entry in a summary table is not the same as a positive statement that no fee exists.

Terengganu is the clearer of the two, and clarity is worth something even when the number is higher. The Bar Council table records RM1,000,000 for Terengganu, matching the federal guideline, with agriculture land recorded as not permitted and no levy recorded. There is nothing to reconcile.

Kelantan is not clear. The same table records RM500,000 for Kelantan — half the federal guideline — while current practitioner guides state RM1,000,000. Three positions, no public reconciliation available.

The conclusion is counter-intuitive: the state with the higher, unambiguous threshold is the easier one to transact in, because a rejected consent application months after a deposit has been paid is a far more expensive outcome than being told no at the start. Both states require the same written ruling from their own land office before a booking fee, and in Kelantan you need it more, not less.

The federal guideline reproduced in the Bar Council circular applies everywhere in the country and excludes four categories outright: real estate valued at less than RM1,000,000 per unit; residential units in the low-cost and medium-low-cost categories as determined by the State Authority; properties on Malay Reserved Land; and real estate allocated to Bumiputera interests in a development.

Malay Reserved land deserves particular attention in Kelantan, where it is a substantial part of the land mass. A Malay Reserved title is not merely closed to foreigners — under the Malay Reservations Enactment it is closed to all non-Malays, including Malaysian citizens of other ethnicities.

Three state-level closures sit on top of that list. In Selangor, landed residential on an individual title is closed to non-citizens at any price. In Penang, auction property is not open to foreigners at all — if somebody offers you a bargain at a bank auction, the answer is no before the bidding starts. In Perak, freehold of any kind is closed, and sub-sale residential is recorded as closed as well.

On the peninsula it runs under section 433B of the National Land Code: a non-citizen or foreign company may only take a transfer, lease, charge-related dealing or transmission of alienated land after the prior written approval of the State Authority, on a written application. Section 433C makes any dealing in contravention null and void. That is the part worth reading twice — consent is a condition of the dealing being registrable at all, not a formality you catch up on after signing.

Where the application goes depends on the state. Kuala Lumpur: the Land Working Committee, through the Federal Territory Land and Mines Office. Johor: the state authority, and the approval is the Kebenaran Pindah Milik. Selangor: the Pejabat Tanah dan Galian Selangor. Penang: the Penang Land and Mines Office. Kelantan: the state land authority in Kota Bharu. Terengganu: Kuala Terengganu. Sabah and Sarawak do not use the National Land Code at all and run their own State Authority consent with different paperwork.

Consent processing fees and legal fees are separate from any levy, in every state. Where a state is shown as having no levy recorded on this page, that means the Bar Council table carries no entry — not that the state has confirmed in writing that nothing is payable. Write and ask for the current fee schedule.

Generally not as an individual. In Kuala Lumpur, commercial property is expected to be registered in the name of a company incorporated in Malaysia; the Ministry of Economy guideline dated 13 July 2022 sets that out at paragraph 4, and the company is expected to carry paid-up capital of RM250,000. The RM1,000,000 floor and the section 433B consent still apply on top of the company requirement, so the sequence is: identify or incorporate the Malaysian company first, then test the price, then apply for consent — not the other way round.

The thresholds differ by state. Selangor sets commercial and industrial at RM3,000,000 statewide, so a strata office or SOFO suite has to clear RM3,000,000 and be held through a Malaysian-registered company besides. Sabah restricts commercial property to foreign companies incorporated in Malaysia, expressly including property intended for tourism use, with RM1,000,000 recorded alongside. Penang adds a holding period: commercial and industrial property acquired by a foreigner must be held three years before it can be resold. That is a lock-up on your exit, not a formality, and it does not appear in any brochure.

On the tax side, the 8% non-citizen stamp duty is drawn on residential property. In Johor, the foreign levy on industrial property is 4% with no minimum and the 8% stamp duty does not apply to industrial at all. Whether the duty reaches a unit on a pure commercial title is a question for your solicitor on your specific title, and not a question a brochure can answer.

In this order, and the order matters. One: confirm your status. Malaysian permanent residents are foreign interest for every rule on this page. Two: get the title category and, on a leasehold or a Sabah lease, the expiry year, in writing from the developer or from the title. Three: ask to see the advertising and sale permit, which carries the tenure, the price ceiling and the developer licence number.

Four: test your specific unit price against the state floor — per unit, at the price in the sale and purchase agreement, not the project’s from-price. Five: obtain a written eligibility ruling from that state’s land office through a conveyancing solicitor practising in that state. Six, and only then: pay a booking fee.

A rejected consent application months after a deposit has been paid is a far more expensive outcome than being told no at the start. In the states where the published figures conflict — Sabah and Kelantan — step five is not optional, and it is not something this page or any other page can do for you.

In descending order of weight. First, statutory disclosure: the developer licence number, the advertising and sale permit, and the gazetted price ceiling printed on that permit. That is where tenure, unit count and price bands are supposed to live, and it is the only tier that settles an argument. Second, the developer’s own published material — an official project page or an e-brochure with machine-readable text.

Third, named institutional sources for the rules rather than the projects: the Bar Council Conveyancing Practice Committee’s state-by-state table, issued as Circular No 444/2024 on 23 December 2024 with the table stated to be as at October 2024; the Ministry of Economy guideline dated 13 July 2022; the National Land Code; NAPIC’s quarterly property market data; MRT Corp’s published RTS specification; IRAS for Singapore stamp duty rates.

What is not a source: a listing portal, an agent’s summary, or a render. A listing site is not a title search. Where a developer publishes no tenure, third-party listings will fill the gap with the word leasehold — this site does not copy that.

Both get printed, neither gets chosen, and nothing gets averaged. There are three live conflicts on this page and each is set out in full above: Sabah (RM1,000,000 in the Bar Council table against RM600,000 for high-rise strata attributed to a 2022 state circular I could not read in text form), Kelantan (RM500,000 in the table, RM1,000,000 under the federal guideline in the same circular, RM1,000,000 again in current practitioner guides), and the applicability of Johor’s RM2,000,000 landed floor, which is quoted as a general residential figure often enough that buyers arrive believing RM1,000,000 covers a house.

Averaging two thresholds produces a number that is not the law in either reading, and choosing the lower one is a sales decision dressed up as research. If you would like to see what the difference costs in practice, Residensi Bayu Damai in Sabah is the worked example: RM971,800 at the top of its gazetted band means either none of its 762 units is available to you, or effectively all of them, depending entirely on which figure is correct.

Where a conflict exists, the only resolution is a written ruling from that state’s land office for your specific unit and price, obtained through a solicitor practising in that state, before a booking fee.

Because a blank is information and a guess is not. Three worked examples. The Bedrock at Jesselton Docklands publishes no tenure, no built-up areas, no unit count and no price; the unit counter on its own official page renders as zero. The V by Jesselton publishes 18 layouts from 425 to 1,090 sq ft on a 10-acre site in a joint venture with Yayasan Sabah, but no tenure, no unit count and no completion date. Erinaz Suites at Kubang Kerian in Kelantan publishes no unit count, no storey count, no built-up areas, no tenure, no price list, no completion period, no developer licence number and no advertising and sale permit number, and its e-brochure is an image-only PDF with no machine-readable text.

Figures of 361 units and 24 storeys circulate for Erinaz on marketing and listing sites. Those are agent-tier sources and they are not recorded here as facts. The same applies to supply data: a figure of 2,771 unsold completed units in Sabah for the third quarter of 2025 circulates widely, but I could not trace it to a primary NAPIC document, so it does not appear on this site as verified.

The same discipline produces the at least wording you will see next to project counts. At least 32 of 75 in Johor, at least 7 of 39 in Kuala Lumpur, at least 23 of 31 in Selangor. Where a project publishes only a from-price, its ceiling cannot be tested from public sources, so it is not counted. Those numbers are floors, not estimates.

Who is doing the checking, and on what basis, is set out on the about page.