Independent · every figure sourced and dated
Your Guide.
Your Future.
Malaysia.
Malaysia Visa & Long-Stay Residency Guide 2026
Compare PVIP, MM2H, Sarawak MM2H, DE Rantau, Employment Pass and Student Pass — with current requirements, costs and official sources.
- Six programmes covered
- Costs in full
- Reviewed monthly
What this guide is
Not a brochure — a reference you can check
Every figure carries its source and its standing
Most are traced to the government page that sets them, with the date we last looked. Where the published document is behind the counter, the page says so and names whose practice it rests on instead.
PVIP and MM2H compared side by side
The same fields, the same units, one table — so the trade-offs are visible instead of buried in prose.
Written to inform, not to close a sale
Where a programme is the wrong fit, the guide says so. The commercial relationship is disclosed on every page.
Choose your route
Which Malaysian visa
actually fits you
The three long-stay programmes differ by an order of magnitude in cost, and the work and study passes solve a different problem entirely. Start with the one that matches why you are coming.
Work & study
Coming for a job,
a course, or remote work
These are not residence programmes — they are tied to an employer, an institution, or a foreign paycheque. Different rules, different timelines.
Trust & authority
Every fee and threshold
last checked 30 August 2026
Malaysian visa rules change often — and most sites quietly go stale. When a figure here moves, it moves in one place, and the review date tells you exactly how fresh what you are reading is.
Sources
Where these figures
actually come from
Every number on this site is traceable to a government document. Below are the ones it is traced to — read them yourself if a figure matters to your decision.
Malaysia's long-stay visas are governed by several different bodies, and that is the root of most of the confusion around them. PVIP sits with the Immigration Department of Malaysia; MM2H is administered through the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture and its One Stop Centre. Confusing the two is the single most common error in secondary coverage. Sarawak MM2H is a state programme with its own ministry, its own deposit and its own approvals — which is why an S-MM2H figure quoted from a federal page is usually wrong. DE Rantau sits with MDEC, the Employment Pass with the Expatriate Services Division, and the Student Pass with Immigration and EMGS.
When a figure is checked here, it means someone opened the document in the list beside this paragraph, found the fee, threshold or tenure stated in it, and recorded the date. That date is published on the programme guide. Where a rule was announced by press release but never written into the official document, the guide says exactly that instead of quietly picking whichever number reads better. And where the official document still carries wording the counter no longer applies, the page publishes what is actually applied, names the practitioner it rests on and dates it — rather than quoting a document we know to be out of step. Which of the three you are reading is stated beside the answer, never left to be inferred.
This matters more than it should, because these programmes are revised often and the internet does not keep up. MM2H alone has been restructured twice in recent years; deposit tiers, minimum stay and the agent requirement all moved. Pages that were accurate in 2023 still rank today, and agents restate old thresholds because the old thresholds were easier to sell against. A figure without a date and a source is not information you can plan around — it is a claim.
So: read the documents. If one of them contradicts something written here, that is a bug in this site, and the contact page exists partly so you can say so. The editorial policy sets out how corrections are handled and what the commercial relationship behind this site is.
- Expatriate Services Division (ESD) / Immigrationesd.imi.gov.my / announcement-266-ep-salary-policy-2026
- Immigration Department / EMGSimi.gov.my / student-pass
- Immigration Department of Malaysiaimigresen-online.imi.gov.my / FAQ_PVIP.pdf
- MDECmdec.my / 251105_DE%20Rantau_Pass_FAQ_V8.pdf
- Ministry of Tourism, Creative Industry and Performing Arts Sarawak (MTCP)mtcp.sarawak.gov.my / download
- MOTAC (One Stop Centre MM2H)motac.gov.my / Guide-Malaysia-My-Second-Home.pdf
Tools
Work out where you stand
Three minutes with these beats an hour of reading — they run on the same verified figures as the guides.
Which tool answers which question — and why eligibility comes before cost.
Insights
Written from 500+ real cases
The guides say what each programme is. These say which one to pick, and what the paperwork is like once you have. All insights.
Expat living
Malaysian Tax for Expats: What You Actually Pay in 2026
Most Malaysian tax guidance is written for Malaysians, and the parts aimed at foreigners are usually a year out of date or quietly describe a company rule as though it applied to you. Here is the picture for a foreigner specifically — which reliefs you can actually claim, the two rules that exist only because you are not a citizen, and the tax everyone warns you about that does not reach you at all.
10 min read
Comparisons
Malaysia Employment Pass Category I/II/III vs Residence Pass-Talent (RP-T)
Since 1 June 2026 your Employment Pass is time-boxed and comes with a plan to hand your job to a local. The RP-T is the way out — and its salary bar is lower than the one you already cleared.
9 min read
How-to
How to apply for MM2H 2026: Silver, Gold, Platinum and the SEZ/SFZ zone routes
Three main tiers plus two zone routes, and the deposit is the least interesting difference between them. What each one actually requires, which steps can only be done inside Malaysia, and the two property conditions that bind after the visa is already in your passport.
8 min read
1:1 consultation
Still not sure
which visa fits?
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