EPF, SOCSO & EIS contribution tables Malaysia 2026

Why must Malaysian contributions be read from a table instead of calculated?

Short answer: because the statute publishes the amounts, not just the rates. EPF, SOCSO, EIS and SKBBK all work off wage-band schedules, and what an employer owes is the ringgit figure printed against the band the wage falls into — not the rate multiplied by actual pay. The two methods agree only where the wage happens to sit at a band boundary, which is a minority of real salaries.

This is the single most common defect in Malaysian payroll configuration, and it is the reason most competing reference pages publish numbers that will not reconcile against a PERKESO or KWSP statement. Two concrete illustrations from the schedules themselves:

• EPF steps in RM20 wage bands from RM0 to RM5,000 and RM100 bands from RM5,000 to RM20,000. Only above RM20,000 does the schedule give up on bands and instruct a straight percentage of actual wages — employee 11%, employer 12%.
• SOCSO's rounding is not internally consistent. Inside the same Act 4 table, the underlying figure 53.375 prints as RM53.35 while 104.125 prints as RM104.15 — rounded in opposite directions. No percentage formula reproduces both. The table is the authority.

The practical rule for a payroll engine: store the schedules as lookup tables, and reserve arithmetic for the three places the statute actually calls for it — EPF wages above RM20,000, the 2% foreign-worker EPF computation, and the HRD Corp levy.

What are the EPF (KWSP) contribution rates in 2026?

Short answer: under the schedule effective 1 October 2025, a Malaysian citizen under 60 pays 11% and the employer pays 13% on wages up to RM5,000 and 12% above RM5,000. RM5,000 is the only point at which the employer rate steps, and the employee rate never varies by wage at all — it varies only by age and status.

How the EPF Third Schedule actually works

The Third Schedule is a band table with three parts and one rounding rule. Getting the part right matters more than getting the percentage right, because the part determines which table your engine reads from.

The rounding rule printed on the schedule itself: "The total contribution which includes cents shall be rounded to the next ringgit."

The three parts of the schedule:

• Part A — Malaysian citizens, non-citizen permanent residents, and non-citizens who elected before 1 August 1998.
• Part B — non-citizens electing on or after 1 August 1998; this is now the 2% / 2% direct calculation rather than a band reading.
• Part C — permanent residents and pre-August-1998 non-citizens aged 60 and over.

Verified Part A rows

Reproduced exactly from the schedule. Rows between these are deliberately not interpolated here — the statutory rounding is not uniform, so an interpolated row would be wrong.

Mandatory EPF for foreign workers

Non-citizen employees now contribute to EPF at 2% employer + 2% employee, effective from the October 2025 salary month, with the first payment due 15 November 2025. It applies to non-citizens holding a valid passport and a valid Immigration pass. Domestic servants are excluded — maid, cook, gardener, cleaner, babysitter, driver and similar roles.

Two mechanics that trip up payroll engines: the 2% is a direct computation, not a reading from the band table, and cents round up to the next ringgit. And to be explicit, because the point is widely misreported: KWSP has published no scheduled increase to the 2% rate. Anyone budgeting a future step-up is budgeting for something that has not been announced.

How much SOCSO (PERKESO) does an employer pay in 2026?

Short answer: 1.75% employer and 0.5% employee for First Category employees, on insured wages capped at RM6,000 per month — and the ringgit amount is read from a RM100-step band table, not computed. Second Category employees (aged 60 and over, plus employees first registering at 55 or older with no prior contribution) are covered for Employment Injury only: 1.25% employer, nil from the employee.

The insured wage ceiling is RM6,000, effective 1 October 2024, raised from the previous RM5,000. It applies to Act 4 (SOCSO) and Act 800 (EIS) alike. This is worth stating flatly because a large number of payroll references, HR handbooks and competitor tables still print RM5,000 — that figure is stale, and using it under-contributes for every employee earning above RM5,000.

Verified SOCSO band rows (Act 4, with SKBBK column)

Monthly amounts in ringgit, read from the schedule. The SKBBK column is the employee-borne LINDUNG 24 JAM deduction that runs on the same bands — it is shown here so payroll can post all PERKESO lines from one row.

Look at the employer column in the second and last rows. The schedule's underlying figures are 53.375 and 104.125, and they are rounded in opposite directions — 53.375 down to RM53.35, 104.125 up to RM104.15. That inconsistency is baked into this legacy table. It is precisely why the amounts must be read rather than calculated: no single rounding rule applied to 1.75% of wages reproduces both figures.

Foreign workers under SOCSO

Coverage was built up in three steps:

• Employment Injury from 1 January 2019 — employer 1.25%.
• Invalidity from 1 July 2024 — employer 0.5%, worker 0.5%.
• Non-Employment Injury (SKBBK / LINDUNG 24 JAM) from 1 June 2026 — worker 0.75%.

Net effect: since 1 July 2024 a foreign worker under 60 carries exactly the same Act 4 First Category loading as a Malaysian — employer 1.75%, employee 0.5%. If your cost model still treats foreign headcount as cheaper on the SOCSO line, it is out of date by more than two years.

How much is EIS (SIP) and who is excluded?

Short answer: 0.2% employer + 0.2% employee on wages capped at RM6,000 since 1 October 2024, read from a RM100-step band table in which each band steps RM0.20 per side. At the ceiling that is RM11.90 each, RM23.80 in total.

Excluded from EIS entirely: civil servants, local authority and statutory body employees, domestic servants, the self-employed, and foreign workers. Also excluded are employees aged 57 and over who never contributed before 57. Coverage runs from age 18 to 60.

What is SKBBK / LINDUNG 24 JAM, and who pays it?

Short answer: the employee pays it in full. The employer contributes nothing but must deduct and remit it. SKBBK took effect 1 June 2026 under the Employees' Social Security (Amendment) Act 2026, with the first payment due 15 July 2026. Wages are capped at RM6,000.

The maximum monthly amount: RM44.65 or RM45.00?

PERKESO's own documents disagree, and we would rather say so than pick one silently. The statutory contribution schedule's top row states RM44.65. PERKESO's FAQs state RM45.00, which is 0.75% × RM6,000. Both are primary PERKESO publications.

Use RM44.65. The schedule is the document contributions are reconciled against, so that is the figure to post — but flag the 35-sen difference internally rather than assuming either number is a typographical error, and expect an employee earning above the ceiling to occasionally query it after reading the FAQ. Every competitor page we have seen picks one of these two numbers without mentioning the other; if your payroll output is challenged, this is the discrepancy behind it.

Who is in and who is out

Foreign workers: mandatory, with no opt-out.

Malaysian and local workers: voluntary, following the Cabinet decision of 8 July 2026. They were auto-enrolled unless an opt-out declaration was filed between 13 July and 31 August 2026 through the LINDUNG Faedah portal.

That opt-out window closed on 31 August 2026. Local employees who filed nothing are deemed participants from the September 2026 contribution month onward.

On what happens after 31 August 2026 — rejoining, or opting in later — PERKESO's own documents are not consistent, and the position is unresolved. We are not going to guess at a rule that PERKESO has not settled. If you have an employee asking to change their election now, confirm the current handling directly with PERKESO before committing anything to payroll, and keep the written answer on file. Aniday's own Malaysian payroll runs are handled the same way.

Official schedule: PERKESO — new contribution rate including SKBBK (PDF). For the scheme's background, cover and payslip impact, see SKBBK / LINDUNG 24 JAM explained.

Who has to pay the HRD Corp levy, and on what?

Short answer: employers with 10 or more Malaysian employees must register and pay 1%; employers with 5 to 9 may register optionally at 0.5%; employers with fewer than 5 are not covered by the PSMB Act 2001.

The levy base is (basic salary − unpaid leave + fixed allowance) × rate.

Two scoping points that change headcount maths. First, the levy applies to Malaysian citizen employees only — foreign employees are outside the levy base, and domestic servants are excluded. Second, and easy to miss when budgeting senior hires: the levy has no wage ceiling at all. SOCSO, EIS and SKBBK all stop at RM6,000, so their cost per employee flattens out; the HRD Corp levy keeps scaling with every ringgit of basic salary and fixed allowance.

2026 note: Employer Circular No. 1/2026 grants a levy exemption to registered employers in the education industries for January to December 2026. It is sector-specific — there is no general rate change.

What are the PCB / MTD income tax rates for YA 2026?

Short answer: the resident bands are unchanged from YA 2023 through YA 2026, running from 0% to 30%. Non-residents are taxed at a flat 30% with no reliefs and no rebates. PCB is an employee deduction, not an employer cost.

Key reliefs in the monthly computation (YA 2026 maxima)

What is the minimum wage in Malaysia in 2026?

Short answer: RM1,700 per month, effective 1 February 2025 under the Minimum Wages Order 2024, P.U.(A) 376. Employers with fewer than five employees had it deferred to 1 August 2025 — that deferral has expired, so all employers are now in scope regardless of size. It applies to local and foreign employees alike.

What does a Malaysian employee actually cost? Three worked examples

Short answer: at RM5,000 a month the true employer cost is RM5,796.55 and the employee nets RM4,378.20 before PCB; at RM3,000 it is RM3,477.55 and RM2,627.20; at RM10,000 it is RM11,416.05 and RM8,813.70.

Assumptions for all three: Malaysian citizen under 60; EPF Third Schedule Part A; SOCSO First Category; EIS-eligible; employer in the mandatory HRD Corp category (1%); SKBBK participant; wage entirely basic salary. PCB is excluded because it depends on the individual's reliefs and is an employee deduction, not an employer cost.

Example 1 — RM5,000 per month

Example 2 — RM3,000 per month

Example 3 — RM10,000 per month

The pattern worth drawing out: SOCSO, EIS and SKBBK all stop rising above RM6,000 — from that point they are fixed ringgit amounts no matter how large the salary. EPF continues by band all the way to RM20,000 and only then switches to a straight percentage. The HRD Corp levy has no ceiling at all. So as salaries climb, the marginal statutory cost converges on EPF plus the levy, and the PERKESO lines become a rounding item.

To run an exact figure for a specific salary, age and status, use the Malaysia Employment Cost Calculator.

What changed in 2025–2026?

Short answer: four things landed — a higher minimum wage, EPF for foreign workers, the new employee-borne SKBBK contribution, and the Cabinet's decision to make SKBBK voluntary for locals — and two further SKBBK rate steps are already legislated for 2028 and 2031.

Sources (official)

• KWSP / EPF — contribution rates and Third Schedule
• PERKESO / SOCSO — Act 4 and Act 800 contribution schedules
• PERKESO — new contribution rate including SKBBK (PDF)
• HRD Corp — levy under the PSMB Act 2001
• LHDN — PCB / MTD rates and reliefs