I recently went back to Malaysia with my family. I hadn’t been back to South East Asia since Covid. We had a great time.
Malaysia is an obvious destination for a number of reasons:
- No taxes on overseas income (guaranteed until 2036)
- Great, affordable healthcare
- Great, affordable education
- Amazing food options
- Very affordable
- Extremely safe
There are some negatives of course:
- Not great for single people
- Expensive alcohol (except on Langkawi which has duty-free booze)
- The international airports are far from the main cities, and are slow, especially at international arrivals
- In contrast to Latin America and Europe, you will never get permanent residency nor citizenship, as in most of Asia.
Who is getting residency in Malaysia these days?
- Asians who want to benefit from the tax situation
- Westerners who want better healthcare, better education, a lower cost of living, and who don’t want to pay taxes
- Muslims from Western countries who want to live in a modern country more aligned with their values but without having to live in the Gulf where they typically get treated like second class or third class residents
How to get the My Malaysia Second Home (MM2H) residency?
There are multiple tiers of residency, the most affordable one being:
- Deposit $150,000 in an interest bearing account (or in Islamic finance) AND buy a property worth at least $140,000
- However you can use up to half of your $150,000 deposit to contribute towards the property purchase, making the total investment about ~$250,000 including processing fees, property transaction fees, etc
- You can include your children under the age of 35, your spouse, your parents, and even your parents-in-law (sorry)
- The residency is valid for 5 years, and is easily renewable as long as you keep the investments and don’t get caught doing something you shouldn’t be doing
Why is the MM2H program misunderstood?
- It has changed so much in the past years that there are all sorts of old versions circulating online
- No, there aren’t any income requirements. You just need to make the capital investments
- The minimum yearly physical presence requirement of 90 days is now for the family as a whole. So if you are three in the family, you should spend a combined 90 days in Malaysia to not have issues at renewal.
- Applicants above the age of 50 do not have any physical presence requirements
Here’s an in-depth conversation I had with TG, who runs a rather large company focusing solely on MM2H applications. In his own words “I am scaling up because I expect a flood of applications from Western countries“.
You can get more information on the MM2H program as well as get in touch with TG.
There’s also a similar, yet barely discussed, investor residency program in the Philippines which we can help clients with. It takes only 5 days on the ground to process.
To a World of Opportunities,
The Wandering Investor.
Other interesting residencies in Asia:
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