Malaysia My Second Home Residency by Investment Program

Be careful: There have been a lot of changes to the MM2H program over the past years, so a lot of the information you find online is outdated. This here is the latest information.

Why get residency in Malaysia with the MM2H program?

MM2H is a renewable long term visa which is obtained through property investment in Malaysia in addition to an interest-earning fixed deposit in a Malaysian bank account.   

The Malaysia MM2H caters to many categories of people, whether you are a retiree, investor or simply an expat looking for a second residence in Asia and wish to take advantage of Malaysia’s unique location, culture and tax system.

• Safe country with conservative social values
• Malaysia boasts exceptional food, culture and tropical recreation
• Very low minimum stay requirements for families
• Only domestic Malaysian income is taxed, and the country has robust double taxation treaties. Foreign pensions are not taxed, making it an appealing retirement destination
• Foreign-earned income is not taxed in Malaysia and this won’t be changed until at least 2036
  
• Broad ability to qualify many dependents on one application
• English is an official language

What are the requirements and costs for the MM2H program?

There are four tiers of the MM2H program with various initial residency terms:

1. Special Economic Zone – 10-years (this visa is for a specific development in Johor Bahru and targets residents of Singapore)
2. Silver – 5-years (most popular category)
3. Gold – 15-years
4. Platinum – 20 years

After the initial residency term, each visa is renewable for a 5-year term. 

All tiers have the following restrictions and privileges:

• Dependents: Spouse, parents, parents-in-law, children, stepchildren, adopted children are all eligible under 35 years old. Disabled children can be added at any age. Same-sex marriages are not eligible.
• Property lock-in period: 10 years but can upgrade to a higher priced property. You may sell at any time but your MM2H visa will be canceled.
• Physical stay requirements: For applicants under the age of 50, the family must cumulatively spend at least 90 days in Malaysia per calendar year, prorated based on the visa issue date. If you are a family of 3 for example, each person can spend 30 days on average to satisfy the 90-day requirement, or one family member can spend 90 days and the others 0. For applicants over the age of 50, there are no minimum requirements.
• Partial fixed deposit withdrawal: applicants can make up to a 50% withdrawal after one year for purposes of buying domestic tourism, medical treatment, education, real estate or new automobiles.
• Children can pursue education
• Ability to seek medical treatment
• No taxes on money brought into Malaysia
• Transferable to next-of-kin in the event of death of main applicant

What documents are needed to apply for the MM2H program?

• Valid passport with 18 months of validity
• Bank statements showing financial means
• Medical report (must be free of infectious diseases such as HIV, TB and hepatitis) and health insurance
• Letter of intent and supporting documents

 How do I apply for the Malaysia MM2H investment visa?

• Find a licensed agent approved by the Ministry of Tourism (such as TG below) to help you submit your application and act as your sponsor.
• Collect the supporting documents required for your application
• Submit the documents and wait 2-3 months to receive a Conditional Approval Letter – this letter permits you to travel to Malaysia and gives a six month grace period to submit any missing documentation
• Upon visiting Malaysia, you can set up your fixed deposit account and add funds, after which you can submit the deposit certificate to the MM2H authorities.
• While on your trip you can also complete the medical check up requirements, enroll in health insurance and submit confirmation certificates to the MM2H authorities.  
• You should also search for a suitable residential property on which you must make a 10% deposit. 
• You will have one year after the visa is approved to complete your property purchase.  

Apply for the MM2H program

FAQ

Another interesting residency:

• Residency by Investment in the Philippines
• Malaysia My Second Home Residency by Investment Program

Transcript of “How to apply for the MM2H Malaysia Residency Program”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Hello, everyone. Ladislas Maurice of The Wandering Investor. Today, I’m in Penang, in Malaysia, and we’ll be discussing the My Malaysia Second Home Program, which grants residency rights to applicants. And we’ll be discussing it in great detail together with TG, who has a very large company here in Penang, and KL, as well as in JB in the south of Malaysia, focusing specifically on this program.

TG: Hi, nice to meet you.

LADISLAS MAURICE: How are you?

TG: Good. My name is TG. How’s your trip to Penang?

LADISLAS MAURICE: Fantastic. Love it.

Summary of MM2H residency program

TG: Okay. Let’s talk about the Malaysia My Second Home, or you can call it the MM2H. The official name is actually Malaysia My Second Home, but to us, we are doing it for a long time. This new MM2H, I think, it should be called Malaysia My Only Home, because it has a lot of benefits in it that is actually very attractive to a lot of people. And to begin with, let me just give a top down view of the whole thing.

First and foremost, Malaysia My Second Home has been introduced since 2002, that is like 22 years ago. And at a point of time, nobody knew that it is going to be such a success. A lot of people are waiting for it. There was one major change in 2006, and during COVID, it was shut down and it was reopened with better conditions just a couple of months ago. Now, MM2H is actually a visa that allows foreigners to stay in Malaysia for as long as they like. In the olden days, pre-COVID and 2006, it was not written down. It was all like verbal, like, “Can I renew?” “Yes, you can.” But there is nothing written down.

However, this new MM2H that came out, which consists of three versions, platinum, gold, and silver. And there’s also a special economic zone, which we’re not going to talk about right here, it’s a special thing. So for the gold, silver, and platinum, the good thing here is that everything is written down. It’s not verbal anymore. I give you an example. Am I taxed in Malaysia? No, you are not taxed. But if you are talking to me in year 2016, you can say, Do you have any evidence? No, I don’t have any. But this new MM2H visa that we are talking about right now, it is all written down. And why I say it should be known as Malaysia My Only Home is because the main objective of this visa is to actually to get foreigners to stay here and make Malaysia their primary home.

First thing that was written down, Malaysia will not tax you for any income coming into Malaysia. It is written down in black and white, and last October, they just debated it in the parliament. And Malaysia said that we will only talk about income tax on foreign source income in 2036, that is 12 years. And they are not talking about implementing, they are talking about, “We will talk about that in 2036.” So there you have it in black and white that you are not going to be taxed. That’s number one.

Transferring and renewing the MM2H visa

TG: Number two that is very unique, in the sense that this visa is unique, not in the whole world, is because if the main applicant, let’s assume the main applicant is the husband, and the kids and the wife are the dependent. Even all along, since 2002, if the main applicant passes away, there’s always a gray area. Can the wife take over? So right now with this new MM2H visa is again written down that the next of kin can take over the visa if the main applicant passes away. So it means that if the family decides to stay here and the husband passes away, at least he knows that his wife is taken care of, because his wife can stay here.

The next one here is that you get to renew every five years, and when you renew, you get to renew by just showing your passport, medical insurance if you need one, medical checkup. This is to disqualify you if you have infectious diseases like AIDS, hepatitis, TB, tuberculosis, and all these things. But if you are not a criminal and you don’t have all these things, then you get to renew for the next five years, and another five years, and another five years. So all of these are very positive benefits. And it is actually very good for those people who intend to stay here very long term. And we do have a lot of interest from a lot of people coming in.

So if I were to go into the detail, do you want me to go into the detail of the silver, platinum, and gold?

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, the three options.

Difference between silver, gold, platinum tiers of MM2H

TG: Okay, the three options currently being given out it is meant for different groups of people. The most expensive, I would say, or the high-end version, is the Platinum, where the person has to deposit $1 million in a bank account in Malaysia under his or her own name in a bank of his or her choice and he has to buy a property that is worth at $500,000. Out of the $1 million that he deposited in the bank here, he can withdraw half out because he bought the property.

The next category is called the Gold. Gold, you need to deposit $500,000. You need to buy a property that is at least $250,000. Again, you can withdraw half out from the $500,000 because you buy a property. And lowest one is Silver. Silver, you need to deposit $150,000 in a bank here, and you need to buy a property that is around $130,000. Again, half can be withdrawn.

LADISLAS MAURICE: So when you have money in the bank, you get interest.

TG: Yes, you get market rate interest. Currently, the ongoing rate is about 3% to 4% tax-free. Now there are differences in terms of this visa. I just share with you again. Platinum, you are given a 20-year visa. Gold is a 15-year, and Silver is a five-year. So it means if you take the Gold at the end of 15 years, you get to renew, but it is on a five-year basis. So based on what I have told you about the renewal process, if you don’t have a criminal record, and if you don’t suffer from infectious diseases, then your chances of success is 100%.

You get to renew every five years until either your last days on earth or you decided to cancel the visa. Once you cancel the visa, you take back your money. If you don’t cancel your visa, the money stays there and you continue to enjoy staying here. That’s the reason why I say that it should be renamed Malaysia My Only Home, because of all these benefits.

LADISLAS MAURICE: And the Platinum, what’s the cost?

TG: Platinum, there’s another interesting thing, is that you are allowed to work here, invest in a company, not invest in a stock market. Invest in the stock market, everybody can invest. For example, if I have a company and you want to invest in my company, yeah, sure, you can. That’s a benefit for you and your entire family. But if you talk about Gold and Silver, no, they are not allowed to invest. It applies to a lot of very interesting people coming. There are people who are planning to move their business from a country to Malaysia. They can take the Platinum because they can set up a company, and they can work at the company.

Minimum physical presence requirements for MM2H

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. Real quick, we forgot to mention the minimum physical presence requirements. If you are above the age of 50, there are no minimum physical presence requirements, so it’s a really great Plan B. And if the main applicant is below the age of 50, then the whole family must spend at least 90 days in Malaysia cumulatively. This means that, for example, if you’re a family of three people, then, on average, 90 divided by 3, each member must spend at least 30 days in the country.

MM2H as a Plan B from the West

LADISLAS MAURICE: And also something that we’re seeing increasingly, I mean, among some of our clients of The Wandering Investor, Muslims that live in Western countries, and they just don’t really want to live in Western countries for a host of reasons, and they actually want to move to places like Malaysia, where they feel comfortable and where they would want their children to grow up and be able to work, and this one would cover that as well, right? So their kids could also stay here and then work up until a certain age?

TG: Yes. One of the interesting thing about this visa is that this visa allows the parents to take in their children until they are age 34. Usually, for most of the countries, at the age of 21 the child is considered an adult, and it is not part of anything. But for this visa, they are allowed to stay with their parents until they are 34 years old and they are unmarried. If the child happens to be a little bit disabled or mentally challenged or physically challenged, they can actually apply for a special exemption where they can stay with their parents for the rest of their life, not up to 34.

And to top it up with what you say about those people who are staying in a Western country, we do see there is a trend whereby those people who have stayed in Asia, especially in Asia, and they have migrated decades ago to the Western countries, and they found that the lifestyle there doesn’t suit them anymore, we do have many inquiries, in fact, a lot of inquiries from this group of people. Where they were, I would say, not to say it’s a good word or bad word, but they were a little bit disillusioned.

LADISLAS MAURICE: [laughs]

TG: You know? Disillusioned by what they knew when they grew up in the adopted country in the 1980s and 90s, and then only to realize that in the year 2000, 2010, or ’20 that, “Oh no, this is not what I bought into last time.”

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. I mean it’s just a lot of disillusioned people that [laughs]

TG: I will say it’s a disillusion. What they see is not what they get anymore.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. We were having this discussion before, it’s a lot of disillusioned former immigrants to Western countries, they come here, a lot of disillusioned Europeans, North Americans. They don’t quite like the direction in which their countries are going, they want to lower their taxes. I mean, here, no taxes on foreign-earned income. Life is really affordable here. The healthcare is absolutely amazing. Education for children is also good, there are a lot of good universities, good schools. The lifestyle is very comfortable. You can get help at home. It’s very affordable.

Lifestyle and safety in Malaysia

LADISLAS MAURICE: When you objectively look at the package that you get in Malaysia, the lifestyle that you have, and all the safety, right, which you don’t quite get if you go to a lot of places in Latin America, because that’s also a decision people often make, should I go to Latin America? Should I go to Asia, etc.? If you value safety a lot, Malaysia will be better than 95% of the destinations in Latin America. There’s a lot of people moving here to Malaysia with this program. And I mean, your business is growing quite a lot, isn’t it?

TG: Yeah. Let me just share a few things.

LADISLAS MAURICE: I mean, I was quite impressed. We met a while ago, we were chatting, we were exchanging notes. And then TG was like, “Come to my office when you come to Penang.” And then I was expecting just a normal office, and then it’s a three-story building [laughs] full of people.

TG: Yeah, we are prepared. We are prepared for an influx of people. And it’s also very interesting to take note that, because of these higher requirements, the people that stays in Malaysia under MM2H are the neighbors you don’t mind having as neighbors. They are somebody that you look up to and you respect, and they are all very good people. Let me share with you a few things that we have talked about just now.

Number one here is that safety here is not a concern. In fact, I find it very interesting, and I was a little bit in disbelief, actually, to be very honest with you, when my clients told me, two clients separately told me that they forgot and they left their phones in the food court, or some restaurants by the street. And a few hours later they returned, the phone was still there. I was like, kind of like, “Hmm, okay, probably true.” But then if you have two people coming with me separately, then it has got to be true. It’s very rare. If you go and check the statistics, violent crime is almost nonexistent.

Education for foreign students in Malaysia

TG: When you talk about schools, the schools here are extremely different from the West for a very simple reason. We were stuck and we are stuck in time. What do I mean by that? We are not influenced by a lot of the negative stuff happening in the West. We are still teaching the good things. We are still teaching academically rigorous things. We are not into any of the nonsense that is happening worldwide, even the international schools here. We really don’t have a drug problem. We don’t have school bullying problems. What we have problems is that children are complaining that they got a lot of homework to do. In one sense or another, we are still the traditional type of schooling, where the teacher teaches and the student studies, and they are looking to be one of the best students around.

And education is something that is growing, even for home schooling. You see, in Malaysia, you can take as an external candidate for A Levels, O Levels, and you can do homeschooling here. There are homeschooling centers here as well. It means that if you got stuck in some physics questions or some questions you don’t understand, you can actually enroll in these centers, and they have teachers there who can guide your child. And it is at your own schedule, so you are not stressed that you have to follow this schedule or what? That’s the reason why people are also staying here. You can guide and teach your child as what you want it to be. You are stuck, you get somebody to help.

When it goes to the university level, there are a lot of universities, foreign universities with branches here. I give an example, University of Nottingham, Southampton, from Australia, you have Monash, even from China, you have one Xiamen University. And they use English as a medium of communication. And I think in the near future you’re going to have a Japanese university, Tsukuba, coming over. And this university that comes over here, they have to leave all their social, DEI, or whatever luggage back home. They are not allowed to bring in. They are only allowed to bring in their teachers who knows how to teach and good students who wants to study. So all these excessive stuff, sorry. That’s why it’s getting very popular, because it is really teaching, not having fun or having some nightmare.

Medical care in Malaysia for foreigners

TG: Coming back to the medical, which you have talked about, somebody can correct me if I am wrong, but I think because of the fact that, especially Penang, we have a lot of people coming in to seek treatment as a medical tourist. The hospitals are flush with money. They manage to buy a lot of the fantastically new and modern equipment. We have a lot of good doctors here. And I can quite confidently say that perhaps Penang is one of the best places for medical services and healthcare. If you are on MM2H, you can buy a local medical insurance, which is actually very good. You have unlimited coverage, especially for the kids, they are covered for life.

Who is moving to Malaysia?

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah, that’s impressive. What sort of people are moving here? We mentioned retirees from Western countries, we mentioned a lot of Muslims from Western countries. What are some of the other people that you’re seeing?

TG: Okay, we are seeing a lot of people having an interest here, because every country in the world has their own unique problems. I give an example, Taiwan. Many of them are scared that China is going to invade Taiwan, so they are setting up a second base here. You talk about those retirees, or quite well-to-do people who retire to Spain, Portugal, or even Thailand, or somewhere, again, they realize that what they see is not what they get.

And after doing a lot of research, right now, there’s a lot of YouTube channels, there’s a lot of videos, TikToks, and everything, talking about the facilities in Malaysia, whether it is transportation, whether it’s healthcare, food, or low cost of living, you have a long list of positive things on all this. And every country since it has its own problems, Europe has its own social problems there, and they’re looking for stability here. And I even older people from Taiwan telling me that they like it here because we don’t have natural disasters here. If you are 70 years old, and if there’s an earthquake, it can be dangerous to you.

We have Australians coming here because they complain that they have a lot of high inflation there. Same goes for Singaporeans. Currently, we are seeing mostly from the Western countries. We have not really a lot of people from the Latin America, Brazil and Argentinian coming here. Yes, we do have expats in Middle East who, after their retirement, decided that, well, Middle East is not really a place to retire to, so they want some place less expensive and less stressed out. So they come over here. North America, we have all sorts of people.

Same goes for Europe, whether it is their native people, whether it is the traditional Europeans, or whether it is the migrants, or those people who migrated there 30, 40, years ago, or those who even migrated there like 10 years ago and found out that this is not what they want, and they want to leave, from all races, from all religion.

Religious tolerance and society in Malaysia

TG: Because in this country is probably one of the only places, or if not the only place, where we have religious tolerance. We have Chinese, we have Malays, we have Christians, we have mosques, we have temples, we have all sorts of festive seasons which is observed and everybody is enjoying it. We don’t fight among each other.

Crime is very low as what I say. You can, basically, walk around everywhere without the fear of being mugged. You can go to the ATM, 12 o’clock at night, and withdraw the money. Nobody is going to get it from you. Rob you. You can walk along the street, holding up your phones and looking at the direction, and nobody wants to take your phone. And we found out that probably your phone is worse off than their phone, so why would they want to take your phone, which is not as good as theirs? So these are some of the things that you can find it here that is very attractive socially for everybody.

More information on MM2H

LADISLAS MAURICE: And you offer a free brochure with information on the program?

TG: We customize our help in the sense that everybody comes to us. We work with partners like yourself, because you have a lot of information on a lot of partners, and we have a lot of information on MM2H. So usually, we work together, and we will tell you that, okay, this person coming here is looking for this. Okay, this program is suitable. And we provide help and advice together with yourself, all the way from the initial inquiry until staying here. And it is something very important, which I touch with you later on in your next few visits here, we interact with our clients. And it is very important that all our clients become our friends, and we have some of them having a whiskey session–

LADISLAS MAURICE: Which we’re going to do right after. We have another video on the pros and cons of living here in a bit, and then we’re going to have, literally, a whiskey. [laughs]

TG: Yeah, we have a whiskey over there, and it’s something that we enjoy, in the sense that there is a friendship there. When you want to be a friend with somebody else, you don’t go out and cheat them. There has got to be a level of trust and everything. It is what makes us very different from a lot of other people.

MM2H and Islamic banking

LADISLAS MAURICE: Cool. Before going on to the whiskey session, for people who want to make the deposit, the $250,000, $500,000, or $1 million, do they have Islamic banking opportunities so they don’t get paid interest, technically speaking?

TG: You can have the traditional or Islamic banking here, it doesn’t matter. We have a lot of facilities that is available. And a lot of our clients, they actually appreciate talking to me, because I can share with them a lot of information. I give an example, time doesn’t permit. I can give you a lot of examples, like, why, in Malaysia, the inflation is very low, and it’s going to be continuously very low into the future. And I just told you that a bag three tomatoes that I bought is €30 cents.

LADISLAS MAURICE: It’s extremely good value for me.

TG: €30 cents for three tomatoes. I mean, even for locals, it was, like, hmm, very cheap.

LADISLAS MAURICE: Yeah. TG, thank you very much for your time. If you’re interested in finding out more about the MM2H Program, there’s a link below with more information. And you can get in touch with TG here and his team, and he’ll get back to you with more information, and he can help you through the process from A to Z for you and your whole family. And by the way, it really is the whole family, it’s the children, it’s you, the main applicant, your spouse, as well as your parents, and your spouse’s parents as well, though you may not want to disclose that to him or her.

All right. TG, thank you.

TG: Thank you.