Doing Business in Ipoh and Perak: The Cost Case

This is a short page on purpose. Perak’s legal regime is the same as Selangor’s, its councils publish little, and the honest Perak story fits in eight hundred words rather than two thousand. What is genuinely local is the cost structure — and what it costs you.

Who licenses you

Ipoh licenses under the Undang-Undang Kecil Pelesenan Tred, Perniagaan dan Perindustrian (Majlis Bandaraya Ipoh) 2017, gazetted Pk. P.U. 13 on 15 February 2017 under the Local Government Act 1976. MBI’s own licence-types page still cites a 1987 Majlis Perbandaran Ipoh amendment by-law — superseded, and a good reason to cite the gazette. That gazette is published as a combined Pk. P.U. 13 volume carrying the Ipoh, Taiping and Teluk Intan by-laws in sequence; MBI does not host its own copy, so the Ipoh by-law — and the fees below — sit inside that volume on the Taiping (MPT) council’s site, as its opening by-law.

By-law 6 gives a minimum 12-month term and permits up to 36 months, with renewal due on or before expiry. The gazette carries real fee schedules by activity and floor area — animal feed manufacturing RM410 under 93 square metres, RM530 to 186, RM650 above; an advertising agency RM230 and RM410; import-export RM290 and RM530. A certified copy is RM50, and licence transfer costs 20 per cent of the annual fee. Processing is RM30 for a business licence, RM50 for a premises signboard, RM30 for the composite, transacted through e-Lesen MBI.

Perak has 15 local authorities and no state-wide licensing portal — the same fragmentation as Selangor, on a smaller base.

The cost case, with sources

MIDA publishes the same fields for every state, which makes the comparison clean.

	Perak	Selangor	Kuala Lumpur
Industrial land	RM18–38 psf	RM65–200	—
Ready-built factory, rent	RM0.60–1.70 psf/mo	RM1.50–3.00	—
Prime office, rent	Ipoh RM16–24 per m²/mo	RM53.80–69.00	RM65–118

NAPIC puts the average Perak house price at RM287,003 in 2025 against a national RM502,922 and Kuala Lumpur’s RM819,848. DOSM’s basic-living-expenditure series records Perak with the lowest mean household basic living expenditure in Malaysia, RM3,727, against a national RM4,729 and Selangor’s RM5,854.

One thing that is not cheaper: the minimum wage. P.U.(A) 376 sets RM1,700 nationally, in force for all employers from 1 August 2025. There is no state rate.

The economic case, and the trade-off

DOSM’s GDP by State, 2025 records Perak at RM91.5 billion, up 5.7 per cent — its strongest growth in more than a decade, and ahead of the national 5.2 per cent. Manufacturing grew 15.2 per cent to RM19.3 billion, 21.1 per cent of the state economy, driven by a 162.9 per cent surge in transport equipment as automotive manufacturing expanded. Services are RM56.6 billion, 61.8 per cent, up 3.4 per cent; agriculture RM12.5 billion at 13.6 per cent; mining just 0.6 per cent — the tin story is entirely historical.

GDP per capita is RM41,960 against a national RM59,167.

The trade-offs are equally sourced. Unemployment ran 3.6 per cent in 2024 against a national 3.2. The population is about 2.57 million and essentially flat, with roughly 927,000 in the Kinta district around Ipoh — a real catchment that is not growing. Malaysia Airports classifies Ipoh among its 14 domestic airports and publishes no route page. Lumut is a bulk cargo port and handles no containers, so a containerised exporter still routes through Port Klang or Penang. The genuine connectivity asset is rail: KTMB’s ETS runs Ipoh to KL Sentral in as little as two hours.

Perak sits wholly within the NCER, and InvestPerak — formally the Perak Investment Management Centre, established 2006, reporting to the Menteri Besar — issues the No Objection Letter for manufacturing licence applications. It publishes no Perak-specific incentive scheme; do not assume one exists.

Common mistakes

• Citing MBI’s 1987 by-law because MBI’s own page does. Pk. P.U. 13 of 2017 governs.
• Implying a lower minimum wage. RM1,700 is national.
• Quoting a TEU figure for Lumut. It is a bulk port.
• Confusing PKNPk with pknp.gov.my, which is Pahang’s development corporation.

What’s next

Get the 2017 gazette, not the council summary, and price the composite and transfer fees into your model. Then compare against Selangor and Penang on the MIDA space table, and read the NCER guide for the corridor layer.