Hiring Foreign Workers — the Full Approval Chain

Almost every guide to hiring foreign workers in Malaysia starts at the quota. The quota is step three.

Step one is a section of the Employment Act that has been in force since 1 January 2023 and that a surprising number of employers still treat as paperwork: s.60K — no employer shall employ a foreign employee unless prior approval has been obtained from the Director General. Not notification. Not registration. Prior approval, on pain of a fine of up to RM100,000 or five years’ imprisonment, or both.

Here is the whole chain, in order, with the clock attached to each link.

1. Prior approval under s.60K

The duty is on the employer and the approval is granted to the employer, not to the worker. “Foreign employee” takes the s.2 definition — every non-citizen — but s.60O removes permanent residents from the Part entirely, so a PR hire needs none of this.

JTKSM sets the boundaries plainly. Section 60K applies to the recruitment of new non-citizen employees. It does not apply to the renewal of an Employment Pass, a Visit Pass (Temporary Employment) or other passes. And it is mandatory for every employer with no exemption — expressly including positions that PERKESO has exempted from the advertising requirement.

What makes s.60K more than a form is subsection (4). The Director General may approve only where the employer, on the date of application:

• has no outstanding matter relating to any decision, order or directive issued under the Employment Act; or
• has no outstanding matter or case relating to a conviction under the Employment Act, the Employees’ Social Security Act 1969, the Employees’ Minimum Standards of Housing, Accommodations and Amenities Act 1990 (Act 446) or the National Wages Consultative Council Act 2011; and
• has not been convicted of any offence under any written law relating to anti-trafficking in persons and forced labour.

That is a compliance screen dressed as an immigration step. An unresolved accommodation conviction, an unpaid minimum wage order, a SOCSO conviction — each of them stops the recruitment pipeline, not just the file it arose in. It is the single most useful thing to know about s.60K and it is almost never written down.

Once approved, s.60K(3) gives the employer fourteen days from the date of employment to furnish the Director General with the worker’s particulars.

The approval itself carries a standing validity of 12 months for all categories of foreign worker or non-citizen employee managed by JTKSM, effective 1 October 2024 — approvals issued under the Special Employer Change Process (PTM Khas) aside.

2. Which system you file in

There is no single portal, and choosing wrong wastes weeks. JTKSM routes s.60K applications into seven categories:

Category	Route
PLKS, new or normal quota — spa, wellness and massage centres, hotels, island resorts, golf caddies, recreation and water theme parks	FWeApproval module, FWCMS
PLKS, case-by-case or special mechanism	ePPAx, Special Application — the screen only appears after JTKSM issues an invitation to employers who cleared initial screening at the One Stop Centre
PLKS, change of employer (cross-sector transfers permitted)	ePPAx, Change of Employer
Employment Pass and Professional Visit Pass	Xpats Gateway
Foreign domestic workers	ePPAx — Indonesian-source applications must go through a Private Employment Agency holding Licence B or C
Foreign fishermen, security guards, ship crew, Residence Pass, RP-T, Student Pass, professional passes	ePPAx, Other Passes 1
Thai-national PLKS and tomyam cooks	ePPAx, Other Passes 2

ePPAx — the Sistem Pengurusan Pekerja Asing Bersepadu — is run by JTKSM and lives on eppax.gov.my, not on an Immigration subdomain. FWCMS is a separate vendor-operated system. Since December 2024, reporting of both employment and termination of foreign workers is done in ePPAx under Profile, replacing the old Borang PA 1/13 and PA 2/13.

One warning about ePPAx as a reference source: its own FAQ publishes a manufacturing levy figure that contradicts both the gazetted fee schedule and Immigration’s table. Use it to file, not to price.

One narrow but important note on recruitment agents abroad: JTKSM currently attests Demand Letters only for Nepali workers, under the memorandum of understanding in force.

3. Quota

The special-application route makes the sequencing explicit — an employer only becomes visible in ePPAx after passing initial screening at the One Stop Centre, and only when JTKSM issues the invitation. Quota is therefore a gate the employer passes through, not a form the employer submits at will, and the sectors open under the case-by-case mechanism are set by the notices published at the OSC rather than by any standing rule.

Following a Cabinet decision of 1 July 2026, management of the One Stop Centre passed to the Ministry of Human Resources (KESUMA). From 6 July 2026 all foreign-worker quota applications are handled centrally by KESUMA through the eQuota module of FWCMS, replacing the previous case-by-case OSC process; the Ministry of Home Affairs (KDN) retains final authority to issue passes and permits on security grounds.

Eligibility for the worker is fixed at this stage. Aged 18 to 45 at the time of application, certified healthy by a health examination centre in the source country, not on the prohibited list under s.8(3) of the Immigration Act 1959/63, and a national of an approved source country. Indonesia, Thailand, Cambodia, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Laos, Vietnam, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Nepal are open across sectors; the Philippines allows male workers in all sectors but women only as domestic helpers; India is limited to specified service sub-sectors, agriculture, manufacturing and construction.

4. Visa With Reference and the entry visa

Two documents, two issuers, and they are not interchangeable. The Visa With Reference (VDR) is approved by Immigration headquarters in Malaysia. The entry visa is then issued by the Malaysian representative office in the worker’s home country. A worker may only enter through a designated entry point holding both.

Fees follow nationality. Visa charges run from free for Thai nationals and RM13 for Vietnamese up to RM50 for Indian nationals, and the security bond — furnished as a bank guarantee, insurance guarantee or deposit, with the guarantee valid for at least eighteen months — ranges from RM250 for Indonesia, Thailand and Cambodia to RM1,500 for Vietnam. The bond is refundable, but only where repatriation is completed properly through a Check Out Memo.

5. Arrival and the FOMEMA medical

The worker arrives and the clock starts immediately. Immigration’s own page states the entry-point clearance period twice and inconsistently — six hours in the pre-arrival section, twenty-four hours in the post-arrival section — so treat it as same-day and confirm locally.

Then the medical. The employer has thirty days from arrival to have the worker examined at a FOMEMA-registered centre. This is not a formality bolted on to the end: the Visit Pass (Temporary Employment) is only issued once the worker is certified fit. Where the worker is found unfit, no pass issues, the worker may not stay, and the employer must apply for a Check Out Memo and repatriate them. The pass must be issued at the same Immigration office that issued the VDR approval letter.

Two cautions on FOMEMA. Its public site at fomema.com.my currently serves a placeholder page, and the live portal sits on a different domain — so a compliance procedure that links to the old address will send staff nowhere. More substantively, FOMEMA requires an annual medical examination for all foreign workers, effective 16 December 2023. That is the operative rule and it supersedes the older “second and third-year extension only” wording still carried on the Immigration page — plan for a fresh FOMEMA examination every year.

6. The PLKS and its renewal

The Visit Pass (Temporary Employment) runs twelve months. Extensions are filed up to three months before expiry, and must be in before the pass lapses — a late application is referred to the Immigration Enforcement Division rather than processed.

The renewal checklist is where the ongoing obligations surface: a passport with at least twelve months to run, the security bond, the SPIKPA health insurance policy (not required in the plantation sector), the Foreign Workers Compensation Scheme slip, and a fresh FOMEMA certification.

Note what the checklist does not mention. Foreign workers have been inside SOCSO since employment injury coverage was extended to them on 1 January 2019, and the coverage has since widened. That sits under the Employees’ Social Security Act 1969 rather than under the pass conditions, so it never appears on the Immigration checklist — and it is exactly the kind of omission that surfaces later as an outstanding SOCSO matter blocking the next s.60K approval.

Total employment is capped at ten years, except for workers registered under the 6P programme, who are limited to three.

The pass carries conditions that reach into the employment relationship: family members may not accompany or live in Malaysia, the worker may not be deployed as a front-liner, change of employer or sector is not permitted, and marriage is prohibited.

7. Exit

Section 60KA closes the loop and is missed constantly. Where the employer terminates the service, where the pass expires, or where the worker is repatriated or deported, the employer has thirty days to inform the Director General. Where the worker terminates their own service or absconds, the period is fourteen days — the shorter clock attaches to the case employers notice latest.

Sections 60M and 60N then govern the local–foreign balance. No employer may terminate a local employee’s contract in order to employ a foreign employee. And in a genuine redundancy, the employer may not terminate a local employee until it has first terminated all foreign employees employed in a similar capacity.

Common mistakes

Starting at the quota. Section 60K approval comes first and can be refused for reasons that have nothing to do with headcount.

Treating renewals as needing s.60K. They do not — JTKSM says so expressly. Filing anyway wastes a cycle.

Assuming a PERKESO advertising exemption removes the s.60K duty. It does not; JTKSM names that case specifically.

Ignoring the s.60K(4) compliance screen. An open Act 446 or minimum wage conviction blocks every future foreign hire, not just the one it arose from.

Missing the 14-day particulars filing after employment starts. Approval is not the end of the s.60K duty.

Letting the pass lapse before filing the extension. That converts an administrative renewal into an enforcement matter.

Applying Peninsular procedure to Sabah or Sarawak. Immigration states that applications for those states are subject to the respective State Governments’ own procedures.

What’s next

Before anything else, run the s.60K(4) screen against your own company: any live order, directive or unresolved conviction under the Employment Act, SOCSO, Act 446 or the minimum wage Act, and any trafficking or forced labour matter. Clear those first, because they will surface as an unexplained refusal at the worst possible moment.

Then build the calendar backwards from the pass expiry date — extension at minus three months, FOMEMA for years two and three, and the 14-day and 30-day reporting clocks in s.60KA for anyone who leaves.