Malaysian Tax Incentives Directory — Agency, Mechanism, Instrument, Status

Most incentive lists on the Malaysian web are copies of a copy. They still offer Pioneer Status, still describe the Principal Hub as though you can apply for it, and never say which gazette order any of it rests on. The rule applied here is narrower and duller: an incentive appears below only if its own instrument or official guideline was opened and read, and the status column reports what that document itself says about the application window.

That rule removed several well-known entries. It also produced a finding no agency site states plainly — a large share of Malaysia’s headline incentives are currently promises without instruments.

How do you read this directory?

Mechanism is the tax machinery, and the four are not interchangeable:

Mechanism	What it does	Typical statutory hook
Special tax rate	Charges a reduced rate on chargeable income	s.6(1A) and Schedule 1 Part XVII, via rules under s.154(1)(b), with conditions under s.65B
Income tax exemption	Exempts statutory income, often by reference to capital expenditure	s.127(3)(b)
Allowance	Reduces statutory income by a percentage of qualifying capital expenditure	Schedule 3, Schedule 7A, Schedule 7B
Deduction	Reduces adjusted income before statutory income	s.33(1)(d), via rules under s.154(1)(b)

A special tax rate is not an exemption, and an in-scope Pillar Two group should read every low rate here against the 15% effective-rate floor before modelling anything.

Status is the most perishable field on this page. Where a Rules instrument caps applications at a date, that date is quoted from the instrument. Where only a guideline exists, the guideline’s own effective-date paragraph is quoted and the absence of a gazette order is stated.

Which incentives are still open to new applications?

Incentive	Agency	Sector	Mechanism	Instrument or basis	Window
New Incentive Framework — Special Tax Rate or ITA	MITI / MIDA	Manufacturing	Special rate 0–10%, or ITA up to 100%	Guideline names s.65B, s.6(1A), para 6(1)(m), Sch 1 Pt XVII, and s.127(3)(b) — no order gazetted	From 1 March 2026
Global Services Hub	MIDA	Services	Special rate 5% (Tier 1) or 10% (Tier 2); existing companies taxed on value-added income	GS-Hub Guideline para 5.1(e): rate to be provided under s.6(1A), s.65B, s.154 — no order gazetted	14 Oct 2023 – 31 Dec 2027
JS-SEZ package	MIDA, with IMFC-J	Manufacturing, services, logistics, tourism	Special rate 5% or 10%, or ITA 60–100%	JS-SEZ Guideline V2 names s.65B and P.U.(A) 113/2006 — no JS-SEZ order gazetted	1 Jan 2025 – 31 Dec 2034
DESAC — Digital Ecosystem Acceleration	MIDA	Submarine cable, data centre and cloud	New company: ITA-equivalent exemption 100% or 60%, or special rate 10% or 15%. Existing company: 60% or 30%, against 70% of statutory income	DESAC Guideline, MOF ref MOF.TAX(S)700-2/1/208	1 Jan 2022 – 31 Dec 2027
Single Family Office Incentive Scheme	Securities Commission	Family office, Pulau 1 Forest City	Special rate 0% for ten years of assessment, then 0% for a further ten	P.U.(A) 350/2025 rules, and P.U.(A) 351/2025 share-disposal exemption	1 Sep 2024 – 31 Dec 2034
Reinvestment Allowance	Self-assessed, LHDN	Manufacturing, selected agriculture	Allowance on qualifying capital expenditure	Schedule 7A, Income Tax Act 1967	Statutory, per the Schedule

The Forest City entry carries four gazetted companions, all keyed to the same Pulau 1 boundary defined by Gazette Plan PW50276:

Relief	Instrument	Outer date in the instrument
Industrial building allowance for qualifying financial-services persons	P.U.(A) 359/2025	Capital expenditure incurred by 31 Dec 2034
Deduction of business relocation cost	P.U.(A) 360/2025	Deemed in operation 1 Sep 2024
Exemption for non-residents on s.4A and para 4(f) income, disapplying ss.109B and 109F	P.U.(A) 357/2025	Income received on or before 31 Aug 2034
RPGT relief for non-citizen, non-PR individuals	P.U.(A) 358/2025	SPA executed 1 Sep 2024 – 31 Jul 2034, stamped before 1 Sep 2034

Stamp duty remissions and exemptions for the same zone sit at P.U.(A) 352/2025 to 356/2025.

Which incentives are closed?

This is the half of the directory competitor pages do not carry, and it is the half that changes a decision.

Incentive	Agency	Mechanism	Instrument	Application window in the instrument
Pioneer Status and ITA under the PIA 1986	MIDA	Exemption or allowance	Promotion of Investments Act 1986	Manufacturing applications closed 3.00 p.m., 28 February 2026
Principal Hub Incentive Scheme	MIDA	Special rate 5% or 10%, five years of assessment	P.U.(A) 164/2022, rule 2	1 Jan 2021 – 31 Dec 2022
Global Trading Centre	MIDA	Special rate 10%, five years of assessment	P.U.(A) 48/2022, rules 2 and 5	1 Jan 2021 – 31 Dec 2022
Relocation of Manufacturing Business	MIDA	Special rate 0% — ten years for fixed assets of RM300m to RM500m, fifteen years above RM500m	P.U.(A) 241/2023, rules 5(1), 7 and 8	1 Jul 2020 – 31 Dec 2024
Relocation of Provision of Services	MIDA	Special rate up to 10% for a new company, 10% for an existing one, up to ten years of assessment	P.U.(A) 398/2022, rules 2 and 5	7 Nov 2020 – 31 Dec 2022
State of Kelantan Special Incentive Scheme	ECERDC	Special rate 0% for fifteen years of assessment, then 17% for five, extendable by five	P.U.(A) 269/2025, rules 5(1), 7, 8 and 9	1 Aug 2021 – 31 Dec 2024
Kelantan scheme — C-Suite executive	ECERDC	Individual rate 15% for five years of assessment	P.U.(A) 270/2025, rules 6 and 7	Tied to the parent scheme
ECER knowledge worker	ECERDC	Individual rate 15% under Schedule 1 Part XIV	P.U.(A) 330/2023, rule 3	1 Jan 2022 – 31 Dec 2024, and confined to the Malaysia-China Kuantan Industrial Park
Green Investment Tax Allowance — asset	MGTC verification	Exemption equal to qualifying capital expenditure	P.U.(A) 243/2024, para 4	Verification applications to 31 Dec 2023; capex 25 Oct 2013 – 31 Dec 2023
Green Income Tax Exemption — services	MIDA	Exemption capped at 70% of statutory income	P.U.(A) 246/2024, para 4	1 Jan 2020 – 31 Dec 2023

The Kelantan pair deserves its own line. P.U.(A) 269/2025 was gazetted on 26 August 2025, eight months after rule 5(1) had already closed applications on 31 December 2024. The instrument exists to give legal effect to approvals already granted, not to invite new ones. Reading the gazette date as an opening date gets this exactly backwards, and the AGC index offers no warning: the status field reads PRINCIPAL.

Why do so many incentives have no instrument?

Three of the four largest incentives now being marketed to inbound investors share a sentence. The New Incentive Framework guideline says the Special Tax Rate is to be provided through subsidiary legislation. The Global Services Hub guideline, at para 5.1(e), says the Tax Rate is to be provided through a subsidiary legislation. The JS-SEZ guideline, at Appendix A para 5, says the incentive is to be provided through subsidiary legislation in the exercise of the powers conferred in Section 65B.

A subsidiary-legislation sweep of the AGC database, whose index is current to 8 July 2026, returns no instrument for any of the three. What an approved applicant holds is an approval-in-principle letter from MIDA — an administrative decision — not a relief with an instrument behind it.

Contrast that with Forest City, where eleven instruments were gazetted together on 3 October 2025, and with Kelantan, where the rules eventually arrived. The pattern is that the orders do come; they come late, and a return cannot be filed against an intention.

Common mistakes

Treating an AGC status of PRINCIPAL as proof an instrument is live. The field is an instrument type, not an in-force flag — P.U.(A) 458/2012 still returns PRINCIPAL despite having been revoked in 2024. For an incentives directory, built entirely out of exemption orders, this is the defect that matters most. Open the operative text.

Reading the gazette date as the application date. Kelantan is the clean counter-example. So is the Forest City package, gazetted in October 2025 but deemed in operation from 1 September 2024.

Assuming Pioneer Status is still on the table. It is the single most common error in this space right now.

Mixing up the two Global Services Hub tracks. The national scheme requires seven network companies including three related companies. The JS-SEZ version at Flagship A and B requires ten network companies, RM50 million of annual operating expenditure and five key personnel at RM35,000 a month. Same name, different tests.

Modelling a 0% or 5% rate inside a group above EUR 750 million. The Domestic Top-Up Tax floor makes the number unreachable, and the saving is collected somewhere else.

Citing a Budget proposal as current law. Budget 2026’s Langkah Cukai appendix contains no measure on the special economic zones, the Forest City zone or the services hub. Nothing in this directory changed in that Budget.

What’s next

Before relying on any row above, do two things. Open the instrument named in the row and read its application-window paragraph — those windows are the field most likely to have moved since this page was written. Then, where the row says no order has been gazetted, ask MIDA in writing what instrument your approval will be issued under, and keep the answer.

For the framework that replaced Pioneer Status, see the New Incentive Framework. For the zone and hub packages compared on rate, tenure and clawback, see special zones and hub incentives. For gazetted double and further deductions, see the double deduction directory. For who administers what, see the investment agency directory.