Malaysia's Tourism Tax: Rate, Who Pays, and How It's Collected

Check into almost any hotel in Kuala Lumpur on a foreign passport and a curious line appears on the bill: RM10, flat, for every night you stayed. That is Malaysia’s tourism tax (TTx) — a small, fixed levy that behaves very differently from the percentage-based hotel taxes travellers meet elsewhere.

Here is exactly what it is, who pays it, and who has to collect it.

Who actually pays Malaysia’s tourism tax?

Foreign guests — and only foreign guests. The tax is charged on a “tourist” who stays at accommodation premises made available by an operator, and it is the tourist’s duty to pay it to the operator.

Two groups are lifted out entirely. Under the Tourism Tax (Exemption) Order 2017, a tourist who is a Malaysian citizen (a MyKad holder) and a tourist who is a permanent resident of Malaysia (a MyPR holder) are exempt from the whole of the tax. That is why the front desk asks for your passport or IC at check-in: nationality, not residence, decides whether the RM10 line appears.

The tax took effect on 1 September 2017 under the Tourism Tax Act 2017 and its accompanying orders.

How much is it, and how is it charged?

The rate is fixed at RM10.00 per room per night. It does not scale with the room price, and it does not multiply by the number of people in the room. One room booked by two foreign guests is still RM10 for that room — and once one guest has paid the tax for that accommodation, the others sharing it are not liable again.

A “night” runs from check-in to check-out within the operator’s stated times, so a same-day stay that crosses those hours still counts as one night. Day-use rooms priced below the per-night rate are not taxed, but a complimentary night an operator gives away still attracts TTx.

Because the amount is a flat charge rather than a percentage, it sits as its own line on the invoice, stated separately from the room rate and any service charge:

Charge	Basis	Amount (RM)
Room charge	RM75 x 2 rooms x 3 nights	450.00
Service charge (10%)	RM450 x 10%	45.00
Tourism tax	RM10 x 2 rooms x 3 nights	60.00
Total (excl. other charges)		555.00

Illustration of how the flat tax appears as its own invoice line, separate from the room rate and service charge; the figures are illustrative and exclude any other charges an operator may add.

For a serviced apartment, how it is listed decides the tax: if a three-bedroom unit is advertised and booked as one unit, TTx is RM10 for the unit; if each bedroom is listed and booked separately, RM10 applies to each booked room.

Who and what is exempt?

Beyond Malaysian and PR guests, several kinds of operator are exempt from registering and collecting TTx at all. The exemptions cover:

• Small operators — anyone running accommodation premises with four rooms or fewer.
• Registered homestays under the Ministry of Tourism’s Pengalaman Homestay Malaysia programme.
• Registered kampungstays under the Visit My Kampung: Kampungstay programme.
• Government, statutory-body and registered private-university premises providing accommodation for education, training or welfare (for example, training academies and institutional rest houses).
• Employer accommodation provided as a staff facility.
• Approved religious or welfare bodies operating non-commercial accommodation.

The four-room threshold matters at the top end too. An operator becomes liable to register once it offers five accommodation rooms or more, counted across all the premises it manages — so five one-room houses in five different towns still cross the line, while four do not.

How do hotels collect and remit it?

Collection and payment run entirely through the Royal Malaysian Customs Department’s MyTTx portal. A liable operator must:

1. Register within 30 days of starting operations, using Form TTx-01. Customs issues a Tourism Tax Identification Number and a certificate that must be displayed at each premise.
2. Collect RM10 per room per night from foreign guests, normally at check-out, and issue an invoice showing the tax separately.
3. File and pay a return (Form TTx-03) for each taxable period — a three-month quarterly period by default, or the operator’s existing GST period where applicable — no later than the last day of the month after that period ends. A nil return is still required even when no tax was collected.

Operators must keep records — guest passport numbers, stay dates, room rates and tax charged — for seven years.

What changed for Booking.com, Agoda and other online platforms?

For years the tax only reached guests who booked directly. The Tourism Tax (Amendment) Act 2021 closed that gap by creating a new class of taxpayer: the Digital Platform Service Provider (DPSP) — any person, whether inside or outside Malaysia, who provides online booking services for accommodation located in Malaysia.

Since the regime came into operation (charging from 1 January 2023), a DPSP must register within 30 days of providing the service (Form TTx-01A), charge the same RM10 per room per night at the time of booking, and remit it to Customs on its own quarterly return (Form TTx-03A). A foreign-based platform pays via telegraphic transfer or, if it holds a Malaysian bank account, via FPX. The same guest exemptions apply, so MyKad and MyPR holders are not charged by platforms either.

To avoid double collection during the transition, Customs set a grace period from 1 April 2023 to 31 December 2025. The distinction turns on who receives the money:

Who receives payment for the booking	Who collects and remits TTx (grace period)
The platform (DPSP), paid directly by the guest	The DPSP collects at booking and remits
The hotel, when the guest pays on arrival	The hotel collects at check-out and remits

So under the grace-period rules, if you prepay a platform, the platform collects and remits the tax; if you reserve online but “pay at property”, the hotel is the party that receives payment, so the hotel collects the RM10 at the desk and remits it directly to Customs on its own return. Either way you should be charged once, not twice. A booking made before the effective date for a stay afterward is not taxed at all.

What happens if the tax isn’t collected or paid?

The penalties fall on operators and platforms, not travellers. Failure to register, file, pay, invoice correctly or keep records is an offence carrying a fine of up to RM30,000, imprisonment of up to one year, or both — and Customs may compound many of these offences for up to RM15,000 (half the maximum fine).

Late payment is penalised in tiers: 10% of the unpaid tax for the first 30 days overdue, rising by a further 10% for each subsequent 30-day period, to a maximum of 30%. Issuing a document that purports to charge TTx when you are not a registered operator or DPSP is itself an offence.

What’s next

If you are travelling, budget an extra RM10 per room per night and keep the receipt — it is a fixed cost, not a tip or a percentage, and it should appear as its own line whether you booked direct or through a platform. If you run accommodation, the live question is the end of the DPSP grace period on 31 December 2025, after which the platform-versus-hotel collection split is expected to settle into its permanent form; check the MyTTx portal for the current policy. For the authoritative text, the RMCD guides and orders linked below govern every figure here.