Malaysia has quietly reset two of its most-searched long-stay visas in 2026, and the changes cut in opposite directions: the Employment Pass became stricter on salary but clearer on duration, while My Second Home (MM2H) reopened as a tiered programme with sharply higher deposits and much longer validity. We re-verified both, plus the DE Rantau digital-nomad pass, on 2026-06-21 against Malaysia’s official portals — the Expatriate Services Division (esd.imi.gov.my), the MM2H authority and MDEC. Here is what actually applies now.
Employment Pass: higher salaries, fixed 5–10-year validity
The Employment Pass is Malaysia’s main work visa for managerial, technical and specialist hires. A revised salary-and-duration policy took effect on 1 June 2026, and it changes two things at once:
- Higher minimum salaries: Category I rises to RM20,000/month, Category II to RM10,000–19,999, and Category III to RM5,000–9,999 — well above the previous RM10,000 / RM5,000 / RM3,000 thresholds.
- Fixed validity instead of open-ended renewal: passes now come with predetermined terms of 5 to 10 years by category, replacing the old system where top categories could be renewed indefinitely.
- The new rules apply to all new and renewal applications submitted on or after 1 June 2026.
The practical point: an Employment Pass is a multi-year work pass tied to your contract and category — never the 90-day stamp some comparison sites still show. Our page lists the verified validity, the category criteria and the full refusal-reason list on the Malaysia Employment Pass page.
MM2H: three tiers, 5 to 20 years
The My Second Home programme was overhauled into three tiers, each with its own fixed deposit, property-purchase floor and validity:
- Silver — USD 150,000 fixed deposit and RM 600,000 property; valid 5 years.
- Gold — USD 500,000 deposit and RM 1 million property; valid 15 years.
- Platinum — USD 1 million deposit and RM 2 million property; valid 20 years.
- Each tier is renewable, the minimum age dropped to 25, and the property must be held for the long term. Up to half the deposit can later be withdrawn for approved purposes such as property, healthcare or education.
So MM2H, too, is measured in years, not days. We corrected our MM2H page from a placeholder 90-day stay to the entry-tier (Silver) five-year permission and recorded the tier thresholds. See the Malaysia MM2H page for the verified stay and refusal reasons.
And the digital-nomad option: DE Rantau
If neither a job offer nor a six-figure deposit fits, the DE Rantau Nomad Pass remains Malaysia’s remote-work route: a 12-month pass (renewable for another 12) for digital professionals earning at least USD 24,000/year — USD 60,000 for eligible non-tech roles — from non-Malaysian sources. We also corrected its processing estimate to MDEC’s published 6–8-week service standard. Details on the DE Rantau pass page.
How we keep this honest
This post accompanies a data correction. Our Employment Pass and MM2H pages had been showing a 90-day maximum stay — a machine default carried over from short-stay visas — for what are in fact multi-year passes. We corrected each to its verified validity, recorded the source and date, and added the refusal reasons, on 2026-06-21, as part of a fresh verification of Malaysia’s, Singapore’s, Indonesia’s and Qatar’s inbound visa programs against official portals. Our full method is in the Editorial & Data Standards.