Selling Your Malaysian Property as a Foreigner: RPGT, Costs & Repatriation

Malaysia has no annual wealth tax on property and no Singapore-style seller's stamp duty — but it does tax your gain when you dispose: the Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT), administered by LHDN. For foreigners, RPGT never falls to zero, so the exit tax belongs in your purchase math from day one.

RPGT rates (disposals from 1 January 2022)

The rate depends on who you are and how long you held (from the acquisition date, generally the SPA date):

The pattern to internalise as a foreign seller: 30% of the chargeable gain for any disposal within five years, 10% forever after. Citizens and PRs eventually reach 0%; you do not.

What softens the bill

• The individual waiver: every individual (foreigners included) gets an exemption of the greater of RM10,000 or 10% of the chargeable gain per disposal.
• Allowable costs: the gain is price-minus-price after adding acquisition and disposal costs — stamp duty paid on purchase (the flat 8% is not small), legal fees on both ends, agency fees, and capital improvements (renovations with documentation). Keep every receipt for the whole holding period.
• The once-in-a-lifetime private residence exemption — full exemption on one disposal of a private residence — is available to citizens and PRs only. Foreign sellers cannot use it.

The retention mechanism

RPGT is collected up front: on a disposal by a non-citizen, non-PR seller, the buyer's solicitor retains a slice of the purchase price and remits it to LHDN on account of your RPGT (the retention rate for foreign sellers is higher than for locals). Both sides then file of the disposal; LHDN assesses the actual tax and refunds any over-retention. Practical consequence: expect part of your proceeds to sit with LHDN for some months after completion — do not plan cash-flow as if 100% arrives on completion day.