Stamp duty after the first-time-buyer exemption.
Stamp duty payable
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Full duty (no relief)
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Exemption saved
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Two stamp duties hide inside a single home purchase
When you buy a home in Malaysia you sign two documents that the government taxes separately. The first is the Memorandum of Transfer (MOT), which moves the title into your name. Duty on it climbs in steps with the price: the rates this calculator applies are 1 percent on the first RM100,000, 2 percent on the slice from RM100,001 to RM500,000, 3 percent from RM500,001 to RM1,000,000, and 4 percent above that. The second document is the loan or financing agreement, taxed at a flat 0.5 percent of the amount you borrow. Buyers often budget for one and forget the other, which is why the tool totals both before it applies any relief. These are ad valorem duties under the Stamp Act, administered by LHDN (the Inland Revenue Board of Malaysia), and the bands above should be confirmed against the current schedule on the LHDN stamp duty page.
Who the first-home exemption is built for
The relief exists to get first-time owners over the upfront-cost hump, so it is narrowly defined. You generally have to be a Malaysian citizen buying your first residential property, the purchase has to fall inside the qualifying price tier, and the sale and purchase agreement has to be signed within the window the current programme allows. This tool assumes a full waiver of both the transfer and loan duty for homes priced up to RM500,000, and a partial remission for homes priced from RM500,001 to RM1,000,000. Above RM1,000,000 no relief applies and the full duty is due. The exact percentages, price ceilings, and eligibility dates are reset by each federal Budget, so treat the figures here as the calculator's working assumption and verify the live terms with LHDN before you commit.
A RM700,000 home in the partial-relief band
Say you are buying your first home for RM700,000 with a RM630,000 loan, which lands you in the partial-relief tier. The MOT duty works out to RM1,000 on the first RM100,000, RM8,000 on the next RM400,000, and RM6,000 on the final RM200,000, a total of RM15,000. The loan duty is 0.5 percent of RM630,000, or RM3,150. Full duty is therefore RM18,150. The partial relief this calculator models (a 50 percent remission as a placeholder, which you should confirm against the current programme) cuts that to RM9,075, saving you RM9,075.
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Teal shows the duty you still pay in each tier; grey is the part that the exemption knocks out. The visual makes the RM500,000 cliff obvious: cross it by even one ringgit and you move from paying nothing to paying half.
The mistake that costs buyers the whole waiver
The most expensive error is buying a home priced just over a threshold. A RM505,000 home does not get the full waiver that a RM500,000 home does, and the difference is not a few ringgit of duty on the extra RM5,000, it is the entire exemption on the whole transaction. If you are close to a ceiling, it is worth negotiating the price down under it. A second common trap is assuming a joint purchase with a spouse or sibling who already owns property still counts as a first home. The relief usually keys off every buyer being a first-timer, so adding a co-owner who has owned before can void it. Check this before you sign anything.
Does the exemption cover the loan agreement as well as the transfer?
Yes, in the full-waiver tier both instruments are typically exempt, which is why a sub-RM500,000 first home can carry zero stamp duty even with a large mortgage. That is a meaningful saving, because the loan duty alone on a RM450,000 mortgage is over RM2,000. In the partial tier the remission generally applies across both instruments too, which is how this tool treats it.
Is stamp duty the same as Real Property Gains Tax?
No. Stamp duty is paid by the buyer when you acquire the property. Real Property Gains Tax (RPGT) is paid by the seller on the profit when they later dispose of it. Malaysia has no general capital gains tax on shares for individuals, so RPGT is the main capital gains charge most people meet, and it only touches real property. As a first-time buyer you are concerned with stamp duty now; RPGT becomes relevant only if and when you sell.