Flat 0.5 percent stamp duty on a loan agreement.
Loan stamp duty
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The cost buyers forget until completion day
When you take out a housing loan or any financing facility in Malaysia, the loan agreement itself is a legal instrument, and instruments attract stamp duty. This is separate from, and on top of, the legal fees and the duty on the property transfer. The rule is mercifully simple: a flat 0.5 percent of the loan amount, the rate this calculator applies. There are no progressive bands and no thresholds to navigate, just half a percent of whatever you borrow. The calculator exists less to handle hard arithmetic and more to make sure this charge appears in your budget before completion day, where it surprises a lot of first time buyers.
Because it scales straight off the loan, a bigger mortgage means a bigger duty in exact proportion. Borrow RM450,000 and the loan stamp duty is RM2,250. Borrow twice as much and it doubles. That linearity is worth internalising, because it is the opposite of how the transfer duty behaves.
Loan duty versus transfer duty: two different bills
It is easy to muddle the two stamp duties in a property purchase, so keep them apart. The loan agreement duty, the one this tool computes, is the flat 0.5 percent on the sum you finance. The Memorandum of Transfer duty, often called MOT, is charged on the property's price or market value and runs on a progressive scale, currently around 1 percent on the first slice, rising through 2, 3, and 4 percent on higher value tiers. So on the same purchase you face one charge tied to your loan and a larger, banded charge tied to the price of the home. A cash buyer with no mortgage pays no loan duty at all but still owes the transfer duty. Our separate transfer duty tool handles the MOT side; this page is purely the financing instrument.
How the duty scales with the loan
Take a buyer financing RM450,000 of a home purchase. The loan agreement duty is RM450,000 multiplied by 0.5 percent, which is RM2,250, payable once when the agreement is stamped. The table walks three common loan sizes so you can see the flat percentage at work, and the chart plots the same three as bars climbing in a straight line, which is the visual signature of a flat rate.
| Loan amount | Rate | Stamp duty |
|---|
Exemptions, and where this fits in the property lifecycle
First time home buyers are the big exception. Under budget driven housing programmes, the government has at various points granted a full exemption from loan agreement stamp duty, and often from the transfer duty too, on homes up to a set price ceiling, with partial relief on a higher band above that. These schemes change with each budget and carry conditions on price, on whether you have owned property before, and on the purchase window, so the flat RM2,250 in the example may be wiped out entirely for an eligible first home. Do not assume the exemption applies or that it does not; check the current programme and price ceilings with LHDN, which administers stamp duty, before you budget for the charge.
Step back and this duty is one of several touch points across owning a property. You pay loan duty and transfer duty when you buy. You may face annual quit rent and council assessment while you hold. And when you eventually sell, any gain can be subject to Real Property Gains Tax, RPGT, which is Malaysia's tax on profits from disposing of real property. Worth noting for the bigger picture: Malaysia has no general capital gains tax on shares for individuals, so the gains levy you watch for in property does not have a counterpart when you sell listed stocks. RPGT is specifically a real property tax.
Can I add the stamp duty to my loan?
Some buyers ask the bank to finance the duty and legal costs by borrowing a little more, which is sometimes possible depending on the margin of financing the lender allows. Be aware that doing so increases the loan, which in turn increases the 0.5 percent duty itself slightly, and you pay interest on the rolled in amount for the life of the mortgage. Paying it in cash up front is cheaper overall if you can.
Is loan stamp duty a one time charge or annual?
One time. You pay it once when the loan agreement is stamped, near the start of the facility, and never again on that loan. It is not a recurring cost like quit rent or assessment. If you refinance to a new lender later, though, that fresh loan agreement is a new instrument and attracts its own 0.5 percent duty.