A 1,998cc saloon registered to an individual pays RM379 a year in road tax in Peninsular Malaysia, RM273.50 in Sabah or Sarawak, RM189.50 in Langkawi and about RM137 in Labuan. We rebuilt the Road Transport Department's rate tables cc by cc, and the gap between the Peninsula and Sabah or Sarawak is not a fixed discount. It is exactly 1.25 times from 1,001 to 1,800cc, 2.08 times at 2,998cc and 2.99 times at 4,999cc.
Road tax, cukai jalan or 路税, is what the Road Transport Department (Jabatan Pengangkutan Jalan, JPJ) calls the motor vehicle licence, LKM. For a petrol or diesel car it depends on four things: engine capacity, where the car is registered, whether it is a saloon, and whether a person or a company owns it. Electric cars pay on motor power instead, from a table that took effect in 2026. The figures here are the ones JPJ published as of 2 October 2026; Budget 2027 is due to be tabled on 9 October.
The newest JPJ upload carries the oldest scale in force
JPJ's Malay-language rate page links a July 2026 copy of its rate guideline for petrol and diesel vehicles, titled as amended after Budget 2009. We compared it byte for byte with the 2022 upload of the same guideline, and the two files are identical. The scale that applies in 2026 is the 2009 one.
In the Peninsula, a saloon owned by an individual pays a flat RM20 up to 1,000cc, RM55 up to 1,200cc, RM70 up to 1,400cc and RM90 up to 1,600cc. Above that the guideline switches to a base rate plus a charge for every cc over the band's floor: RM200 plus 40 sen per cc from 1,601cc, rising to RM2,130 plus RM4.50 per cc above 3,000cc. The saloon and non-saloon schedules both cover "Petrol/diesel/diesel hijau", so a private diesel car pays what a petrol one does. The one exception the guideline names is Sabah, where four-wheel-drive diesel vehicles stay at their existing rate.
Paying it has changed more than the price. From 10 February 2023 the licence disc no longer had to be printed or displayed for privately owned cars of Malaysian citizens, and JPJ's FAQ on digital road tax says plainly that "Kadar bayaran fi LKM bagi semua kenderaan adalah sama dan tiada peningkatan bayaran tambahan susulan dari pelaksanaan ini": the fee for every vehicle is the same, with no extra charge. Renewal in the MyJPJ app is for citizens' own private vehicles. JPJ's FAQ sends companies and non-citizens to its counters, Pos Malaysia, MyEG or PUSPAKOM.
The costliest cc of all is number 1,601
The scale is progressive above 1,600cc, with no sudden jumps. The flat-rate bands below that point, however, create a steep step up. A Peninsula saloon owned by an individual goes from RM90 at 1,600cc to RM200.40 at 1,601cc, 2.23 times the bill for one more cc. No other single cc in that schedule adds more than RM35, the step at 1,001cc.
| Schedule | At 1,600cc | At 1,601cc | Step |
|---|---|---|---|
| Peninsula, saloon, individual | RM90 | RM200.40 | RM110.40 |
| Peninsula, saloon, company | RM180 | RM400.80 | RM220.80 |
| Peninsula, non-saloon | RM120 | RM300.30 | RM180.30 |
| Sabah and Sarawak, saloon | RM72 | RM160.32 | RM88.32 |
| Sabah and Sarawak, non-saloon | RM60 | RM165.17 | RM105.17 |
Above 1,600cc the cost of a bigger engine comes from the slope. In the Peninsula each extra 100cc adds RM40 around 1,700cc, RM100 around 2,100cc, RM250 around 2,600cc and RM450 above 3,000cc. In Sabah and Sarawak the same 100cc adds RM32, RM50, RM100 and RM135.
The Peninsula's bill pulls further ahead as the engine grows
Sabah and Sarawak each have their own schedule, labelled "Milik Individu Dan Syarikat", with one rate whether a person or a company owns the car. Labuan pays half the Sabah rate above 1,000cc, and Langkawi, though part of the Peninsula, pays half the Peninsular rate. The 2009 guideline also names Pangkor; the two 2026 JPJ documents we read name only Langkawi and Labuan. At 1,000cc and below every one of these places charges RM20.
| Engine | Peninsula | Sabah and Sarawak | Langkawi | Peninsula against Sabah and Sarawak |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1,198cc | RM55 | RM44 | RM27.50 | 1.25 times |
| 1,497cc | RM90 | RM72 | RM45 | 1.25 times |
| 1,998cc | RM379 | RM273.50 | RM189.50 | 1.39 times |
| 2,494cc | RM874 | RM521 | RM437 | 1.68 times |
| 2,998cc | RM2,125 | RM1,022 | RM1,062.50 | 2.08 times |
| 4,999cc | RM11,125.50 | RM3,722.65 | RM5,562.75 | 2.99 times |
The figures are for a saloon owned by an individual. Halved island figures are our arithmetic; JPJ's own printed tables round some of them to the next 10 sen. JPJ's renewal guide also sets a condition on the lower rates: an owner must change the vehicle's declared area before renewing in an area with a lower rate.
Company ownership widens the gap. A Peninsula saloon owned by a company pays the same RM20 as an individual up to 1,000cc, exactly double from 1,001 to 2,000cc, 2.82 times at 3,000cc and 2.98 times at 6,000cc. Sabah and Sarawak have no separate company rate, so a company saloon at 4,999cc costs RM32,996.50 in the Peninsula against RM3,722.65 across the South China Sea, 8.86 times as much.
Our own calculator page knew only the Peninsula's saloons
Our Malaysia road tax calculator matched JPJ's table at every whole cc from 1 to 8,000 for both owner types, 16,000 cases without a mismatch. Until 2 October 2026, though, it modelled only the two Peninsula saloon schedules. It named Sabah and Sarawak as the exceptions but left out Langkawi and Labuan, so a Langkawi owner got double their bill. It said company cars pay "roughly double", which is exact only from 1,001 to 2,000cc, and it described the bill as depending on engine size and owner alone. It now covers all five printed car schedules, the two islands and the 2026 electric table, and it refuses an empty or zero engine size instead of answering RM20.
For the Singapore side of the comparison, with exchange rates, see our guide to owning a car in Malaysia and Singapore.
The heaviest small-engine bill for a private owner goes to the non-saloon
Vehicles JPJ classes as other than saloon, usually SUVs, MPVs and pick-ups, are charged on a separate schedule shared by individuals and companies. For an individual owner in the Peninsula that schedule costs more than the saloon one at every engine size from 1,001 to 2,299cc: RM120 against RM90 at 1,497cc, RM300.30 against RM200.40 at 1,601cc. The two meet at 2,300cc, RM680 each, and above that the non-saloon is cheaper. For a company the non-saloon schedule is cheaper at every size above 1,000cc.
Which body type counts as a saloon is JPJ's decision at registration. We found no published list of how particular models are classed, so the registration document, not the shape of the car, is what settles the rate.
The deepest EV cut sits in the middle of the power table
Battery electric and fuel cell cars paid no road tax from 1 January 2022 to 31 December 2025, Bernama reported. On 4 June 2024 the Transport Minister, Anthony Loke, announced that from 1 January 2026 they would pay by motor power, at rates "85 peratus lebih rendah berbanding kadar sedia ada", 85% lower than the existing ones. His examples were a 130 kW BYD Dolphin, from RM624 to RM120, and a 220 kW Tesla Model Y, from RM2,583 to RM305. Hybrids are not covered.
JPJ's table is in a circular dated 1 April 2026. One table covers saloons and non-saloons, individuals and companies, the Peninsula, Sabah and Sarawak; Langkawi and Labuan pay half. It starts at RM20 up to 50 kW and rises in 10 kW rows. JPJ's English-language rate page still links the superseded 2011 electric guideline.
We compared the new table with the 2011 rates at every kilowatt from 51 to 700. The 85% figure is close only around 148 to 172 kW and 401 to 460 kW. Against the old saloon rates the cut runs from 29%, for motors of 51 to 80 kW, to 90% around 200 to 300 kW. Against the old non-saloon rates, the basis of the minister's Model Y figure, it runs from 17% to 88%.
The largest step in either schedule belongs to the most powerful EVs
The new table climbs by RM10 a row up to 110 kW, then by RM20, RM30 and more, reaching RM350 a row from 920 kW. Its last bounded row, 1,000,001 to 1,010,000 W, costs RM14,415. Above that the circular sets a single rate: "Melebihi 1,010,001 RM 20,000.00". Just past 1,010 kW, the bill rises by RM5,585, more than any single step in the petrol and diesel schedules, where the largest one-cc jump is RM220.80 at 1,601cc.
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