Malaysia's minimum wage is RM1,700 a month. That figure is easy to comply with when someone is paid monthly, and it is where most payroll systems stop reading.
The same order sets three different daily rates and an hourly one, and they are not derived the way payroll usually derives them. A five-day employee is owed RM78.46 a day, not the RM65.38 that dividing a month by 26 produces.
What the order sets
The Minimum Wages Order 2024 was gazetted on 4 December 2024 and gives a table rather than a single figure:
| Basis | From 1 February 2025 | 1 Feb – 31 Jul 2025 only |
|---|---|---|
| Monthly | RM1,700.00 | RM1,500.00 |
| Daily, 6-day week | RM65.38 | RM57.69 |
| Daily, 5-day week | RM78.46 | RM69.23 |
| Daily, 4-day week | RM98.08 | RM86.54 |
| Hourly | RM8.72 | RM7.21 |
The daily rate climbs as the working week shortens, because the monthly figure is fixed and fewer days must carry it. Dividing RM1,700 by 26 gives the six-day rate and underpays a five-day employee by RM13.08 every day worked.
The hourly rate is not the Employment Act's hourly rate
Here the two instruments diverge, and a payroll system built on the Employment Act alone will land under the legal floor.
The gazetted RM8.72 is the monthly wage spread across a 45-hour week — RM1,700 × 12 ÷ (52 × 45) is RM8.7179. The Employment Act reaches a different number: its ordinary rate of pay is the monthly wage divided by 26, giving RM65.38, and its hourly rate is that divided by the normal hours in a day, giving RM8.17.
RM8.17 is about 6.3% below the gazetted minimum. Both calculations are defensible readings of their own statute, and only one of them satisfies the order. This is arithmetic anyone can check rather than a published ministry position, which is the honest way to hold it — the order states the rates without showing its working.
Who got RM1,700 in February and who waited until August
The staged commencement is usually described as a break for employers with fewer than five staff. That is half the test, and the missing half catches exactly the businesses most likely to assume they qualified.
The order applies the RM1,700 rate from 1 February 2025 to employees of an employer who employs five or more people and, "regardless of the number of employees employed", to employees of an employer carrying out a professional activity classified under the Malaysia Standard Classification of Occupations. The deferred window covering the rest ran only to 31 July 2025.
The ministry reads that classification as Major Group 2, Professionals — nine sub-major groups covering science and engineering, health, teaching, business and administration, ICT, legal, hospitality services, social and cultural work, and regulatory-body professionals. A two-person law firm or clinic was therefore on RM1,700 from day one, with no deferral at all.
Who is outside it
The order excludes one category of worker: a domestic servant, as defined in the Employment Act and the Sabah and Sarawak labour ordinances.
Apprentices are commonly listed as a second exclusion, and they are outside the regime, but by a different route — the governing Act defines a contract of service so as to exclude an apprenticeship contract, and the minimum wage attaches to employees under a contract of service. The distinction matters because it turns on the form of the contract rather than on what a role is called.
Foreign workers are inside it. The ministry's position is that the order applies to all private-sector employees including non-citizens, domestic servants excepted, and points to the Employment Act's prohibition on discriminating between local and foreign employees.
What non-compliance costs
Paying below the minimum carries a fine of up to RM10,000 for each employee, which turns a small payroll error into a large number quickly. A continuing offence adds a daily fine of up to RM1,000, and a repeat offence raises the ceiling to RM20,000 or five years' imprisonment.
The fine is not the whole exposure. The court may also order the employer to pay the shortfall together with accrued consequential payments, and may levy the employer's property by warrant if it goes unpaid. An employee's agreement to be paid less is no defence.
One figure that moved, and how
The previous order set RM1,500 from 1 May 2022 on the same five-employee-plus-professionals split. Its deferral for small employers was originally written to end on 1 January 2023 and was pushed to 1 July 2023 by an amending order gazetted three days before it would have taken effect. Anyone citing "1 July 2023" as what the 2022 order said is quoting the amendment rather than the order.
During that interim the smallest employers paid a two-tier regional rate — RM1,200 in city and municipal council areas, RM1,100 elsewhere. That regional split has since disappeared; the current rate is uniform nationwide.
Where things stand
As at 18 September 2026 no successor order has been gazetted and RM1,700 remains the operative figure. A review is under way, with engagement sessions and employer and worker surveys run by the ministry, and the human resources minister said in August 2026 that the government was weighing inflation, productivity and unemployment. No rate and no timetable have been announced.
A review falling due now is the ordinary cycle rather than a signal: the governing Act requires the council to review the order at least once every two years, and the current one was made in December 2024.
What to do with it
The check worth running on any Malaysian payroll is which divisor produces its daily and hourly figures. A system dividing by 26 for everyone is correct only for six-day employees, and a system deriving hourly pay the Employment Act way sits below the gazetted floor for everyone.
The other thing to confirm is the basis of the RM1,700 itself: it is basic wages, so allowances do not count toward it. The governing Act says "basic wages" without defining the term, and the ministry's gloss excluding allowances, incentives and additional payments rests on the Employment Act's definition rather than on the minimum wage legislation.
Where this comes from
The rates, the staged commencement and the domestic-servant exclusion are from the Minimum Wages Order 2024, P.U. (A) 376, read from the ministry's published gazette copy; the apprenticeship point and the penalties from the National Wages Consultative Council Act 2011, sections 2 and 43 to 47; the 45-hour week and the ordinary rate of pay from the Employment Act 1955, sections 60A and 60I. The professional-activity reading, the foreign-worker position and the consent point are the ministry's own published answers. The 2022 order and its amendment are P.U. (A) 140 of 2022 and P.U. (A) 400 of 2022. All were read on 18 September 2026.
One citation trap for anyone following this up: several secondary write-ups cite the 2024 order as P.U. (A) 276. The gazette copy is numbered 376. The two derivations of the hourly rate above are reconstructions that reproduce every published figure to the cent, not quotations, and the arithmetic is shown so it can be checked rather than believed.
