The Employer’s Guide To Malaysia Foreign Professional Visas
While this site is dedicated to Malaysian Employment Passes, it’s also part of MISHU’s broader visa services for businesses to engage skilled foreign professionals, and one thing we’ve learned is that just because an employer asks about a specific visa, doesn’t mean it’s the right one for their use case!
And so, if you are a Malaysian organisation looking to hire expatriates, there are three main visas you should know about:
- Employment Pass (EP)
- Professional Visit Pass (PVP), and
- Residence Pass-Talent (RP-T)
While PVPs and EPs are used for very different work engagements, RP-Ts and EPs actually have a large amount of overlap, and the recent EP salary revisions can make RP-T a fairly compelling alternative in the right circumstances.
As MISHU provides application services for all three, we make money no matter which you choose, so we might as well make sure you choose the right one!
Let’s begin.
Employment Pass
A Category 2 EP.
This visa is used to hire an expatriate as a full-time employee and is applied for by the hiring organisation under one of three tiers based on the role being filled, each with its own minimum salary requirement:
- Category 1 for directors, C-suite executives, and equivalent requiring minimum RM20,000 / month
- Category 2 for mid-level managers and supervisors or equivalent requiring minimum RM10,000 / month
- Category 3 for junior technical specialists and their equivalents requiring minimum RM5,000 / month (RM7,000 for manufacturing roles)
All three allow holders to bring dependents to accompany the principal for the duration of the visa’s validity period, which lasts anywhere from 5 – 10 years depending on the category.
Crucially, an EP visa holder cannot switch companies without cancelling their current visa and leaving the country while the new employer submits a new application. While this doesn’t legally bind the expatriate to the employer, it does create a very effective deterrent to poaching!
For more details, see our full guide to Employment Pass requirements and applications.
Professional Visit Pass
Sample PVP.
A PVP is used to engage the services of a foreign professional currently employed by or attached to a foreign firm.
It is also applied for by the local Malaysian organisation, but the expatriate stays on their overseas employer’s payroll throughout their stay here and is not allowed to receive a salary from the local sponsor. They are only sent to you for a contractually agreed task which cannot be longer than 12 months.
As EP minimum salary requirements do not apply, PVPs cost significantly less, but come with two big tradeoffs:
- a PVP cannot exceed 12 months, and
- holders cannot bring dependents
Additionally, engaging a foreign company and sponsoring their employees can be more complicated than hiring directly depending on the task.
For more details, see our sister site’s full guide to PVP requirements and applications.
Residence Pass-Talent
Sample RP-T (yeah they all look the same)
Unlike EPs and PVPs, an RP-T is applied for and held by qualified individual foreign professionals who:
- have lived in Malaysia under a Category 1 EP for at least three years
- have a suitable background, and
- can satisfy the RM15,000 minimum monthly salary requirement
We’re grossly simplifying, but think of an RP-T holder as a Category 1 EP holder you can pay RM15,000 instead of RM20,000 per month!
Over a decade, that adds up to considerable savings, so if a company who needs to hire for a Category 1 EP role doesn’t yet have a candidate in mind, they might want to expand their search to include suitable RP-T holders!
One practical consideration is that unlike an EP, RP-T holders have full freedom to switch companies at any time.
This should be taken into consideration, but if you believe RM15,000 is a competitive wage for a role and your company wasn’t planning on exploiting your expat’s soft shackle, an RP-T holder is not just cheaper, but has the advantage of already being in Malaysia!
For more details, see our parent site’s full guide to RP-T requirements and applications.
Let MISHU handle your professional visa application
Our team maintains a 98% success rate across our Employment Pass applications and renewals across all three EP categories and can provide end-to-end foreign talent hiring assistance from ESD account registration to securing MyFutureJobs support letters, handling Immigration queries on your behalf, and more.