HASiL Is Publishing Two Answers on Employment Contract Stamping

HASiL publishes a frequently asked questions document on stamping employment contracts in Malaysia, last updated 3 July 2025. It says that every employment contract must be stamped, that every renewal is a fresh instrument, that an addendum as ordinary as an IT usage policy attracts duty, and that you have 30 days from signature to get it done.

HASiL also published a media release on 7 August 2026. It says employment contracts at or below RM3,000 a month need neither stamping nor endorsement, and that above that figure only the principal contract does.

Both were live on HASiL’s own website on 27 August 2026. Neither mentions the other. The page listing the 2025 document was last modified on 22 June 2026, so it was never revisited after the release.

If you are the person deciding what your company does with its offer letters next week, this is the problem, and no document solves it for you. What follows is what each position says, where they collide, and the one hard deadline that applies whichever way you read them.

Position one: the 2025 FAQ, and it has teeth

Start with the consequence, because it is the part most employers do not know. Under section 52 of the Stamp Act 1949, an instrument that is not duly stamped is inadmissible in evidence in court. HASiL states this directly. If you ever need to enforce a restrictive covenant, a bond, or a notice period against a departing employee, an unstamped contract is a problem before you reach the merits.

With that in mind, here is what the document requires.

Every employment contract is stampable. An employment contract creates the relationship between employer and employee, and must be stamped and is liable to duty under the First Schedule, per subsection 4(1) and the section 2 definition of an instrument as any written document.

Including the ones you would not think of. Temporary, short-term, casual and contract-worker contracts are all covered. So is an offer letter to a trainee on a three to six month placement receiving only an allowance, if it evidences an employer and employee relationship.

An offer letter can be the contract. Where the offer letter is the only document binding the relationship, it is the employment contract instrument liable to duty.

Every renewal is a fresh instrument. In HASiL’s words, every new employment contract agreement is treated as a separate instrument and must be stamped.

Addendums count. HASiL states that an addendum is an instrument subject to duty, and gives three examples: an information technology usage policy and a benefits explanation letter, both dutiable because they are binding agreements, and a study offer sponsored by the employer, dutiable under sub-item 22(4).

You have 30 days. The contract must be submitted for assessment within 30 days of the date it is signed in Malaysia, or within 30 days of the date it is received in Malaysia if signed abroad. Duty is payable within 14 days, or such period as the Collector allows.

RM10, per original copy. An employment contract carrying the usual features of an employment relationship attracts RM10 under item 4 of the First Schedule, for each original copy. Where an instrument does not fall under item 4, it is treated as a contract for services under item 22(1)(a) instead. A duplicate under section 12 attracts RM10, provided the original was properly stamped.

The employer pays. Liability follows section 33 and the Third Schedule, which put it on the first person to sign. HASiL notes the employer normally signs the offer letter first.

Miss the window and there are two separate exposures. Under section 63, a fine may be imposed on a person who executes an instrument that is not stamped. Separately, late stamping carries a penalty of RM50 or 10 per cent of the deficient duty, whichever is higher, if stamped within three months after the 30 day period, and RM100 or 20 per cent in any other case.

And there is a dated timeline, which the August release does not have. Citing a media release of 5 June 2025:

Exempt pre-2025 contracts may still be submitted for assessment and endorsement to obtain an exemption certificate, at no fee, because the RM10 endorsement fee under subsection 37(2A) bites only where the duty exceeds RM10.

One procedural trap worth knowing. The stamp certificate has to be printed and attached to the original document. HASiL states that a document is not treated as stamped if the certificate is not attached to it.

Position two: the 7 August 2026 release

The release, titled Layanan Duti Setem Bagi Surat Cara Penggajian Serta Surat Cara Di Bawah Kategori Pengecualian Dan Pengecualian Am, sets out three positions.

(a) Instruments in the Pengecualian category, including employment contracts at or below RM3,000 a month, need neither stamping nor endorsement. HASiL’s wording is that all instruments listed under the Pengecualian category in the First Schedule, including instruments for employment contracts with monthly remuneration (saraan bulanan) not exceeding RM3,000, do not need to be stamped and endorsed.

(b) Instruments in the Pengecualian Am category still need endorsement. These are instruments exempted under section 35 of the Stamp Act 1949. HASiL says they must still be submitted for endorsement, so that only certain parties and eligible instruments can claim the exemption. Exempt from duty is not the same as exempt from process.

(c) Above RM3,000, only the principal instrument is stamped. For employment contract instruments with monthly remuneration exceeding RM3,000, HASiL says only the principal instrument or master contract (surat cara utama atau kontrak induk) containing the terms and conditions of employment between employer and employee needs to be stamped and endorsed. Ancillary instruments relating to the same employment do not.

HASiL states the purpose plainly: to give taxpayers clarity, uniformity and certainty on the stamp duty treatment of these documents.

Where the two collide

The RM3,000 threshold appears nowhere in the 2025 FAQ, and nothing in it exempts an employment contract by salary level. The two positions sit side by side, and HASiL has not said which one governs.

Where the June guideline sits

Between the two, on 30 June 2026, HASiL published a technical guideline on stamp duty for First Schedule instruments, reference LHDN.AG.600-1/10/3.

Two points from it hold regardless. Paragraph 1.3 says duty is determined by the content and legal effect of the document and not by its name, and the disclaimer repeats that duty is imposed on the instrument’s content rather than its name. Paragraph 1.4 records that First Schedule instruments are submitted to the Collector of Stamp Duties in the Stamp Duty Return Form through the e-Duti Setem system on MyTax.

Part G puts instruments outside the lease, share transfer, real property, business transfer, other transfer and securities categories into general stamping, at a fixed RM10 not calculated on any value stated in the document, with the signing party liable under subsection 33(b).

Item 4.10 then lists 25 examples of employment agreements in that category, in this order:

1. Addendum to Employment Agreement
2. Agreement - Foreign Worker Are Allowed to Work with Other Company
3. Appointment Letter
4. Assignment Letter
5. Borang Perjanjian Guru Kelas Al Quran dan Fardhu Ain (KAFA)
6. Borang Perjanjian Kementerian Pertahanan Malaysia
7. Borang Perjanjian Pegawai Kontrak
8. Borang Perjanjian Pegawai Kontrak (Pelantikan Pertama)
9. Borang Perjanjian Perlantikan Kakitangan Kontrak Personel MySTEP
10. Borang Permohonan Pegawai Kontrak
11. Certificate of Acceptance of Appointment
12. Confirmation of Employment
13. Confirmation of Secondment Assignment
14. Employee’s Training Agreement
15. Employees Training Program Scheme Agreement
16. Employment Agreement
17. Employment Bond Agreement
18. Extension of District Sales Agent Agreement
19. Extension of Employment Contract
20. Letter of Acknowledgement
21. Letter of Employment
22. Letter of Offer for Employment
23. Perjanjian Pegawai Lantikan Secara Kontrak
24. Pengesahan Jawatan Pekerjaan
25. Pengesahan Pekerja Syarikat

Numbers 5, 6 and 9 are unmistakably government forms, naming KAFA religious classes, the Ministry of Defence and the MySTEP programme. Numbers 7, 8, 10 and 23 are contract officer appointment forms of the kind used across the public service and statutory bodies. Many of the rest are documents an ordinary Malaysian employer generates every time it hires someone. The guideline states expressly that its examples are not exhaustive and are drawn from taxpayer submissions through e-Duti Setem.

The guideline also lists duty exemptions under the First Schedule by item number, at items 2, 4, 58 and 59, without setting out any content for them and without naming any monetary threshold. Item 4 is the item under which employment contracts attract RM10. It is a reasonable reading that the release’s RM3,000 relief is the exemption sitting under item 4, but no document says so, and you should not build a workflow on that reading without asking HASiL.

What HASiL has not said

There is no effective date on the August release. None in its title, its body or its closing material. It does not say whether it states a position that has always applied, introduces one from 7 August 2026, or applies from some other date.

It does not say what it supersedes. It does not mention the 2025 FAQ, the June 2025 media release that FAQ relies on, or the June 2026 guideline.

There is no refund position. The release is silent on whether duty or penalties already paid on instruments it now describes as not requiring stamping can be refunded or credited, and gives no route for asking.

Saraan bulanan is not defined. The release does not say whether monthly remuneration means basic salary alone, or includes fixed allowances, commissions, overtime or benefits in kind. For an employee near the line, that is the difference between stamping and not stamping.

The principal instrument test does not reach a multi-document case. The release gives one criterion, that the instrument contains the terms and conditions of employment between employer and employee. That is enough where a single agreement carries everything, and the 2025 FAQ answers the simplest case by saying that where the offer letter is the only binding document, the offer letter is the contract. Neither settles which document governs where the terms are split across an offer letter, an acceptance, a handbook, a variation letter and a secondment agreement.

Two points on the status of the release. It is a media release issued by HASiL’s Corporate Services Department. It is not a public ruling, a practice note, an operational guideline or a gazetted amendment to the Stamp Act 1949. And HASiL has issued no public ruling and no practice note on the subject, and has not reissued the June guideline to reflect it.

If you have unstamped contracts, there is a programme closing on 31 December

This is the part most employers need, and neither the release nor the FAQ timeline puts it in front of you.

HASiL operates a Special Voluntary Disclosure Programme for stamp duty, the PKPS Duti Setem 2026, with special penalty treatment under section 47A set out in operational guideline GPHDN 1/2026, reference LHDN.BA.B.600-12/23/2, updated 29 June 2026 and effective from 1 January 2026.

The terms, from the guideline itself:

• It runs from 1 January 2026 to 31 December 2026, the second half being a six month extension from 1 July.
• It covers instruments executed between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025.
• Those instruments qualify for penalty remission under subsection 47A(2).
• Stamping and payment must be made during 2026, and final payment must be made on or before 31 December 2026.
• No appeal application is needed. The penalty is remitted automatically when the duty is paid. It will still display on the Stamp Duty Return Form or the notice of assessment, and is written off during payment.
• Instruments stamped under the programme will not be audited, although that does not protect other instruments.
• It does not apply to cases involving fraud, and it does not cover instruments executed in 2026 or stamped from 1 January 2027.

For scale, the guideline’s worked scenarios show a penalty of RM200 remitted on RM1,000 of duty, and RM16,000 remitted on RM80,000.

Check the date twice. HASiL also publishes a frequently asked questions sheet on this programme, updated 28 January 2026, which states that it runs to 30 June 2026. That sheet predates the extension. The operational guideline of 29 June 2026 and HASiL’s media release of 26 June 2026 both carry the programme through to 31 December 2026. If you land on the January sheet, you will think you have already missed it.

Note how the programme interacts with the FAQ’s second band. An employment contract finalised during 2025 that was not stamped by 31 December 2025 fell outside that band’s penalty remission. On the face of the PKPS guideline, which covers all instruments executed between 1 January 2023 and 31 December 2025 without carving out employment contracts, the same document may still obtain remission if it is stamped and paid for during 2026. Neither document cross-references the other, so that is our reading rather than a stated position. Confirm it with HASiL before relying on it.

What to do this week

Count what you have never stamped from 2023 to 2025, and act before 31 December. That is the hard deadline in this article, it applies on either reading, and penalty remission is automatic with no application to make. Contracts executed in 2026 do not qualify and need dealing with separately.

Start the 30 day clock on anything you sign from here. Whichever position you follow for older documents, a contract signed today has 30 days to be submitted for assessment, and duty is payable within 14 days after that.

Decide which position you are working to, and write down why. You cannot follow both. If you go with the August release, record that you did and on what date, because the 2025 FAQ is the one with dates and penalties attached.

Find your RM3,000 population. Split your headcount at RM3,000 monthly on whatever definition your payroll uses. If a meaningful number sit close to the line, the undefined meaning of saraan bulanan is your live risk, and it is worth putting to HASiL on your specific facts.

Identify your principal instrument, per hiring pattern. For each standard pattern you run, decide which single document contains the terms and conditions of employment. Write down the decision and the reasoning. If the offer letter is your only binding document, the FAQ already says that is the contract.

Do not drop endorsement for Pengecualian Am instruments. Point (b) is the trap in the release. If any of your documents sit in that category, they still go in.

Check your certificates are attached. A stamped document whose certificate was never printed and attached to the original is not treated as stamped.

If you have paid duty you now think you did not owe, ask rather than assume. The release says nothing either way. Take the instruments and receipts to the Hasil Contact Centre on 03-8911 1000, HASiL Live Chat, or the customer feedback form on the HASiL portal.

If you would like help mapping your employment document set against both positions, and working out what falls inside the disclosure programme before it closes, we are happy to work through it with you.

Sources: HASiL, Soalan Lazim (FAQ) Penyeteman Kontrak Penggajian Di Malaysia, updated 3 July 2025; HASiL media release, Layanan Duti Setem Bagi Surat Cara Penggajian Serta Surat Cara Di Bawah Kategori Pengecualian Dan Pengecualian Am, dated 7 August 2026; HASiL technical guideline LHDN.AG.600-1/10/3, Garis Panduan Pengenaan Duti Setem Bagi Surat Cara Yang Tertakluk Kepada Jadual Pertama Akta Setem 1949, dated 30 June 2026; HASiL operational guideline GPHDN 1/2026, LHDN.BA.B.600-12/23/2, Layanan Khas Penalti Di Bawah Seksyen 47A Akta Setem 1949 Bagi Program Khas Pengakuan Sukarela Duti Setem 2026, updated 29 June 2026. All retrieved 27 August 2026. This article is general information current as at that date and is not tax or legal advice. HASiL’s 2025 employment contract guidance and its 7 August 2026 release state different positions and neither refers to the other, so confirm the live position with HASiL before changing a stamping workflow or relying on the disclosure programme.