Your visa tier does not set the price floor. The state does.
Read almost any guide to Malaysia My Second Home and you will find the same figure: RM 600,000, the minimum property purchase under the Silver tier. It appears on consultancy sites, in relocation forums, and in a good deal of content written by people who have never bought anything in Malaysia.
It is a real number. It is also not the MM2H minimum property price that applies in most of the places a foreign buyer actually wants to live.
State minimum purchase prices for foreigners override the MM2H tier minimums. In Kuala Lumpur the floor is RM 1,000,000, roughly 244,000 US dollars. In the two most developed zones of Selangor it is RM 2,000,000. Your visa does not lower it.
Where the RM 600,000 figure comes from and what it actually does
MM2H sets a property purchase condition per tier: RM 600,000 for Silver, RM 1,000,000 for Gold, RM 2,000,000 for Platinum. That condition is a programme requirement, not a purchase entitlement.
Separately, every Malaysian state sets its own minimum price at which a non-citizen may acquire residential property, using powers that predate MM2H entirely and have nothing to do with it. Both rules apply at once, and the higher one wins.
So a Silver holder buying in Kuala Lumpur satisfies their MM2H condition at RM 600,000 and still cannot complete, because the state will not consent below RM 1,000,000. The result is a buyer who budgeted from the wrong number and finds out late.
The floors, state by state
| State | Strata | Landed |
|---|---|---|
| Kuala Lumpur | RM 1,000,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Selangor Zones 1 and 2 | RM 2,000,000 | RM 2,000,000 |
| Selangor Zone 3 | RM 1,000,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Penang island | RM 1,000,000 | RM 3,000,000 |
| Penang mainland | RM 500,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Johor | RM 1,000,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Sabah | RM 600,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Sarawak, Kuching | RM 600,000 | RM 600,000 |
| Sarawak, elsewhere | RM 500,000 | RM 500,000 |
| Melaka | RM 500,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Negeri Sembilan | RM 650,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Kedah mainland | RM 600,000 | RM 600,000 |
| Kedah, Langkawi | RM 1,000,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Pahang, Terengganu, Kelantan, Putrajaya, Labuan | RM 1,000,000 | RM 1,000,000 |
| Perlis | RM 500,000 | RM 500,000 |
Perak is currently listed at RM 1,000,000, described as revised upward from RM 500,000. We could not confirm that against a gazette notice or state circular, so treat it as unverified and check with the Perak land office before relying on it. If the revision is real, most of the cheap Ipoh stock that gets recommended to foreign buyers is closed to them, and a good deal of published advice about Perak is wrong.
Two structural traps inside the table
Selangor restricts foreigners to strata and landed-strata titles. Gated and guarded developments qualify. Ordinary individual-title landed housing does not, at any price. A buyer with RM 3 million and their heart set on a standard terrace in Petaling Jaya cannot have it.
Penang island sets RM 3,000,000 for landed property, the highest landed threshold in the country. That is worth sitting with, because Penang is routinely sold as the affordable alternative to Kuala Lumpur, and on rents it genuinely is. A central three-bedroom runs about RM 2,352 a month in Penang against RM 4,918 in KL. But if the plan is a house rather than an apartment, Penang island is the most expensive place in Malaysia to attempt it.
The mainland tells a different story. Seberang Perai allows strata purchase from RM 500,000, roughly 122,000 dollars, which is the joint-cheapest entry on the peninsula alongside Melaka and Perlis. It is a bridge from George Town and almost nobody writes about it.
What you also cannot buy
Regardless of budget or visa tier, foreigners are excluded from low-cost and medium-cost housing, units under the Bumiputera quota, Malay Reserved Land, and agricultural land.
State Authority consent is mandatory before any completion, and the consent fee runs between RM 3,000 and RM 35,000 depending on the state. Penang levies its own charge on approval. Budget for it as a real line item rather than a rounding error.
Why this matters more in 2026 than it did last year
Entry costs changed. From 1 January 2026, non-citizens pay a flat 8 per cent stamp duty on residential transfers under the Finance Act 2025, double the previous 4 per cent. On a RM 1,000,000 purchase, the KL floor, that is RM 80,000 before legal fees, valuation or consent.
A buyer working from RM 600,000 and a 4 per cent duty has budgeted RM 624,000. The real figure in Kuala Lumpur is RM 1,080,000 before anything else. That is not a small correction.
The exit is tighter too. Real Property Gains Tax for foreigners runs 30 per cent on gains within five years and 10 per cent from year six, and unlike citizens and permanent residents, foreigners never reach zero. MM2H participants also cannot sell for ten years.
The number to actually use
Work from the state floor, then check your MM2H tier satisfies it, not the other way round.
If the budget is genuinely around RM 600,000, the honest list is short: Penang mainland, Melaka, Perlis, or Sarawak outside Kuching, all on strata. Sabah at RM 600,000 is possible. Kuala Lumpur, Selangor, Johor and Penang island are not.
That is a narrower field than most people expect, and knowing it now is considerably cheaper than discovering it after a deposit.
None of this makes Malaysia a bad buy. Freehold title in a foreigner’s own name, with no building quota and no thirty-year clock, is rare in the region. Thailand caps foreign ownership at 49 per cent of a condominium building and bars land outright. Vietnam grants fifty years, renewable once, and never the land. Indonesia offers no freehold to foreigners at all. Singapore does allow foreign freehold on condominiums, but charges non-residents 60 per cent additional buyer’s stamp duty and gates landed property behind case-by-case approval.
Malaysia asks 8 per cent and a state minimum. On that comparison it holds up well. It just rewards people who did the arithmetic before they fell in love with a floor plan.
Bought in Malaysia recently, or hit a state threshold nobody warned you about? Tell us how it went. We update these guides from reader experience as often as from official sources.
Where these figures come from
State thresholds and consent fees are compiled from Malaysian property guides published February and March 2026 and cross-checked against iProperty. Stamp duty figures come from the Finance Act 2025, which received Royal Assent on 27 December 2025. Real Property Gains Tax rates and the 7 per cent retention rule are per LHDN guidance current at March 2026. MM2H tier conditions are from the official programme site at mm2h.gov.my. Cost of living comparisons are Numbeo, crowd-sourced and indicative rather than audited.
Thresholds change without much announcement. Confirm yours with the relevant state authority before you commit to anything.
Figures converted at approximately RM 4.09 to the US dollar, the rate cited in mid-2026 sources. Thresholds and rates stated as at August 2026. This is general information, not legal or tax advice. Confirm state thresholds and consent requirements with the relevant state authority before committing to a purchase.
Looking at a purchase in Malaysia?
Tell us the budget and the state you have in mind, and we will point you at people who deal with these thresholds every week.
