Malaysia's Controversial New MM2H REVEALED

I love Malaysia but the fact they keep changing the MM2H rules every six months and different departments (tourism, immigration) can't seem to agree upon a program, and basically eliminated the entire visa option for retirees, is enough to keep me away. I'm 63 and that's too old to lock up my savings in a Malaysian bank with low interest rates and buy property I can't sell for 10 years, and then risk being kicked out sometime in the future when they change the rules again.

I really want to retire to Malaysia with my wife, but we didn't want to purchase a home until we knew the region that we wanted to stay, and now they are forcing the issue. They don't even list a time frame to purchase the property. It also takes time to find, negotiate, fund, and close on a home. If there is a requirement, then are we not legally allowed to stay in country after the 90 days? They are changing things far too often and it's intimidating. There is so much room for error here. I can't tell you how much this saddens me, Malaysia looked perfect for us.

"Go where you're treated best"?...well, that ain't Malaysia anymore.

With SILVER you can own a Malaysia house for 10 or more years on the condition that you freeze 150k USD savings in Malay currency for 5 years. As a bonus, if you spend 25% of your time in Malaysia, you'll also maintain a residence permit for up to 5 years. After that you can continue visiting your property with a tourist visa. You are allowed to sell your Malaysia 2nd home only after 10 years, and are then not allowed to buy another one unless you enrol again in some new and possibly inflated variation of the program.  - Not very attractive for a committed expat, as after 5 years you'll anyway be back on tourist visas.  - Not very attractive from an investing point of view either.  - And definitely not attractive for retirees, who want to settle for good, and usually want to use their savings for living as opposed to freezing their money in a MYR bank account, and having to submit applications to the government in order to use 50% of their hard-earned cash savings.

Buying a depreciating real asset while locking up your capital in Ringgit creates a twofold financial disadvantage. This scenario significantly inflates the actual cost of the visa beyond its apparent price tag.

I love Malaysia!!! 🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🇲🇾🫶🏻

This new thing about requiring MM2H applicants to buy a properly is borderline crazy.

Thank you for the info. Malaysia is one if the best option for people escaping south korea.

Love Malaysia and frequently go through it when I am holidays and doing business in South East Asia I was seriously thinking of making it a base but the MM2H program is unattractive and it keeps getting worse. Locking myself into something that keeps changing for the worse is not something I'm going to go out on a limb and pay for. Who knows what it will be like next. I can't even justify MM2H as a long term investment as there is no residency at the end of it anyway. The Malaysian option obliges me to go for 90 days each and every year - I don't see anything positive... It's now a big fat pass for me.

When I looked at this a year ago, the only SEZ housing I could find was in Forest City, a large planned community on the waterfront across from Singapore built by a Chinese developer. Indonesia's "my second home" visa option seemed more attractive because it's apparently convertible to permanent residency after a number of years. And you can live in Batam, a 45-minute ferry ride from Singapore across the strait (so, very close to southern Malaysia).