Retirement age in Malaysia: the Minimum Retirement Age Act

Section 4 of Act 753 sets the minimum retirement age at the employee attaining the age of sixty, and lets the Minister prescribe a higher age by notice in the Gazette. Section 5 stops an employer from retiring an employee before that age; an employer who does commits an offence, with a fine of up to ten thousand ringgit. Any contract or collective agreement with a lower retirement age is void on that point and replaced by the Act's minimum.

Section 6 keeps a door open the other way: an employee may retire at an optional retirement age agreed in the contract or collective agreement.

Source: jtksm.mohr.gov.my: Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 (Act 753), as at 1 November 2016, sections 4 to 7, read 17 October 2026.

The Schedule lists people the Act does not apply to. Among them:

• "a non-citizen employee";
• people paid by the federal or a state government, a statutory body or a local authority;
• people on probation, apprentices and domestic servants;
• people working no more than seventy per cent of normal full-time hours;
• people on a fixed-term contract of no more than twenty-four months, and on contracts of up to sixty months paying basic wages of twenty thousand ringgit a month or more.

If you are a foreign national working in Malaysia, your retirement terms come from your contract, not from this Act.

Source: jtksm.mohr.gov.my: Minimum Retirement Age Act 2012 (Act 753), Schedule, read 17 October 2026.

Act 753 is employment law. It says nothing about moving to Malaysia to retire on income from elsewhere. If that is your plan, our guides to pharmacies in Malaysia and bringing medication to Malaysia cover two of the practical first steps.

If your plans include private health cover, timing matters: Regency's international health plans accept new applicants up to age 70, and Essential Health up to 80. Pre-existing conditions are excluded, and cover is governed by the policy wording. We are an insurance introducer, not an insurer.