Grab driver income tax Malaysia: do you pay?

Do Grab and e-hailing drivers really pay income tax?

Yes. If you drive for Grab, InDrive, AirAsia Ride, or any e-hailing or delivery platform, that money is taxable income in Malaysia, whether you drive full-time or just weekends for extra cash. It does not matter that no one deducted tax from your payouts and that you never got an EA form. You are treated as running a small business, so the responsibility to declare it is yours. Whether you actually owe anything is a separate question, and the answer is often less than drivers fear.

Which form do I file, Form B or Form BE?

Form B. Form BE is for people whose only income is a salary. The moment you have business income, which is exactly what e-hailing is, you move to Form B (the online version is called e-B). If you also have a regular job on the side, you still file one Form B: your salary goes in the employment section and your driving profit goes in the business section, and they are taxed together. You do not file two forms. See our Form B vs Form BE guide if you are unsure which camp you are in.

When is the deadline?

30 June 2026 for Form B, or 15 July 2026 if you file online through MyTax (e-B), for income you earned in 2025. Filing is online only now, through the MyTax portal at mytax.hasil.gov.my. Miss it and LHDN can charge a late penalty on top of the tax, so even if your sums come to zero, get the form in. Our Form B deadline guide has the full calendar and what happens if you are late.

What expenses can a Grab driver deduct?

This is where drivers leave money on the table. You are taxed on your profit, not your gross fares, so every reasonable cost of earning that income comes off first. For an e-hailing driver the common deductible costs are:

• Petrol or charging for the kilometres you drive for work
• The platform's cut, meaning Grab's commission and booking fees
• Servicing, repairs, tyres, car wash, engine oil
• Tolls and parking while on a job
• Phone and mobile data, the share you use for driving
• Car insurance and road tax, the share that covers your driving use
• Interest on your car loan (the interest portion only, not the repayment of the loan itself)
• PSV licence and e-hailing permit (EVP) renewal costs

Two honest cautions. First, if you also use the car privately, you can only claim the business-use share. A common, defensible approach is to log your work kilometres versus total kilometres and apply that percentage. Second, the repayment of the car loan principal is not deductible, only the interest is. If your RM800 monthly instalment includes RM120 of interest, it's the RM120 that counts.

Can I claim the cost of the car itself?

Not all at once, but yes, over time, through something called capital allowance. The car is a business asset, so instead of deducting the full price in one year you claim a slice each year: an initial allowance of 20% plus an annual allowance of 20% of the qualifying cost. There is a cap on how much of the car's price qualifies: RM100,000 for a new vehicle costing RM150,000 or less, and RM50,000 for anything above that. As with running costs, if the car is part-private you scale the allowance down to your business-use share. This is the one part most drivers miss, and it can be worth a few hundred ringgit of tax a year.

How does LHDN even know what I earned?

Assume they can find out, because increasingly they can. Platforms keep records and issue an annual earnings statement (Grab calls it the Annual Partner Statement) that shows exactly what they paid you. LHDN is also building a system that pulls transaction data from the national e-invoice platform. And the old-fashioned route still works: a lifestyle that doesn't match a "no income" declaration, a new car, a property, can trigger a review. Declaring properly and keeping your receipts is simply the cheapest, calmest way to live.

Saving for retirement that also cuts your tax: i-Saraan

Because no employer pays EPF for you, you can contribute to EPF yourself through i-Saraan, and it does double duty. Your voluntary contribution counts toward tax relief (it sits in the combined life insurance and voluntary EPF relief, capped at RM3,000), and on top of that the government tops up 20% of what you put in, up to RM500 a year. It's one of the few things that builds your savings and trims your tax at the same time. Worth setting up.

A real example: RM60,000 of fares, two very different bills

Meet a full-time driver who earned RM60,000 in fares in 2025. The only difference between the two outcomes below is record-keeping.

Now the same driver who kept no records: he panics near the deadline and declares the full RM60,000 with no expenses, claiming only the RM9,000 individual relief. His chargeable income is RM51,000, and the YA 2025 rates put his bill at about RM1,610, with no rebate because he is above RM35,000. Same fares, same car. The gap, RM1,610 versus nothing, is the whole argument for keeping records the moment you start driving. (Rates: YA 2025 resident schedule.)