Income tax refund Malaysia: how long and how to check

How long does a tax refund take in Malaysia?

LHDN commits to a clear service standard: an income tax refund is paid within 30 working days after e-Filing submission, and within 90 working days after a manual (paper) submission. Working days means Monday to Friday, excluding weekends and public holidays, so 30 working days is roughly six calendar weeks.

The clock starts when you submit a complete return, not when the filing season opens. File your e-BE or e-B on 10 July with everything in order, and you are looking at a refund somewhere around late August. File the same return on paper and it could be November. Filing early also beats the queue: refunds for a year of assessment start being credited in stages from around March, so the earlier and cleaner your return, the earlier you are in that batch.

How you get paid, and the number one reason refunds stall

LHDN pays refunds by direct bank transfer into the account you gave in your return. This is why the single most common reason a refund goes missing is a wrong, closed or missing bank account number. If the details do not match or the account is inactive, the transfer bounces and your refund sits in limbo until you fix it.

If you never provided bank details at all, LHDN falls back to a refund voucher, which you then have to cash at a CIMB branch, slower and more hassle than a transfer. The fix is simple and worth two minutes: log into MyTax and check that the bank account on file is correct, active and in your own name before you assume the delay is LHDN's fault.

How to check your refund status on MyTax

You do not need to call anyone to see where your refund is. Everything you need is in the same portal you filed on, in this order.

• Log in at mytax.hasil.gov.my. Sign in with your identification number and password, and you land on your MyTax dashboard.
• Open your tax ledger, e-Lejar. The ledger is your account with LHDN: what has been assessed for each year of assessment, what you have paid, and what is still outstanding. A refund that has been processed shows there, and so does the opposite, tax still owing for another year, which is what a set-off looks like when a smaller amount than you expected arrives.
• Re-read the summary of the return you submitted. The last screen of the e-BE or e-B, the Summary or Rumusan, is where LHDN states the outcome. It ends either with a balance of tax payable or with tax paid in excess, and tax paid in excess is your refund. If yours says tax payable, no refund is coming however much PCB was deducted during the year.
• Check the account the money is meant to go to. Inside the form itself, on the Other Particulars screen, there is a method of payment for tax refund section: a bank dropdown plus your account number, and the account has to be active and not a joint account. DuitNow is the other option. This is the first field to correct if nothing has landed.

One thing employees miss on that same screen: it asks whether the tax is borne by your employer, and answering yes makes the refund payable to the employer instead of to you. Worth checking that the answer matches your actual arrangement.

If the ledger shows the refund processed, your bank details are correct, and still nothing has arrived, the next step is the LHDN branch that holds your file, not another look at the screen.

Why is my refund late?

If it has been longer than 30 working days and nothing has landed, run through this list before worrying:

• Bank details are wrong or missing. The top cause. Check and correct them in MyTax.
• Your return is under review. LHDN may hold a refund while it checks the figures or asks for documents. A larger-than-usual refund is more likely to be looked at.
• You have other tax arrears. If you owe tax for another year, LHDN can set your refund off against that debt, so you receive less or nothing rather than a payout.
• You filed on paper. That is the 90-working-day lane, not the 30-working-day one.
• You filed right at the deadline. A return submitted in the 15 July crush sits behind everyone else's; the batch simply takes time to clear.

LHDN can owe you interest if it is too late

Here is the part few people know. Under Section 111D of the Income Tax Act, if LHDN pays your refund later than the period the law allows, it must pay you a 2% compensation on the amount, calculated for the delay. The important catch: this does not apply when the delay is your own doing, such as wrong bank details or a return being reviewed. So it rewards the taxpayer who filed cleanly and on time. It is rarely triggered in practice, but it exists, and it is worth quoting if a clean refund drags on with no explanation.

What to do if your refund has not arrived

Once the 30 working days (e-Filing) or 90 working days (paper) have genuinely passed, and your bank details in MyTax are correct, the next step is to contact the LHDN branch that holds your file, quoting your income tax reference number. Do not just wait indefinitely, a stuck refund almost always needs one small thing corrected, and LHDN will not know your account bounced unless the record flags it.

If the delay is because your return is under review, the fastest route to your money is giving LHDN whatever supporting documents they ask for, promptly. This is exactly where keeping tidy records pays off twice: once to claim the reliefs that created the refund, and again to release it quickly if questioned. If you are still catching up from a late filing, see our guide on filing after the deadline.