Everything You Can Claim as Income Tax Relief in Malaysia 2026 (Filing for YA 2025)

Tax reliefs reduce your chargeable income, which can lower the tax bracket you fall into or at least reduce the total tax you end up paying.

Even if your employer has already been deducting Monthly Tax Deduction (MTD) from your salary throughout the year, it’s still worth going through your reliefs properly. Your final tax payable is calculated after reliefs, deductions, and rebates. This is usually how refunds happen, when the amount deducted from your salary ends up being higher than the actual tax you owe.

As a general rule of thumb, if your annual employment income is around RM34,000 and above (after EPF deductions), you’ll likely need to file an income tax return.

To make things easier, here’s a clear breakdown of the tax reliefs, deductions, and rebates you can claim for YA 2025.

For most salaried individuals filing Form BE, this is the usual deadline:

If you have business income and file Form B, the deadline is later. Just make sure you check which form applies to your situation before filing.

Before we go through the list, it helps to understand the differences between these three categories.

Tax reliefs reduce your chargeable income, which is the amount used to calculate how much tax you need to pay. This is where most everyday expenses fall, including EPF contributions, insurance premiums, lifestyle purchases, medical bills, education fees, and child-related costs.

Tax deductions reduce your aggregate income before your chargeable income is calculated. In practice, most people encounter these through donation deductions or professional membership subscriptions.

Tax rebates are applied at the very end of the calculation. They reduce the actual tax you need to pay after your tax amount has already been determined.

Examples include the RM400 personal rebate, zakat and fitrah payments, and certain departure levy rebates.

The list below is based on LHDN’s YA 2025 tax relief summary for resident individuals.

As you go through your expenses, try to match each receipt with the correct relief category. One thing to watch out for is accidentally claiming the same expense twice under different categories.

It’s also a good idea to keep your supporting documents organised. Under the Income Tax Act 1967, taxpayers are required to retain relevant documents for seven years from the end of the year of assessment.

Before submitting your tax return, it’s worth taking a few minutes to double-check areas people commonly miss. Separating insurance categories properly, calculating SSPN net savings instead of total deposits, and remembering that the sports relief is separate from the general lifestyle relief can all make a difference.

If you’re filing for the first time, the process might feel a bit tedious, but once you understand how the relief categories work, it becomes much easier each year.

A simple way to approach it is to go through your receipts and spending from the past year and see what fits into the categories above. You might be surprised how many everyday expenses actually qualify for tax relief.

Once you’ve submitted your return, remember to keep your documents safely stored. Even if everything goes smoothly and you receive a refund, LHDN may still request supporting documents later on.

Taking some time now to review your reliefs properly can make filing season less stressful and may even put some money back in your pocket.