Malaysia Visa-Free for Indian Citizens: 30 Days, Until 31 December 2026

An Indian passport gets you into Malaysia without a visa for up to 30 days. That has been true since December 2023, it covers tourism, business, social visits and transit, and it costs nothing. It is one of the easiest entries in Asia for Indian travellers.

It is also temporary, and it is worth understanding why. India has not been moved onto Malaysia’s visa-free list. Open the Immigration Department’s visa-requirement page and India is still there among the countries that need a visa, with a footnote bolted on: visa exempt until 31 December 2026. The exemption is a date-limited waiver sitting on top of a visa requirement, and when the date passes the requirement underneath is what remains.

The expiry date is real, and India’s is shorter than China’s

Malaysia introduced this waiver for Indian and Chinese nationals together, under its visa liberalisation plan, from 1 December 2023. The two have since drifted apart. China’s arrangement was put on a longer footing and now runs for years under a mutual exemption agreement, with its own cumulative limits. India’s was extended to 31 December 2026 — timed to Malaysia’s ASEAN chairmanship and Visit Malaysia Year 2026 — and that is where it still ends.

On the date this guide was checked, four months out, nothing had been announced about 2027. That is not a prediction that it will lapse; renewals here have been announced late and more than once. It is a reason not to assume. If you are booking travel for January 2027 or beyond, the visa question is genuinely open, and the fallback is not expensive — the Department’s published visa fee for Indian nationals is RM50 for a single or multiple entry visa, and RM50 for transit.

Four things the counter expects from an Indian passport

This is where Malaysia is stricter than its reputation. The Malaysian High Commission in New Delhi does not describe the waiver as no-questions entry; it lists specific requirements for Indian passport holders to satisfy during security and immigration screening.

• A passport valid for at least six months. Malaysia’s general entry conditions ask for more than six months of validity, so treat six as the floor and not the target.
• Confirmed return flight tickets.
• A confirmed hotel booking. Stated plainly, and the one that catches people out. If you are staying with family or friends in Kuala Lumpur or Penang, you have nothing to show — so carry an address, a contact number and, ideally, a booking you can cancel later.
• A submitted Malaysia Digital Arrival Card. Compulsory, and covered in its own section below.

Beyond that list, Malaysia’s standard entry conditions apply to everyone: sufficient funds for the length of the stay, and not being recorded on the Immigration Department’s suspect list or as a prohibited immigrant. Nobody counts your money at the counter, but arriving with a one-way ticket and no accommodation is the combination that turns a wave-through into an interview.

The arrival card is free, compulsory, and cannot be filed early

Since 1 January 2024, most foreign travellers must submit the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card before entering. It replaced the paper card, it applies whether you arrive by air, land or sea, and Indian nationals are not on the exemption list — that list covers Singapore citizens, diplomatic and official passport holders, Malaysian permanent residents and long-term pass holders, and a handful of ASEAN border-pass holders.

• It costs nothing. There is no government fee for the MDAC, at any entry point, for any nationality.
• The window is the three days before arrival. You cannot get it out of the way a month ahead — the portal is built around a three-day window, which is precisely why people forget it. Set a reminder for three days before you fly.
• The only official address is imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main. Present the completed card with your passport at the counter.

Business is allowed. Work is not.

The waiver covers business travel, which trips up travellers who assume visa-free means tourist-only. What you receive on arrival is a Short Term Social Visit Pass, and the Immigration Department publishes exactly what it permits: social visits, visiting relatives, tourism, journalism, meetings and conferences, business discussions, factory inspections, auditing company accounts, signing agreements, surveying investment or factory-site opportunities, attending seminars, sitting university examinations, and taking part in sports competitions.

That is a generous list, and it stops well short of employment. Entering to take up a job, do paid work, or study still requires a visa — an eVISA or a visa with reference obtained before you travel — regardless of the waiver. The line is not the activity’s difficulty but whether you are being paid in Malaysia to do it.

The 30 days are not routinely extendable

Plan the trip to fit the pass. The Immigration Department’s position on extending a short-term social visit pass is that an extension may be given on special consideration — illness, an accident, war in the home country — with evidence, a confirmed onward ticket, form IMM.55 and an in-person appearance. It is a hardship mechanism, not a way to add a fortnight to a holiday.

Leaving and re-entering does give you a new pass, and unlike the Chinese arrangement there is no published cumulative cap on how many days an Indian national may spend in Malaysia across a period. But every entry is a fresh decision: Malaysia’s Home Minister has stated that each entry remains subject to prevailing conditions and the final assessment of the immigration officer. A day trip to Singapore to reset the clock, repeated, is a pattern officers recognise.

If you need longer, or you are going to work

For stays beyond 30 days, or for employment and study, the route is the official eVISA portal at malaysiavisa.imi.gov.my. Applications through appointed third-party visa handling agents were discontinued in May 2024, so the government portal is the channel. Published visa fees for Indian nationals are RM50 for a single or multiple entry visa and RM50 for transit; the eVISA adds its own processing charge on top of the visa fee.

The short version

• No visa for 30 days, for tourism or business, until 31 December 2026.
• File the free MDAC in the three days before you fly, only at the official portal, and pay nobody a government fee for it.
• Carry a passport with six months left, a return ticket and a hotel booking — the New Delhi mission lists all three.
• Do not plan on extending the 30 days, and re-check the rules before booking anything that lands in 2027.

Malaysia has made itself easy to visit on an Indian passport, and for the rest of 2026 the paperwork is genuinely just a free form filed three days out. The two ways to get this wrong are treating an expiry date as permanent, and paying a stranger for something the government gives away.