You can register a Sarawak-based Sdn Bhd through SSM for RM1,000 in government incorporation fees, but that number alone gets you nowhere near legally open for business in Kuching. You still need a trading licence from the right local council, a licensed company secretary on retainer, and, if you’re not a Malaysian citizen or permanent resident, a company structure that isn’t the RM30 sole-proprietorship route most Malaysians default to.
I haven’t started a business in Kuching myself, and I’d rather say that plainly than fake the experience. What follows is pieced together from SSM’s own guidance, Sarawak’s licensing rules, and conversations with people who’ve actually done it here, checked against official sources wherever the details get sharp.
The short version: choose between an Sdn Bhd and the sole-proprietorship route open to locals, sort your Sarawak trading licence separately from your SSM paperwork, then budget for what changes the day you hire your first employee.
TL;DR
- Registering an Sdn Bhd costs RM1,000 in SSM incorporation fees alone; a company secretary adds roughly RM1,500 to RM4,000 in realistic first-year costs on top of that.
- Sole proprietorships and partnerships (RM30 to RM60 a year through SSM) are open only to Malaysian citizens and permanent residents, which rules out most foreigners entirely; in Sarawak they register through a state registry rather than SSM anyway.
- A Kuching trading licence doesn’t come from SSM. It comes from your local council: DBKU, MBKS, or MPP, depending on which side of the river or which district your premises sits in.
- Sarawak runs its own immigration system, so a federal Employment Pass doesn’t automatically let you legally work in the company you’ve just registered.
- Hire your first employee and EPF, SOCSO, the minimum wage, and Sarawak’s own labour law all apply from day one, not once the business feels established.
- Some trading-licence categories are effectively closed to non-citizens, and there’s no single published fee list covering every council and every trade.
What Are the Four Business Structures in Malaysia, and Which One Can You Actually Use?
Malaysia has four main ways to structure a business, and they aren’t equally open to you depending on your passport.
| Structure | Who can register it | Foreign ownership |
|---|---|---|
| Sole proprietorship | Citizens & PRs only | Not available to foreigners |
| Partnership | Citizens & PRs only | Not available to foreigners |
| Limited liability partnership (LLP) | Foreigners allowed, with conditions | Yes, with a citizen or PR compliance officer |
| Private limited company (Sdn Bhd) | Foreigners allowed | Up to 100% in most sectors |
For a Malaysian citizen or permanent resident, the sole proprietorship is the easy option: RM30 a year under your own name, RM60 under a trade name, and typically approved within a day through SSM’s EzBiz portal (in Peninsular Malaysia, at least; Sarawak does this its own way, which we’ll get to).
Is an Sdn Bhd a sole proprietorship, then? No, and the difference matters more than the paperwork suggests. A sole proprietorship has no legal identity separate from its owner, so business debts are personal debts. An Sdn Bhd (Sendirian Berhad) is a private limited company with its own legal identity and limited liability.
If you don’t hold Malaysian citizenship or permanent residence, the top two rows of that table are closed to you, full stop. That leaves an LLP or, far more commonly, the Sdn Bhd, which is what almost every foreign-owned business in Kuching ends up using: up to 100% foreign ownership in most sectors, plus the liability protection a sole proprietorship can’t offer.
How Do You Register With SSM, and What Does It Cost?
SSM (Suruhanjaya Syarikat Malaysia, the Companies Commission of Malaysia) is the federal body that incorporates an Sdn Bhd, and the process is the same whether your registered address is in Kuching or Kuala Lumpur. The incorporation fee is a flat RM1,000, which covers the name application if you file for direct incorporation; reserving a name separately beforehand costs RM50 per name, per SSM’s own incorporation guidelines. Either way, about RM1,000 goes to the registrar itself.
Can you register a Sdn Bhd yourself, the way a Malaysian citizen self-serves a sole proprietorship online? Technically yes: directors can file the incorporation themselves through SSM’s MyCoID portal. But the law requires every Sdn Bhd to appoint a licensed company secretary within 30 days of incorporating, and in practice most founders, foreigners especially, have the secretary handle the filing, the constitution, and the annual return from the start.
Add the secretary’s fee, a registered office address, and the company kit, and a realistic first year runs RM1,500 to RM4,000 on top of the SSM fees, then RM800 to RM1,500 a year in secretarial retainer after that.
There’s also a resident-director requirement worth knowing before you get quotes: at least one director has to be “ordinarily resident” in Malaysia, which a citizen or PR meets automatically and a foreigner meets only while holding a valid long-term pass and actually living here. And Sarawak complicates it further: the state runs its own immigration system, so a federal Employment Pass alone doesn’t clear you to work in the company you’ve just incorporated.
One more wrinkle, specific to Sarawak, that the average “how to register a business in Malaysia” guide skips entirely: for citizens and PRs registering a sole proprietorship or partnership against a Sarawak trading address, the registration doesn’t run through the Registration of Businesses Act 1956 process SSM uses for Peninsular applicants at all.
Sarawak kept its own law, the Business Names Ordinance, and its own registry: the business-names counter in Kuching sits in the LHDN (Inland Revenue Board) office, and registration happens in person there, not through SSM’s EzBiz portal. Confirm the current counter procedure locally before assuming any online shortcut exists.
Do You Need a Business Licence, and Which Kuching Council Issues It?
Yes, a business licence is compulsory, and it’s a separate thing from SSM registration, which trips up a lot of new business owners here. SSM registers what your business is; the licence is what lets it legally open at a specific address, and it comes from your local council, not SSM.
Kuching splits across three councils, and which one issues your licence depends on where your premises sits. DBKU (Dewan Bandaraya Kuching Utara, dbku.sarawak.gov.my) covers the north side of the river; MBKS (Majlis Bandaraya Kuching Selatan, mbks.sarawak.gov.my) covers the south side, including most of the Padungan commercial strip; MPP (Majlis Perbandaran Padawan) covers the outer Padawan district, where a lot of newer developments and warehouses sit.
There is no single national fee. A basic premises licence typically runs in the low hundreds of ringgit a year, with a separate signboard licence and, for food businesses, a health and kitchen inspection stacked on top, and each counter wants slightly different documents before it will accept your form.
What Do You Owe Once You Hire Your First Employee?
The moment you hire anyone, even one person, Malaysia’s employment obligations apply, and Sarawak has its own version of several of them that a Peninsular-focused guide won’t mention.
For a Malaysian or PR employee, you contribute 12 to 13% of their wage to EPF on top of their salary, and they contribute 11%. For a foreign employee, both sides moved to a mandatory 2% only from October 2025; before that it was largely voluntary, and the account structure and registration steps for a foreign hire are fiddly enough to deserve their own walkthrough.
SOCSO adds a smaller obligation: roughly 1.75% from you and 0.5% from the employee, capped at a RM6,000 monthly wage ceiling, and it covers workplace injury and long-term invalidity rather than general healthcare. Foreign employees have been covered under the Employment Injury Scheme since 2019, so don’t assume a private insurance policy replaces what SOCSO already covers on the job.
Whatever else you pay, the basic wage for anyone you hire, citizen or foreigner, has to clear Malaysia’s national floor: the current RM1,700-a-month rate, with allowances and overtime excluded from that calculation. That applies in Kuching exactly as it applies in Kuala Lumpur; Sarawak lost its old, lower regional minimum wage back in 2019.
Here’s the one that catches employers moving a hire over from the Peninsula: the Employment Act 1955 doesn’t actually cover Sarawak. Employees here fall under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance instead, a separate statute administered by the Sarawak Labour Department.
Recent amendments have brought most entitlements (hours, leave, maternity and paternity among them) into close alignment nationwide, but an employment contract drafted for a KL office still cites the wrong statute in Kuching.
What Does the Realistic Cost and Timeline Actually Look Like?
| Step | Cost (RM) | Who you pay |
|---|---|---|
| SSM incorporation (Sdn Bhd) | 1,000 | SSM |
| Company secretary, first year | 1,500–4,000 | Licensed company secretary |
| Sarawak trading licence (premises + signboard) | Low hundreds, annually | DBKU, MBKS, or MPP |
| Ongoing company secretary retainer | 800–1,500, annually | Licensed company secretary |
Add it up and a straightforward foreign-owned Sdn Bhd in Kuching lands somewhere around RM2,500 to RM5,500 to get trading in year one, before you’ve hired anyone or paid a ringgit of rent on the premises itself. Compare that with the RM30 to RM60 a sole proprietorship costs a citizen or PR, and the gap is the plain, unavoidable price of being a foreigner running a business here.
A company secretary is a legal requirement, not an optional convenience, and the retainer bills you every year the company exists.
Some trading-licence categories are effectively closed to non-citizens, and a first-time licence application in Kuching runs slower than the tidy step-by-step guides suggest. Budget weeks of counter visits and patience with agencies that don’t reliably answer email, not a same-week turnaround.
For a lot of foreigners, starting a company is one of the few realistic routes into working here once a spouse’s posting, remote income, or retirement isn’t the reason you moved. And once the business earns its first ringgit of profit, when and how Malaysia taxes that income becomes the next question, with a filing deadline attached.
The paperwork itself is finite. Knowing which of these separate government relationships (SSM, your council, EPF, SOCSO, the wage floor, the Sarawak Labour Department) applies to your situation is the part worth getting right before you print business cards.
Last updated: July 2026. SSM incorporation fees, sole-proprietorship eligibility, and the Sarawak council licensing split checked against SSM and Sarawak local-council guidance; EPF, SOCSO, minimum wage, and Sarawak Labour Ordinance figures checked against KWSP, PERKESO, and Sarawak Labour Department published rates.