A Malaysian eVISA, explained properly
Malaysia is one of the easiest visas on this site to get and one of the easiest to get wrong. The application itself is short, online and decided in under a week. But three of the numbers most widely quoted for it in Pakistan are either out of date or were never published by Malaysia at all.
So this page does something slightly unusual: where the Immigration Department has not published a figure, we say that, rather than borrowing a number from somewhere else.
Which visa you need, and the two that are not open to you
Pakistan is on the Immigration Department's list of countries whose nationals require a visa to enter Malaysia. For a social visit — tourism, visiting family, a short business trip — the route is the eVISA, which Malaysia makes compulsory for a specific group of 31 nationalities. Pakistan is one of them.
Two routes people ask about are not available:
- eNTRI is not open to Pakistanis. Malaysia publishes exactly two eNTRI facilities, one for Indian nationals and one for nationals of mainland China. Pakistan is in neither, and both of the department's own eNTRI pages still carry validity windows that expired years ago.
- There is no visa on arrival for Pakistani passport holders. Pakistan does not appear on the 51-country list of nationalities exempt from a visa for any purpose of entry.
A paper sticker visa from the High Commission exists as a fallback, but Malaysia positions it narrowly — for travel documents the eVISA system cannot accept, or where an applicant genuinely cannot use the portal. For an ordinary Pakistani passport, the eVISA is the route.
There is exactly one official website
The Immigration Department states it in capitals: https://malaysiavisa.imi.gov.my is the only official eVISA website. Every other site offering a Malaysian eVISA is a reseller charging a markup on a RM 125 government process.
We will say the uncomfortable part out loud, because it applies to us too. Malaysia's own guidance is that it is not recommended to have someone else apply on your behalf, and the department disclaims responsibility for third-party applications, official or otherwise. So on a Malaysian file our work is preparing and checking your documents and walking you through the portal — the account and the submission stay yours.
What it really costs
The price is published in pieces, and the government's share is the smallest of them.
| Charge | Amount | Who receives it |
|---|---|---|
| Visa fee — Pakistan | RM 20 | Government of Malaysia, at the rate set by the Fees (Passport and Visas) Order 1967 |
| Processing charge | RM 105 | The eVISA system — charged to every applicant of every nationality |
| Convenience charge, card | 0.8% of the total | Payment channel |
| Convenience charge, e-wallet | 1.7% of the total | Payment channel |
| Total, paying by card | About RM 126 | — |
Two things follow from that table. The visa itself is cheap; the system around it is not. And because the processing charge is flat, a family of four pays it four times — there is no family cap in the Malaysian system of the kind Canada operates.
Payment is online only, by card or e-wallet, and the portal is explicit that all payments are strictly non-refundable, regardless of the application outcome. There is no cash counter and no bank challan.
Source and date. Visa fee from the Immigration Department's published visa fee table; processing and convenience charges from the official eVISA portal's own fee schedule, read 11 October 2026. Figures are in Malaysian ringgit, which is the currency the portal charges in — it publishes no US dollar price. Fees go to the Malaysian authorities, not to Breeze, and Malaysia can raise or lower them without notice. Our own charge is quoted separately.
Processing time
The department publishes two to seven working days, and is unusually careful about what that excludes: weekends, Malaysian public holidays, holidays in the applicant's own country, incomplete applications, applications where further documents are requested, and applications referred to an interview.
If documents are re-requested, the clock does not continue — it resets to two to seven working days from the moment you upload what was asked for. That single rule is why a small error early costs a week later.
On how far ahead to apply, Malaysia's own two documents disagree slightly. The terms and conditions say an applicant must apply 14 days before travelling; the FAQ says it is recommended. Treat 14 days as the floor and give yourself more.
How to apply
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Check the passport first
Valid for more than six months from your travel date, and with at least three blank pages. The eVISA system accepts international, diplomatic and official passports only.
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Get the photograph right
Studio-taken, plain white background, taken within the last six months, full face from chin to crown with no headgear, and 35mm wide by 50mm high. Scanned photographs and selfies are refused outright. This is the single most common reason a Malaysian file gets bounced back.
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Assemble the uploads
Each file must be under 2MB, and multiple tickets or hotel bookings must be merged into one file rather than uploaded separately.
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Apply on the official portal, and nowhere else
One account can hold a maximum of five applicants. You cannot apply from inside Malaysia, and the portal does not accept applications made from Israel or North Korea. Applying from a third country is allowed with proof that you reside or are staying there.
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Pay online, within seven working days
Since 1 October 2026 any application left in "new" or "pending payment" status for more than seven working days expires automatically and disappears from your list.
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Answer any query within five days
If the department asks for a further document or calls you to an interview and you do not respond within five days of the request, the application is automatically rejected. The fee is not returned.
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Print the eVISA Note and check every character
Read your name, passport number and dates against the passport itself, letter by letter. A mismatch makes the visa invalid at the counter, and the only remedy is to apply and pay again.
-
File the MDAC in the three days before you travel
Separate from the visa, free, and compulsory. See below.
Documents
Malaysia's published list for a social visit is short:
- A studio passport photograph to the specification above
- The passport biodata page, valid more than six months from the travel date
- A confirmed return ticket
- Proof of paid accommodation for the whole stay — or, if you are staying with family or friends, a short cover letter giving their name, identity card number, phone number and the address where you will stay
- A birth certificate for any applicant under 18, which Malaysia marks as compulsory
- Bank statements for the last three months, to show you can support yourself during the visit
- Other supporting documents, which the portal's own guidance describes as including a bank statement, your current residence pass or visa, and any long-term pass
No physical documents are submitted unless the department specifically asks for them.
Two things Malaysia does not publish, and nobody should invent
There is no minimum bank balance. No figure appears anywhere in Malaysian immigration material. The test is qualitative — that you can demonstrate financial sufficiency, supported by three months of statements. Any agency quoting you a ringgit or rupee threshold made it up.
There is no separate checklist by what you do for a living. Malaysia segments its visa requirements by purpose of visit — social, business, medical treatment, wedding tourism, fly and cruise — not by whether you are salaried, self-employed, retired or a student. If you have seen a Malaysian document list broken down into job holder, business owner and pensioner, that breakdown is an agency's invention, not the department's.
How long you can stay, and why we will not print a number
This is the part of the Malaysian visa that is most confidently wrong across the Pakistani web.
Malaysia does not publish how long a Pakistani visitor may stay. Its own wording is that an eVISA holder may stay in Malaysia based on their nationality's eligibility for each entry under a Single Entry Visa — and no per-nationality table of those eligibilities exists on the department's site or in the portal. The stay is granted by the officer at the counter.
The 30-day figure in circulation belongs to the multiple-entry visa. From 1 September 2026 the multiple-entry visa is no longer issued for ordinary tourism; it survives only for a narrow set of purposes such as business, medical treatment, wedding tourism and fly-and-cruise. A Pakistani tourist today gets a single entry visa.
The visa's validity is similarly unsettled. Malaysia's "types of visas" page says a single entry visa is normally valid three months from issue; the eVISA portal's own documents say six months in one place and list three and six months for specific categories elsewhere, without naming plain tourism at all. Rather than pick one, read the issue date and expiration date printed on your own eVISA Note — which is exactly what the department tells applicants to do.
One consequence is worth stating plainly: the clock starts at issue, not at arrival. Applying three months before a trip can burn most of the validity before you fly.
The Malaysia Digital Arrival Card
Separate from the visa, and compulsory since 1 January 2024 for all foreign citizens travelling to Malaysia. It is a short online form, it carries no fee on the official site, and it is filed shortly before you fly rather than with the visa.
- Official site: imigresen-online.imi.gov.my/mdac/main
- Submit within three days before arrival, counting the day you submit as one of the three. Filing earlier than that is rejected by the system.
- Show the registration and your passport at the immigration counter on arrival.
- The published exemptions — Singaporean citizens, diplomatic and official passport holders, Malaysian permanent residents and long-term pass holders, and certain Brunei, Thai and Indonesian border-pass holders — do not cover an ordinary Pakistani tourist.
You will find sites charging to file the MDAC for you. There is no fee on the official site.
Mistakes that cost you the fee
Because nothing is refundable, the Malaysian system punishes small errors in cash. These are the ones we see:
- A typo makes the visa invalid. If the information on the approved eVISA does not fully match the travel document, the department's answer to "can I still enter" is a flat no — and you must reapply and pay again.
- A new approved eVISA cancels your old one. Any previous visa still active is automatically cancelled the moment a new application is approved. If the new one is rejected, the old one survives.
- Silence is rejection. Five days without responding to a document request or an interview invitation and the file is closed automatically.
- An unpaid application evaporates. Seven working days in pending-payment status and it is deleted.
- A visa is not entry. Malaysia states that an approved eVISA does not in any way guarantee the right to enter; the decision belongs to the officer at the entry point.
- No work and no study on a social visit pass, and extensions are granted only on special consideration — illness, an accident, war at home — with evidence and a confirmed return ticket.
At the border — and the air-only myth
A great many Pakistani pages state that Pakistanis holding a Malaysian eVISA may enter only by air. That is a real restriction in Malaysian policy, but it applies to a named list of sixteen African nationalities, and Pakistan is not among them. Pakistan also carries no asterisk on the department's own country list, where the asterisk marks the air-only nationalities. A Pakistani eVISA holder may enter through any gazetted Malaysian entry point — including the land crossings from Thailand and Singapore.
What the officer expects to see at the counter: a passport with at least six months' validity, the printed eVISA or digital eVISA Note, your boarding pass, a confirmed return ticket and proof of paid accommodation. Travellers arriving from a yellow fever risk country must present the vaccination certificate.
On overstaying, Malaysia is blunt. Staying beyond the expiry of a visit pass carries, on conviction, a fine of up to RM 10,000, imprisonment of up to five years, or both, with a compound of RM 3,000. On the effect of a past overstay on a future application, the department says only that it may lead to fines and to denial of entry for a period on later visits — it publishes no ban length, so neither will we.
How we prepare your file
Malaysia is a short application with sharp edges. Most of the value is in the hour before you submit: a photograph that meets the exact specification, bookings merged into single files under the size limit, accommodation evidence that covers the whole stay, three months of statements that read credibly, and every character on the application matched to the passport before anyone pays.
After that, our job is to watch the clock — the five-day query deadline, the seven-day payment deadline, and the three-day MDAC window before you fly. Breeze Travels & Tours has worked on visa files from Davis Road, Garhi Shahu, since 2003, and flights are issued by the same desk on our own IATA accreditation once the visa is in hand — see air ticketing.