What each category permits
The three categories aren’t tiers of the same thing — they’re different scopes of permitted activity. Category A is the narrowest: placing a job seeker into work inside Malaysia only, nothing involving foreign workers. Category B adds both overseas placement and, specifically, foreign domestic servant placement within Malaysia. Category C covers overseas placement and non-citizen employee placement more broadly. For a maid placement specifically, the Act names Category B directly; Category C’s broader non-citizen scope means it can operate in the same space too.
The paid-up capital and guarantee figures aren’t arbitrary either — they scale with the category’s scope, on the reasoning that an agency handling foreign-worker placement carries more financial and legal exposure than one placing local candidates only, and should be able to back that up.
- Category A: local placement only — never covers a foreign domestic worker.
- Category B: the category the Act names directly for foreign domestic servant placement.
- Category C: broader non-citizen employee placement, also covers this activity.
Why the category matters to you specifically
If an agency you’re speaking to holds only a Category A licence, it isn’t legally permitted to place a foreign domestic worker at all — no matter how the conversation is framed. This isn’t a subtle distinction to research separately; it’s printed on the same public register entry as the licence number itself, so checking it costs no extra effort once you’re already looking up the licence.
A Category B or C licence tells you the agency is operating within its permitted scope for this specific kind of placement — it doesn’t by itself tell you anything about service quality, fees, or how a specific placement will go. Treat it as a pass/fail structural check, one item on a longer list, not a substitute for the rest of your own questions.
Checking the category alongside the licence
JTKSM’s public register shows the category next to every active licence — you don’t need to look it up separately from the licence number itself. The step-by-step process for using that register, including how to read a validity window and what a suspended or cancelled entry looks like, is covered in the dedicated verification guide.
If an agency’s own material states a category that doesn’t match what the register shows for that licence number, that discrepancy is worth raising directly, before anything else moves forward.