One integrated framework, not three separate rules to reconcile
What makes Peninsular Malaysia distinct isn’t any single rule — it’s that Immigration, JTKSM, and the Employment Act all operate as one connected system here, administered by the same set of federal departments throughout. The permit sequence — VDR, entry, medical exam, then the PL(KS)/VP(TE) pass itself — runs entirely through Immigration Department offices, with no separate state-level licensing layer sitting in between.
Private employment agencies placing a foreign domestic worker in this region need a Category B or C licence under the Private Employment Agencies Act 1981, administered by Jabatan Tenaga Kerja Semenanjung Malaysia (JTKSM) — the same statute applies in Sabah and Sarawak too, but through their own regional labour departments rather than JTKSM directly.
What the Employment Act actually gives her here, and where that stops
The Employment Act 1955 states plainly it applies to Peninsular Malaysia only, extended to the Federal Territory of Labuan by a 2000 order — never to Sabah or Sarawak, which run their own separate labour ordinances instead. Within that scope, a domestic employee keeps a weekly rest day and the Act’s wage-deduction protections, and termination runs on a comparatively simple 14-day-notice rule.
What she doesn’t get is a surprising list for a law most people assume covers everything: no statutory paid public holidays, no annual leave, no sick leave, no paternity leave, and no capped working hours — all excluded for a domestic employee by the Act’s own First Schedule, even though those protections apply to most other employees under the same Act.
Why this counts as the site’s default framework
Because the large majority of households hiring a foreign domestic helper are in Peninsular Malaysia, the guides on this site describe this framework by default whenever a page doesn’t name a specific region. That’s a deliberate choice worth stating plainly, not an oversight — Sabah and Sarawak each run a separate system, covered in their own dedicated guides, and neither should be assumed to follow anything described here.
This page exists specifically to name the Peninsular framework as its own regional summary, the same way Sabah and Sarawak each have theirs — pulling together the permit process, agency licensing, and employment-rights scope in one place rather than leaving a household to piece it together from separate topic pages.