Talenox Q2 2026 Product Updates: Malaysia payroll got just smarter!

Malaysia payroll rules love to keep us on our toes, and honestly, so do we. We have been busy behind the scenes making sure Talenox keeps up with the latest KWSP and PERKESO changes, so you do not have to lose sleep over compliance.

Here is everything new, explained the friendly way, no jargon overload, promise.

1. Permanent Residents finally get the EPF treatment they deserve

Good news for anyone managing Permanent Resident (PR) employees: you can now select Permanent Resident as its own immigration status in Talenox, with two flavours depending on how they are taxed:

• Permanent Resident (Resident): taxed like a regular resident, on the normal progressive scale
• Permanent Resident (Non-Resident): taxed at a flat 30%

Both flavours work the same way for EPF, since PR employees contribute through a Malaysian EPF account. Here is the part that used to trip people up: once a PR employee turns 60.

Most employees aged 60 and above drop to very low EPF rates (0% from them, 4% from you). Makes sense for most people, but PRs are the exception. They should actually be on a higher table instead:

• 5.5% employee / 6.5% employer for wages up to RM5,000
• 5.5% employee / 6% employer for wages above RM5,000

Talenox now gets this right automatically, so nobody has to remember to manually fix it for your PR employees turning 60. Curious about the source? KWSP has the full rate tables here.

2. Say hello to Lindung 24 Jam, SOCSO’s newest member (from June 2026)

PERKESO is rolling out a new contribution called Lindung 24 Jam, and true to its name, it covers employees for accidents around the clock, not just the ones that happen on the job. It officially starts from June 2026 payroll , and Talenox is already built and ready for it.

The essentials:

• This one is on the employee , not the employer. Your contribution stays exactly the same.
• It applies to both Category 1 (Employment Injury + Invalidity) and Category 2 (Employment Injury only) employees
• Category 2 folks, who currently pay nothing towards SOCSO, will start chipping in a small amount
• The maximum an employee can contribute is jumping from RM29.75 to RM74.40 a month

PERKESO is phasing this in gently over the years. Right now, Talenox handles Phase 1, which is 0.75% of wages. The later phases (1.0% and 1.25%) will show up in Talenox closer to when they are actually due, so no need to think about those yet.

Let’s make this real with some examples

A 35-year-old earning RM3,000 a month

Take-home dips by about RM22.15 a month.

A 35-year-old earning RM5,000 a month

Take-home dips by about RM37.15 a month.

A 63-year-old earning RM3,000 a month (previously paid zero)

This employee used to pay nothing at all towards SOCSO. From June, that changes to RM22.15 a month.

A 35-year-old earning RM6,500 a month (above the wage ceiling)

This is the biggest jump possible, about RM44.65 a month, since RM6,000 is where SOCSO caps its calculation.

Quick cheat sheet: the extra amount by wage level

Want it straight from the source? PERKESO has all the details here.

3. One less headache: a separate EPF file for your foreign employees

If you have non-Malaysian employees contributing to EPF, you probably already know the pain: they are often registered under a completely different employer EPF number than your Malaysian team, which used to mean manually splitting files before you could submit anything. Not fun.

Talenox now lets you add a second EPF employer number just for these employees, called the Non-Malaysian Citizen Employee (NMCE) number.

Pop that number into your Company Settings once, and from then on, every time you generate your EPF file from Month Total, Talenox quietly does the splitting for you and hands you two ready-to-submit files : one for Malaysian employees, one for NMCE employees. Zero manual sorting required.

4. EPF now knows when to pause itself for expiring work passes

Here is a rule that is easy to forget but expensive to miss: once a foreign employee’s work pass is within two months of expiring, KWSP says you can stop contributing EPF for them. Talenox now handles this automatically, so it is one less thing sitting on your compliance checklist.

This kicks in when all of the following line up:

• The employee is not Malaysian
• Their work permit expiry date is filled in on their profile
• They fall under one of the recognised work permit categories
• The current payroll month is either the expiry month, or the month right before it

Say a work permit expires on 15 June 2026:

• Running May payroll? Exemption applies.
• Running June payroll? Exemption applies.
• Running April payroll? Not yet, EPF is still due as usual.

This lines up exactly with KWSP’s own rule that contributions stop two months before a work pass expires, extended or not. Full details are on KWSP’s page for non-Malaysian employees.

5. You are now in control of who pays Lindung 24 Jam

Got employees juggling more than one job? Lindung 24 Jam only needs to be paid once, through a single employer. Previously, there was no clean way to switch it off for one employer without also disturbing that employee’s regular SOCSO contribution. A bit of an all-or-nothing situation.

Not anymore. There is now a simple setting on each employee’s profile, “Contribute SOCSO Lindung 24 Jam?” , that lets you turn off just this one contribution while their normal SOCSO carries on exactly as it should.

You will find this toggle under the employee’s statutory details, defaulted to Yes. If they are already covered through another job, just flip it to No and you are done.

That’s a wrap for this round!

Malaysia payroll compliance is not exactly light reading, but hopefully this made it a little less painful. From giving Permanent Residents the EPF treatment they were always owed, to having Lindung 24 Jam fully sorted before it even kicks in this June, we have tried to take the busywork off your hands so you can get back to, well, everything else on your to-do list.

More updates are on the way as PERKESO and KWSP keep tweaking the rules, and we will be right here keeping Talenox in step with them. In the meantime, if anything above leaves you scratching your head, our support team is just a message away and always happy to help you get set up.