Public Holidays in Malaysia: What Employees Should Know

Written by: Izz Murtada

If you have ever wondered exactly how many public holidays you are entitled to, or why your company gives everyone a specific set of dates off, the answer actually comes straight from the law. The Employment Act 1955 lays out the rules pretty clearly, and once you understand them, planning your year (and your leave applications) becomes a lot easier.

Here is a friendly breakdown of everything you need to know.

1. What Is a Public Holiday?

Under Malaysian law, a public holiday is a day that has been officially gazetted by the government as a holiday, or a day appointed as a public holiday for a particular year under the Holidays Act 1951. These are often called “gazetted public holidays,” and they are what most of us think of when we talk about Hari Raya, Chinese New Year, Deepavali, Christmas, and so on.

Section 60D of the Employment Act 1955 is the section that governs paid holidays for employees, and it spells out exactly what workers are entitled to and how those entitlements work.

2. How Many Paid Public Holidays Are Employees Entitled To?

Every employee covered under the Act is entitled to a paid holiday, at their ordinary rate of pay, on eleven gazetted public holidays each calendar year.

That number, eleven, is the legal minimum. Employers are free to give more, and many do, but they cannot give fewer than eleven paid gazetted public holidays a year.

These eleven days are split into two groups: five that are fixed by law, and six that the employer gets to choose. Let’s look at each one.

3. Mandatory Public Holidays

Out of the eleven, five specific holidays are compulsory and must be observed by every employer, no exceptions. According to Section 60D(1)(a), these are:

• National Day (Hari Merdeka)
• The Birthday of the Yang di-Pertuan Agong
• The Birthday of the Ruler or Yang di-Pertua Negeri of the state where the employee mainly works, or Federal Territory Day if the employee mainly works in the Federal Territory
• Workers’ Day (Labour Day)
• Malaysia Day

These five are non negotiable. Whatever else an employer decides to give, these must always be included among the eleven paid holidays.

4. Employer-Selected Public Holidays

The remaining six holidays are where employers have some flexibility. The law allows employers to choose these six from the list of gazetted public holidays for the year, as long as the total, together with the five mandatory ones, adds up to at least eleven.

Here is the part many employees do not realise: employers are legally required to display a notice at the workplace before the start of each calendar year, stating exactly which six gazetted public holidays employees will be entitled to. This is meant to give everyone clarity from day one, so there is no confusion later about which days are actually holidays.

There is also room for flexibility on both sides. By agreement between the employer and an employee, any other day can be substituted for one or more of these six chosen holidays. And separately, an employer may also choose to grant an employee a different day as a paid holiday in place of one of the “appointed” holidays under the Holidays Act 1951.

5. What Happens When the Government Announces an Extra Holiday?

Sometimes the government declares a public holiday for a specific year, maybe to mark a special national occasion, or simply because a date happens to work out that way for a particular state. When this happens under Section 8 of the Holidays Act 1951, employees are entitled to a paid holiday on that day too, in addition to their usual entitlement.

The Act also thinks through some tricky overlaps. If a public holiday happens to fall on a rest day, or if it clashes with another public holiday, the working day right after that rest day or holiday automatically becomes a paid holiday instead. So nobody loses out just because two holidays land on the same date.

Similarly, if a public holiday (or a day substituted for one) falls while an employee is already on sick leave, annual leave, or under temporary disablement coverage, the employer must give another day off as a paid holiday to make up for it. Basically, the law makes sure a holiday you are entitled to never quietly disappears just because of bad timing.

A Few More Things Worth Knowing

A couple of practical points round out the picture:

• If an employee is required to work on a paid holiday, they must be paid extra on top of their normal holiday pay, generally two days’ wages at the ordinary rate, with an even higher rate for any overtime worked beyond normal hours.
• If an employee is absent without reasonable excuse on the working day right before or right after a public holiday (or a run of holidays), they can lose their entitlement to pay for that holiday. So it genuinely pays to communicate with your employer if you need to take leave around a holiday period.

Public holidays might feel like a simple perk, but there is a fair bit of legal structure behind them. Knowing your rights under the Employment Act 1955 means you can plan your year with confidence, and spot it quickly if something does not look right on your payslip or your company’s holiday notice. For employers, getting these details right, from the yearly notice to correctly calculating holiday pay, is exactly the kind of thing that keeps HR running smoothly, which is where having the right payroll and HR support, like the guidance Kita Strategies offers Malaysian businesses, can make a real difference.