Paying bills in Malaysia

Normally household bills are not included in the rent however you may be able to negotiate with you landlord with regards to this. Typically household bills include electric, gas, water and TV/internet/phone etc. Other bills maybe for water filters, pest control etc
Community maintenance fees are normally included in the rent and where there is no mains gas supply, gas cylinders are still in use.
Bills can be normally paid online, post office, some ATM machines and utility provider's offices. Paid bills for gas/electric and water will only reflect immediately on your account if paid at the suppliers office, otherwise it takes around 3 days.
Bills are normally monthly and instalment plans can be arranged if needed

With electricity bills, because they can vary in amount every month, some people decide to pay a lump sum and then count down (bills are deducted from that amount each month) until the money is almost then used up - repeat. Other utility bills are a set amount each month/2 months/quarter.

So when are you moving to Malaysia?

if your household bills are not part of the rent, then paying them is quite easy. You can either pay from ATM machines (most of the banks has all the merchants registered) or you can pay from specific website. For e.g. for electricity and water, you can register an account with TNB and pay online.
If you do not have a bank account but having a credit card, you can pay your bills online through credit card by registering your payer/merchant.

Hope this helps

Mostly you can pay the TM bills and TNB bills through CIMB ( you have option like JOMPAY) in the CIMB clicks or if you have credit card its really help full, its a easy and simple to pay your bills on time, best way to pay the bills in online. I will try to pay on time, If i missed atleast i would pay half of the money from the bill so that the service will not be barred.

Make sure attend the calls and respond the people, very easy for relationship with the respective people. they will help the ways as well.

Hi Priscilla,

How have you found the process of paying bills in Malaysia? What different bills do you pay?
Online is BEST - Through the app of your bank

What are the different ways you can pay your bills in Malaysia?
Online through your bank or Website

How often do you receive each bill?
Monthly

Do you incur any penalties for missing deadlines?
Only for Credit Cards

One thing Malaysia doesnt lack is payment methods. There are so many ways to get money from you it would be impossible for you to come up with a reason or excuse not to pay.

I have been using my bank to pay standard bills like electric, phone, water and landlord for as long as I have known banks offered the service. The bill paying feature is easy to set up and with a click or two each month, the bills are paid.

But curiously, I feel nearly alone in doing so. The lines in the post office are not for posting letters but paying bills. Why? Ive been asking people for a very long time. The answer is that an astonishing number of locals do not have bank accounts, strange as that may seem. They deal in cash because they say they dont trust banks. Why not? There may be valid reason to mistrust banks but the underlying reason is to reduce record trails for anyone to follow. So, many people go to the post to pay bills in cash, or to the telephone company or gas company directly. When the post became privatized, it expanded the things you can pay there, even Zagat for Muslims i believe can be paid there. Even road tax and car insurance.

There is much competition for bill paying. Petronas accepts payments for phone, electric, Touch n Go, etc, and now 7-11 also accepts payments. It seems there are more places to pay a bill than there are places to eat!

Every bill is monthly, except for water which is only paid monthly if the bill exceeds RM5 (I think). Road tax and insurance are yearly because they are not standard bills. Loan shark payments, well I dont know the frequency of payment demands but given the number of red paint episodes I guess there is some disagreement or confusion there.

I personally dont know of any house rental arrangements by which all services are included in one monthly payment but its possible in very high end rentals that may indeed be the case. When you are renting, the usual situation is that the landlord already has services in his name and you pay the bill as if it was your name on the account. This is a nice arrangement because it saves you the torture of opening and closing accounts. Phone though, thats in your name, your account, because the risk is too high for a landlord to be stuck with a huge bill made up of long, overseas calls that the renter ran away from at the end of the rental term.

The normal frequency of payment for anything is to pay before the next one is due, usually a month. There is leniency in this, one can go 2-3 months without paying but beyond that one risks being cut off from services and then you really have a problem. House and car loans have the most leniency as banks are very reluctant to re-possess property. But, why make enemies? Settle bills promptly because you need those lenders to be friendly to you next time. If you dont have the money, do not go into debt. And even then, try never to have debts because of the high interest cost. Why live at a price 20% higher than anyone else?

1  as an oldie (ie over 60 infact 16 years over) to get a credit card with points i put 10 k on FD at bank  i use this card for all bills some such as maxis water electricity I make automatic payments with bank account  Very simple   I own little house land rates too automatic payment.

Our house and vehicles are paid for, so the only bills we have are water, phone/internet, and electricity on a monthly basis. We also have sewage, road tax, car insurance and 'quick rent' (leasehold property) less frequent.  We pay everything except car insurance and road tax online using bill pay. The car insurance road tax (3 vehicles including my bike) we we just go over to the insurance company near the house, I typically just ride my bike over and they take care of everything for us. It's all very easy and takes almost no time.

I for the life of me can't understand why anyone would stand in line at the post office, but I don't understand drivers that would sit in a queue at a toll booth when I can fly right through with a SmartTAG.

Priscilla is not moving to Malaysia.  I doubt she's ever been near the place. She's a moderator who starts threads to generate responses and traffic.

I pay almost everything online now.

Hello everyone,

Indeed Priscilla is from the Expat.com team.

The information above, will be benefit to other members who are looking for same info.

Thank you all for your contribution. We invite others to share on the topic -"Paying bills in Malaysia".

All the best,
Christine
Expat.com team

We rented a place nearby a school and my husband's work for a cheaper price, inclusive of electricity, water, and internet. We transfer the rent thru online banking same as the payment for our postpaid pocket wifi which my husband and I use when going out. I am working home-based so we don't really use much top-up on our phone.

Pocket wifi is billed every 2nd week of the month, while the broadband one is billed every 1st month.

We rented a place nearby a school and my husband's work for a cheaper price, inclusive of electricity, water, and internet. We transfer the rent thru online banking same as the payment for our postpaid pocket wifi which my husband and I use when going out. I am working home-based so we don't really use much top-up on our phone.

Pocket wifi is billed every 2nd week of the month, while the broadband one is billed every 1st month.

What's pocket wifi?? YES 4G?