Topic
#cost of living
4 articles
SARA 2026 Credit Expires on 31 December: How Much Is on Your MyKad and What It Can Buy
The October SARA credit landed on MyKads on 1 October 2026. Unspent SARA rolls over month to month, but every ringgit left on 31 December 2026, including the RM100 SARA for All, expires automatically. Here are the monthly rates by category, how to check your balance, the 15 item categories, and what to do if your MyKad was replaced.
Water Tariffs in Malaysia 2026 by State: RM13 in Selangor, RM21 in Johor for the Same 20 Cubic Metres
Penang switched to its new water tariff on 1 July 2026, the last big state to adopt the rates the federal government gazetted for Peninsular Malaysia and Labuan on 30 July 2025. We read each operator's own tariff page. The first 20 cubic metres a month barely moved in most states, but where you live still matters more than how much you use: that first 20 cubic metres costs RM13.00 in Selangor and Penang and RM21.00 in Johor. Terengganu's middle band nearly doubled, so a household using 35 cubic metres there now pays RM38.55 instead of RM24.05.
The Six Measures That Started on 1 September 2026: BUDI95 Is Back to 300 Litres and the e-Invoice Line Moves to RM3 Million
Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced six immediate cost-of-living measures in the National Day address at PICC on 30 August 2026, all of them effective from 1 September. Two of them change a number a lot of Malaysians already had memorised. The BUDI95 quota goes back to 300 litres a month after five months at 200, restoring the level cut on 1 April, and BUDI Diesel rises from 300 to 400 litres. The e-Invoice exemption threshold triples from RM1 million to RM3 million in annual turnover, which LHDN says takes more than 1.1 million businesses out of mandatory implementation. Re-checked a week on: the AI programme has opened with published rules, the extra diesel litres turn out to need an application, and LHDN's own criteria are narrower than the RM3 million headline.
BUDI95 Is Back to 300 Litres: What the Cap Is Worth This Week, and Exactly What Happens at Litre 301
The BUDI95 quota is back to 300 litres a month. It was cut to 200 on 1 April 2026 and restored on 1 September, after Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim announced the reversal in his National Day address on 30 August; BUDI Diesel moved with it, to 400 litres for jeep and pick-up owners. The restoration landed just ahead of a sharp rise at the pump: unsubsidised RON95 went from RM3.77 in the first week of September to RM4.57 by 24 September, and is RM4.52 a litre for 1 to 7 October 2026. With BUDI95 still fixed at RM1.99, the government is now paying RM2.53 for every subsidised litre — RM759 a month if you use the whole quota, more than double what the 200-litre cap was worth in August. Here is what the cap is worth, the rules that have not changed (one shared balance for petrol and diesel, litres that expire on the 1st, a RM250 ceiling per transaction), the BUDI Diesel transfer rules that changed on 16 September, and what happens at litre 301: nothing dramatic — the pump simply charges you the unsubsidised price.