Brendon Beliku is a corporate immigration and employment compliance professional based in Kota Kinabalu. He writes independently on Sabah’s economic governance, labour policy, regulatory affairs and Momogun empowerment.
KOTA KINABALU: Most project schedules are built around one date: the day work begins.
Far fewer are built around the later dates, when the passes of foreign specialists expire in the middle of delivery.
This is the renewal cliff. A project is planned in years, but a pass is granted in shorter steps, and the two do not move together unless someone makes them.
When they drift apart, the project does not fail at the start. It fails halfway through, when a key specialist cannot legally continue and the schedule has no room to absorb the loss.
-The Window Is Narrower Than the Project-
Malaysia’s Employment Pass policy was revised with effect from 1 June 2026.
The revised policy sets a maximum duration of 10 years for Category I and Category II passes and 5 years for Category III.
These look generous, and that is where the misunderstanding begins. A maximum is not a grant.
According to legal analysis of the policy, the maximum cannot be given upfront. Passes are issued in shorter periods, typically two or three years, and must be renewed to reach the limit.
Renewal also has a narrow window. An application can be filed only within the three months before the current pass expires.
Filing earlier is not possible, and filing later risks a gap in the specialist’s right to work. A five year project will normally need at least one renewal, and a longer one may need several.
Each renewal is a fixed event with a short filing window, and the schedule should show it as seriously as any construction milestone.
The risk is practical.
A specialist in the middle of commissioning or a critical phase cannot be paused while paperwork catches up.
The date that matters is not when the pass was approved, but when the three month window opens and how much of it the employer can afford to use.
-The Category May Change at Renewal-
The revised policy also raised the salary thresholds. Category I now starts at RM20,000. Category II covers RM10,000 to RM19,999, and Category III covers RM5,000 to RM9,999.
A renewal filed on or after 1 June 2026 falls under the revised policy, even when the original pass was approved under the old rules.
This creates a quiet problem for long projects. Consider a specialist who was approved in Category II on a monthly salary of RM8,000, which fitted the earlier thresholds.
At renewal, that same salary sits in Category III. The person, role and project are the same, but the category has changed.
Where a holder’s salary falls below the category threshold, the employer must either raise the salary or cancel the pass and reapply under the correct category.
The change matters for two reasons. First, the maximum for Category III is 5 years, not 10, so the specialist’s remaining time may be shorter than the project needs.
Second, Categories II and III require a succession plan, which means the employer must show that local employees can take over when the maximum period ends.
An employer who never prepared one will be preparing it at the same moment the renewal is due. This is a planning requirement that should begin at hiring, not at renewal.
-Sabah Adds Another Layer, and the Contract Must Still Stand-
In Sabah, the picture has an extra layer. Sabah runs its own Sabah Work Pass system, separate from the federal Employment Pass. Employers should confirm which rules govern a given renewal, and not assume the federal timeline carries over.
Where a specialist moves from elsewhere in Malaysia to Sabah, the federal approval must first be cancelled before a Sabah Work Pass can be applied for, so sequence and timing need care from the first application.
There is also a basic point. A renewal does not stand on its own. It rests on the same foundation as the original hire.
As professional observation, and not as a published rule, an employer should expect a renewal to be supported by the engagement that justified the specialist in the first place, and that engagement must still be valid when the renewal is made.
A project that has been extended, varied or left uncertain on paper can therefore weaken a renewal, even when the work on site is going well. The contract and the pass need to be kept in step.
The practical lesson is simple. Employers should map every specialist’s pass expiry onto the project schedule at mobilisation and mark the date each renewal window opens.
They should check each category against current thresholds, prepare succession plans early where they apply, and keep the contract position clear before any renewal is filed.
A pass can be renewed. A missed window cannot be recovered. The renewal cliff is avoidable, but only for the employer who sees it coming before the project does.
[Disclaimer]: The views, opinions and analyses expressed in this article are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views, policies or positions of the Jesselton Times, its editors, management or affiliated entities. This article is published for analytical and public
