Who Must Issue e-Invoices in Malaysia — and Who LHDN Exempts

A WhatsApp message lands in a traders' association group: "Everyone has to register for e-Invoice next month or you'll be fined." Within the hour, three people have phoned their accountant.

A salon owner in Ipoh reads it and panics. A homestay owner in Kuantan asks her son. A workshop owner in Rawang ignores it, because he heard the same thing last year and nothing happened.

The problem isn't that people can't be bothered to find out. The problem is that these figures genuinely change — and when they do, the old message keeps circulating as if it were still true.

What LHDN says today

LHDN's official implementation timeline, updated 30 August 2026, states plainly that taxpayers with annual income or sales of less than RM3,000,000 are exempt from e-Invoice.

For those above that floor, the rollout is phased by size:

Source: e-Invoice Implementation Timeline, LHDN — updated 30 August 2026. The full reference is e-Invoice Guideline Version 4.8 (published 30 August 2026).

Read those two things together. The last row of the table says "up to RM5 million", while the exemption covers anyone below RM3 million. In practice: if your annual turnover is below RM3 million, you are exempt for now. If you sit between RM3 million and RM5 million, the date in that table has already passed.

Why the old message is still going around

Because the floor was raised on 30 August 2026. Before that date the official figure was lower. So every set of notes, every course slide and every forwarded message written before August 2026 now carries a number that is no longer correct — and nobody goes back to recall an old message.

And we were not exempt from this ourselves. Our own system went on using the old figure for several weeks after LHDN raised the floor — the TempahKu dashboard was telling businesses between RM1 million and RM3 million that they "may already be in scope", when LHDN in fact exempts them. We caught it and corrected it on 7 September 2026.

We mention it here because it is the point of the article: if a system built specifically to watch this threshold can sit weeks behind a change, a WhatsApp message forwarded with no date on it stands very little chance. Nobody is being dishonest — the number moves, and the old copies do not move with it.

That is why this article date-stamps every figure. If you are reading this in 2027 or 2028, assume the numbers above are stale and go and check LHDN yourself. A tax figure without a date is a figure you cannot trust.

Your date is not based on this year's sales

This is the part most people get wrong, and it matters.

Your mandatory date is not worked out from what you sell this year. It depends on your 2022 financial-year turnover and when the business started trading. So even if your sales jump sharply this year, that does not automatically move your date — and the reverse is true too.

Which means any system totting up your rolling 12-month sales — ours included — can only give you an early signal, never a determination. If you see your figure approaching RM3 million, that is a prompt to go and ask, not proof that you are now in scope. Only LHDN can confirm your actual date.

What TempahKu does — and what it does not

Plainly, because this is the part other people misrepresent:

• We do NOT submit e-Invoices to LHDN MyInvois. Not yet. If you are already in scope, you still need LHDN's own channel or another provider.
• Tax Profile (Settings → Tax Profile) stores your TIN, SSM number, SST status and number, MSIC code, business legal form and financial year. All of it is optional — leave it blank and everything still works.
• The SSM and SST numbers you enter appear on your customer invoices, so they look complete and professional. (The TIN is stored but not yet printed on the invoice.)
• When your rolling 12-month revenue approaches or passes a threshold, the dashboard shows a warning banner — a prompt to go and check, not a determination.

The real benefit isn't e-Invoice at all. It's something smaller: if your bookings and invoices are already recorded tidily, then whatever rule arrives next is a form-filling job — not a job of digging through a year of records.

When this isn't your problem yet

If you run a three-chair salon, a two-unit homestay or a one-person workshop, your annual turnover is almost certainly far below RM3 million, and you are exempt for now. You don't need to hire anyone. You don't need to buy a system out of fear of a fine.

There is exactly one thing worth doing today: fill in your Tax Profile once, five minutes, so it's there when it's needed. Otherwise, get on with your work.

In short

Below RM3 million in annual turnover, LHDN exempts you from e-Invoice — that is the position as of September 2026. Above it, your date depends on your 2022 turnover and when you started, not on this year's sales.

And when someone forwards a message saying everyone must register next month: check the date on the message first.

Also worth reading: chasing overdue invoices and what the official SME data says.