PERKESO Lindung 24 Jam (SKBBK): what Malaysian employers deduct, and why the maximum is RM44.65
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From 1 June 2026, PERKESO extended cover to accidents outside working hours through Skim Kemalangan Bukan Bencana Kerja (SKBBK), marketed as “Lindung 24 Jam”. It is paid entirely by the employee, and the amount is read off a published banded table, not a flat percentage. Figures are as at July 2026; scope and rates are PERKESO’s to set, so confirm the current position with them.
The short version
- SKBBK — “Lindung 24 Jam” — is PERKESO cover for accidents that are not work-related. It was introduced under the Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) Act 2026 and took effect on 1 June 2026.
- The employee pays all of it. There is no employer share, so it lowers net pay and adds nothing to your payroll cost — but the duty to deduct and remit is yours.
- After the Cabinet decision of 8 July 2026 a Malaysian employee is covered by default. The opt-out window ran from 13 July to 31 August 2026, so an employee who did not opt out within it is covered and a contribution is due. It remains mandatory for foreign workers.
- The amount comes off PERKESO’s banded Jadual Caruman — 64 wage bands plus a row for wages above RM6,000, topping out at RM44.65 a month, not the RM45.00 a flat 0.75% would give.
- PCB is unchanged in Taokeh. As at July 2026 LHDN has published no position on whether SKBBK counts toward the RM350 SOCSO/EIS relief, so we take the conservative treatment.
- First thing to do: ask each Malaysian employee whether they opted out, then set their record to match — what you deduct should follow their own election, not a guess.
Want the number instead of the theory? Try the free PCB calculator.
What is PERKESO Lindung 24 Jam (SKBBK)?
Lindung 24 Jam is PERKESO’s branding for Skim Kemalangan Bukan Bencana Kerja (SKBBK), a scheme that extends protection to accidents that are not work-related — the 24-hour cover in the name. It was introduced under the Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) Act 2026 and took effect on 1 June 2026.
- Existing SOCSO cover under the Employment Injury Scheme is tied to accidents arising out of and in the course of employment, including the commute. SKBBK is the piece that sits outside that boundary.
- It is a sub-scheme of SOCSO rather than a separate registration, which is why it only arises where an employee already has a SOCSO relationship with the employer.
- The single most important operational fact is who pays: SKBBK is employee-borne, and there is no employer share.
- Unlike EPF, SOCSO and EIS, where the employer adds its own contribution on top, here you deduct the amount from the employee’s pay and remit it.
- It reduces the employee’s net pay and adds nothing to your payroll cost — though the remittance duty, and the liability until you remit, are still yours.
Where the scheme is heading
As at July 2026 the scheme is in its first phase. PERKESO has published a phase roadmap in which the headline contribution rate is 0.75% in the first two years, stepping to 1.0% in years three to five and 1.25% from year six.
Treat those later rates as a signposted direction rather than a figure to calculate with today — the section on the banded table below explains why the headline rate is not what you actually deduct.
Do I have to deduct Lindung 24 Jam for my Malaysian staff?
Yes, unless the employee opted out. As at July 2026, following the Cabinet decision of 8 July 2026, a Malaysian employee is covered by default and a contribution is due for them. The opt-out window ran from 13 July to 31 August 2026; whether an election can still be made after it is PERKESO’s process, so ask them and confirm with PERKESO.
- Foreign workers: SKBBK applies and remains mandatory. There is no election for the employee or the employer to make.
- Malaysian citizens: covered by default, so the deduction depends on the employee’s own position under PERKESO’s opt-out mechanism.
- Either way it only arises where there is a SOCSO relationship. If an employee has no SOCSO relationship with you, no SKBBK arises — and that holds for foreign workers too.
- Confirm the current position with PERKESO. The scope is theirs to set, and it has already changed once since the scheme commenced.
Check the date on anything you read about the scheme
That Cabinet decision changed the scheme’s shape after it had already commenced, which is why guidance published before 8 July 2026 — including some still circulating — describes a blanket mandatory scheme.
Whether a particular employee should opt out, and what the deadline means for someone hired after the window, are questions for PERKESO and the employee — not for a software vendor and not for this guide.
Confirm coverage against PERKESO’s current guidance rather than assuming a blanket rule, because SOCSO coverage rules for foreign workers and certain age groups have been revised over time.
How much is the Lindung 24 Jam contribution?
The amount is read off PERKESO’s official Jadual Caruman, a banded wage-bracket table, not calculated as a percentage of wages. As at July 2026 the phase-1 table runs to 64 wage bands plus a row for wages above RM6,000, and the highest contribution on it is RM44.65 per month.
- The bands are defined in the Jadual by the wording “melebihi X tetapi tidak melebihi Y” — above X but not exceeding Y — so each band edge belongs to the lower band. A wage of exactly RM4,000 sits in the band ending at RM4,000; one sen more moves into the next band up.
- The wage basis is the employee’s normal monthly wage — the same basis SOCSO and EIS use, so bonuses are excluded.
- Wages above RM6,000 a month all take the top row.
- The extract below is reproduced from the official Jadual (the employee SKBBK column) and is the same table our payroll engine uses.
- It is a sample of the published bands, not the whole schedule. For a wage that is not shown here, read the figure off PERKESO’s Jadual itself rather than interpolating between these rows — the published amounts do not follow a clean formula.
- Confirm the current schedule with PERKESO before you rely on any figure here.
| Monthly wage band | Employee contribution | Employer contribution |
|---|---|---|
| Wages up to RM30 | RM0.20 | Nil |
| Above RM140, up to RM200 | RM1.25 | Nil |
| Above RM900, up to RM1,000 | RM7.15 | Nil |
| Above RM1,900, up to RM2,000 | RM14.65 | Nil |
| Above RM2,900, up to RM3,000 | RM22.15 | Nil |
| Above RM3,900, up to RM4,000 | RM29.65 | Nil |
| Above RM4,900, up to RM5,000 | RM37.15 | Nil |
| Above RM5,900, up to RM6,000 | RM44.65 | Nil |
| Above RM6,000 | RM44.65 | Nil |
A selected extract from the phase-1 Jadual Caruman published by PERKESO, which contains 64 wage bands plus the “melebihi RM6,000” row; the intermediate bands are omitted here for length, not because they differ in kind. Employer contribution is nil throughout — SKBBK is employee-borne. Band edges are upper-inclusive. Later phases (1.0% from year three, 1.25% from year six) will each carry their own published schedule, so do not scale these amounts. Always read the current Jadual from PERKESO before running payroll.
Why is my SKBBK figure RM44.65 and not RM45.00?
Because the published table is the rule, and 0.75% is only a description of it. A flat-percentage reading — 0.75% of the RM6,000 ceiling — gives RM45.00. The official Jadual’s top row is RM44.65, as at July 2026, so the shortcut is 35 sen too much.
The Jadual is a published table of exact amounts, and those amounts do not follow a clean percentage formula. The 0.75% figure describes the scheme; it does not reproduce the table.
- The band ending at RM6,000 shows RM44.65, where 0.75% of the RM6,000 ceiling would give RM45.00.
- The band from above RM140 to RM200 shows RM1.25, which no single percentage-and-rounding rule derives from that band.
- Multiply the actual wage by 0.75% and you drift from the published amount at almost every wage — by up to about 40 sen (0.75% of RM700 is RM5.25, where the Jadual says RM4.85), and by 35 sen over at the ceiling.
- So the amount has to be read off PERKESO’s Jadual for the employee’s wage band rather than computed from a rate — and a payroll system that implements the scheme as a percentage will disagree with the published figure.
Forty sen, every month, for every affected employee
Forty sen sounds trivial until you consider what it is: a statutory deduction from someone’s pay that does not match what PERKESO published. Over a year and a headcount it is also a reconciliation difference between your payroll register and what PERKESO expects you to remit.
That is the kind of small permanent discrepancy that is tedious to chase later. It is why our engine stores the Jadual verbatim rather than computing a percentage: the table is the source of truth.
The phase roadmap is a second reason not to derive amounts at all. When PERKESO publishes the phase-2 schedule, the right response is to add that table — not to multiply this one by 1.0/0.75.
Does Lindung 24 Jam change my employees’ PCB?
In Taokeh it does not: SKBBK is treated as a deduction that reduces net pay only, and PCB is computed exactly as it would be without it. That is a deliberate conservative choice, not an oversight.
LHDN’s MTD computation allows a relief for SOCSO and EIS contributions, capped at RM350 a year (as at July 2026, source: LHDN). SKBBK is a PERKESO contribution and a SOCSO sub-scheme, so it is a fair question whether it falls inside that relief.
As at July 2026, LHDN has published nothing on the point. We have not found a position either way, and we are not going to infer one.
- Include SKBBK in the relief and, if LHDN says it does not qualify, you have under-withheld tax from your employees all year — a shortfall that surfaces at filing.
- Exclude it and, if LHDN says it does qualify, you have withheld a little more tax than strictly necessary, which the employee recovers on assessment. We took this second path.
How big is the difference in practice?
The relief is capped at RM350 a year across SOCSO and EIS combined. For employees whose own SOCSO and EIS contributions already exhaust that cap, whether SKBBK qualifies makes no difference at all; for the rest, the difference in monthly PCB is small.
If LHDN publishes a position, this treatment should be revisited — and we will say so here when it does. What we will not do is tell you how your business should treat it; that is a question for LHDN and your own tax adviser.
How do I remit SKBBK to PERKESO?
You deduct it from the employee and remit it alongside your SOCSO and EIS contributions, on the same monthly cycle and deadline. Since 28 July 2026 SKBBK has a place in the contribution upload file: PERKESO has published the combined SOCSO + EIS text file layout that carries the SKBBK employee share.
- The combined layout (announced by Pekeliling Majikan Bil. 1/2026) adds a field for the SKBBK employee share to the same fixed-width file you already upload to ASSIST for SOCSO and EIS.
- The old single-scheme format is accepted until 30 September 2026; from 1 October 2026 only the combined format is accepted.
- For payroll months up to August 2026, the SKBBK amount is still keyed into ASSIST by hand from your contribution summary. From the September 2026 payroll month it travels in the file.
- The file format is PERKESO’s to publish, and the dates above are as at September 2026 — check PERKESO’s circulars if you are reading this much later.
The manual step only applies to older months now
If you are catching up on payroll months before September 2026, plan for that manual keying step rather than discovering it at the deadline. From September 2026 onwards there is no manual step: the SKBBK amount is in the file you upload.
In your books, the SKBBK you have deducted is a liability from the moment you withhold it until you pay it over, exactly like the employee shares of SOCSO and EIS. Keeping it on the ledger as its own amount is what makes your monthly remittance reconcile against what you actually deducted.
How does Taokeh handle Lindung 24 Jam in payroll?
Taokeh, the Malaysian SME accounting software by Enya Venture, calculates SKBBK on every payroll run from PERKESO’s published banded table, shows it as its own payslip line, and posts it to the ledger as a payroll liability until you remit it — so the payslip, your books and your remittance all come from one source.
- Foreign workers with a SOCSO relationship are always deducted.
- For Malaysian employees the SKBBK line stays off until you tick “SKBBK — Lindung 24 Jam” on that employee’s record: Taokeh will not reduce someone’s net pay on an assumption.
- The two defaults point opposite ways — PERKESO’s mechanism is an opt-out, so a Malaysian who did not opt out is covered and a contribution is due for them, while an employee left unticked in Taokeh is not deducted. Confirm each Malaysian employee’s position with them and set the flag to match.
- PCB is left untouched, for the reason set out above.
- The payslip shows SKBBK on its own line, so an employee can see exactly what the new deduction is rather than finding their net pay quietly lower.
- From the September 2026 payroll month, the SOCSO + EIS file Taokeh generates carries the SKBBK employee share in PERKESO’s combined format, so there is nothing extra to key in. For earlier months the contribution summary carries an SKBBK column you key into ASSIST by hand, and the payroll run reminds you of that step.
One ledger, one set of figures
Because payroll sits on the same double-entry ledger as the rest of your accounting, the deduction, the liability and the cash you eventually pay PERKESO reconcile from one set of records.
Figures and scheme rules in Taokeh are kept against PERKESO’s published schedule and re-checked when it changes; they are not a substitute for confirming your own position with PERKESO.
Frequently asked questions
What is Lindung 24 Jam?
Lindung 24 Jam is PERKESO’s name for Skim Kemalangan Bukan Bencana Kerja (SKBBK), which extends cover to accidents that are not work-related — 24-hour protection rather than only during work and the commute. It was introduced under the Employees’ Social Security (Amendment) Act 2026 and took effect on 1 June 2026. It is a SOCSO sub-scheme, so it only arises where an employee already has a SOCSO relationship.
Do I deduct Lindung 24 Jam for my Malaysian staff?
As at July 2026, following the Cabinet decision of 8 July 2026, a Malaysian employee is covered by default, with an opt-out window that ran from 13 July to 31 August 2026 — so unless they opted out within it, a contribution is due for them. It remains mandatory for foreign workers with a SOCSO relationship. Confirm the current scope with PERKESO; it has already changed once since the scheme commenced.
Why is my SKBBK figure RM44.65 and not RM45.00?
Because the contribution is read from PERKESO’s banded Jadual Caruman, not calculated as 0.75% of wages. The Jadual’s top row is RM44.65 (as at July 2026), while a flat 0.75% × RM6,000 gives RM45.00. The published table is the rule and the percentage only describes it: the printed amounts do not follow a clean percentage-and-rounding formula, so they cannot be reliably derived. Read the exact figure for your wage band off PERKESO’s Jadual.
Does the employer pay a share of SKBBK?
No. SKBBK is employee-borne — there is no employer contribution, unlike EPF, SOCSO and EIS where the employer adds its own share. You deduct it from the employee’s pay and remit it, so it reduces their net pay and adds nothing to your payroll cost. The duty to deduct, hold and remit it correctly is still the employer’s.
Does SKBBK change PCB or count toward the RM350 SOCSO/EIS relief?
In Taokeh, no — SKBBK reduces net pay only and PCB is computed as if it were not there. As at July 2026 we have found no published LHDN position on whether SKBBK falls within the SOCSO/EIS relief in the MTD calculation, so we take the conservative treatment, which withholds slightly more tax rather than less. If LHDN publishes a position, this should be revisited. Ask LHDN or your tax adviser about your own situation.
What if an employee opts out after I have already run payroll?
How an opt-out is treated once a contribution has been deducted and remitted — including any refund or adjustment — is PERKESO’s process, not something payroll software can decide; raise it with PERKESO. In Taokeh, changing an employee’s enrolment affects future runs; a finalised run is corrected the same way as any other payroll error, and the SKBBK you have deducted sits on the ledger as a liability so the adjustment is visible.
Is SKBBK included in the SOCSO and EIS contribution file I upload to ASSIST?
From the September 2026 payroll month, yes. PERKESO published the combined SOCSO + EIS file layout carrying the SKBBK employee share on 28 July 2026 (Pekeliling Majikan Bil. 1/2026), and the file Taokeh generates from September 2026 onwards uses it. Files for earlier payroll months keep the old layout, which ASSIST accepts until 30 September 2026 — for those months the SKBBK amount is still keyed into ASSIST by hand from your contribution summary.
Updated August 2026
This guide is general information for Malaysian SMEs, not tax, legal or accounting advice. Always confirm current rules and figures with the relevant authority or your own adviser.
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Related guides
- EPF, SOCSO & EIS: a Malaysian employer’s statutory contributions explained
- PCB / MTD (Monthly Tax Deduction) for Malaysian employers