The Fine For Selling Online Without The Right Disclosures Is Now RM100,000, Not RM50,000

If you have read anything about the legal side of selling on Shopee, Lazada or TikTok Shop in Malaysia, you have almost certainly read about the Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transactions) Regulations 2012 and the RM50,000 fine.

Those Regulations were revoked.

The Consumer Protection (Electronic Trade Transaction) Regulations 2024 came into force on 25 December 2024, replacing the 2012 set. Under Regulation 9 of the 2024 Regulations, a breach is an offence under the Consumer Protection Act 1999 carrying penalties of up to RM100,000 in fines and/or up to 3 years' imprisonment for individuals, with stiffer penalties for repeat violations.

The old headline number has doubled. And the obligations went up with it: mandatory Bahasa Malaysia disclosures, an obligation to cover return shipping costs for defective or materially different products, safety and health certification disclosure, and — for platforms — a duty to police their own sellers.

1. What changed on 25 December 2024

The scope broadening matters most. The 2012 definition covered "websites". The 2024 definition covers electronic trade platforms, which practitioners read as including apps like Lazada and Shopee and potentially TikTok, Facebook and Instagram where those are multi-vendor platforms effecting or facilitating trade transactions.

Note the limit, though. The online marketplace concept applies to multi-vendor platforms. Donovan & Ho's analysis notes it does not typically extend to single-vendor e-commerce sites or non-transactional platforms. If you run your own standalone store, the marketplace rules may not bite in the same way — but the Consumer Protection Act 1999, the Sale of Goods Act 1957 and the Contracts Act 1950 still do.

2. The disclosure checklist

Work through this against your own listings and store page.

About you:

• ☐ Name of the person or company operating the business, and the business name
• ☐ Business or company registration number
• ☐ Email address, telephone number or address of the person running the business

About the product:

• ☐ Detailed description of the goods or services
• ☐ Safety and health certifications where applicable (new in 2024)
• ☐ Goods or services must match their advertised description or quality (new in 2024)

About the money:

• ☐ Full price including taxes, transport and other costs, shown upfront
• ☐ Methods of payment accepted

About the transaction:

• ☐ Terms and conditions
• ☐ Estimated delivery time
• ☐ A mechanism letting the buyer rectify errors before finalising the order
• ☐ Prompt order acknowledgement
• ☐ A return policy that reflects the new obligation to cover return shipping for defective or materially different goods

Language: - ☐ Disclosures in Bahasa Malaysia (translations optional)

On the Bahasa Malaysia requirement — read this carefully. Enforcement was temporarily postponed as of June 2025 and reporting describes it as "postponed until further notice". Postponed is not repealed. The obligation exists in the Regulations; only enforcement is paused. Practitioner advice is that full compliance remains essential. If you are preparing translations now, you are ahead of the position rather than wasting effort — but check the current enforcement status before assuming either way.

3. Penalties

Under Regulation 9 of the 2024 Regulations, a breach is an offence under the Consumer Protection Act 1999:

• Up to RM100,000 in fines, and/or
• Up to 3 years' imprisonment for individuals
• Stiffer penalties for repeat violations

For context on the structure the 2012 set used — which gives a sense of how repeat and corporate offending was treated: fine up to RM50,000 or up to 3 years for a first individual offence; up to RM100,000 or 5 years for a second or subsequent; up to RM100,000 for a company, rising to RM200,000 for a repeat; plus an additional fine of up to RM1,000 per day for each day the offence continued after conviction. Offences were triable in the Magistrates' Court.

Beyond the criminal penalties, platforms enforce commercially. Marketplace operators are now legally obliged to ensure supplier compliance and may suspend or delist your account for breaches. In practice that is the sanction most sellers will meet first.

And consumers have their own route — the Tribunal for Consumer Claims (TTPM), with claims up to RM50,000, filed through the e-Tribunal portal at ttpm.kpdn.gov.my.

4. SSM registration — still mandatory, still ignored

This is separate from the consumer protection rules and long-standing.

SSM's position, stated publicly since 2017, is that all online traders carrying on business via a marketplace or e-commerce company must register with SSM, with a 30-day window to register after the business on the platform becomes profitable. Traders who fail to register can be dropped from the online platform.

Failure to register is an offence under the Registration of Businesses Act 1956, punishable on conviction by a fine not exceeding RM50,000 or imprisonment up to 2 years, or both.

Practical point: the 2024 Regulations require you to disclose your business registration number. If you do not have one, you cannot comply with the disclosure requirement. The two obligations lock together.

5. Tax: what actually applies to a small seller

Income tax. Online trading income is taxable income. Register with LHDN and declare it. There is no "it's just a side hustle" exemption.

e-Invoice — and here the threshold moved in your favour. The mandatory e-Invoice exemption threshold was raised from RM500,000 to RM1 million, announced on 7 December 2025 and effective 1 January 2026. Businesses with annual turnover or revenue below RM1 million are exempt for now, and the previously scheduled final phase for the RM500,000–RM1 million band on 1 July 2026 was eliminated.

The rollout by turnover, as revised:

Each phase carries a six-month relaxation period during which LHDN will not prosecute for non-compliance provided consolidated e-invoices are issued as required. Note also that from 1 January 2026, transactions above RM10,000 require an individual e-Invoice — consolidation is not permitted for those, even if the buyer does not request one.

SST. Most service categories carry a RM500,000 registration threshold. If you sell goods rather than services this may not bite, but marketplace commissions, logistics fees and advertising you buy may carry service tax — see the companion article (That 8% On Your Netflix Bill Is Malaysian Service Tax. It Used To Be 6%.).

6. The underlying consumer law you can't contract out of

The Regulations sit on top of general law that applies regardless of what your listing says.

Sale of Goods Act 1957 implies terms into contracts for the sale of goods — including as to correspondence with description and, in many cases, merchantable quality and fitness for purpose.

Consumer Protection Act 1999 is the parent Act, covering misleading conduct and false representations.

Contracts Act 1950 governs formation and breach.

Personal Data Protection Act 2010 covers the customer data you collect — names, addresses, phone numbers. Selling online means processing personal data, and the PDPA applies to you.

A "no returns, no refunds" line in your listing does not override statutory rights. Under the 2024 Regulations you must additionally cover return shipping for defective or materially different products.

7. Where this is uncertain

The Bahasa Malaysia enforcement pause has no published end date that we could locate. Reporting from June 2025 describes it as postponed until further notice.

Whether social commerce is caught is not settled. Practitioner analysis says the 2024 definition "potentially" extends to TikTok, Facebook and Instagram where these operate as multi-vendor platforms facilitating trade transactions. That is a considered reading, not a decided question. If you sell through Instagram DMs or a Facebook page, take advice rather than assuming you are outside the net.

Enforcement statistics are not readily published. We could not locate current KPDN enforcement figures specifically for the 2024 Regulations against online sellers. Absence of published statistics is not evidence of absence of enforcement.

What to actually do

This week, on every listing:

• Add your business registration number to your store profile. If you don't have one, register with SSM.
• Check your full price shows taxes and delivery upfront, not at checkout as a surprise.
• Add contact details — email, phone or address.
• Check product descriptions are detailed and accurate, and that what you ship matches them.
• Add estimated delivery time.
• Publish terms and conditions including a return policy that covers return shipping for defective or materially different goods.
• Add safety or health certifications where your products need them.

This month:

• Register with SSM if you haven't. Failure carries up to RM50,000 or 2 years.
• Register with LHDN and start declaring trading income.
• Check your turnover against the RM1 million e-Invoice threshold. Below it, you are exempt for now.
• Start preparing Bahasa Malaysia versions of listings and disclosures — the requirement exists, only enforcement is paused.
• Check your PDPA position on customer data.

Ongoing:

• Keep records. Operators must keep supplier records for 3 years; keep your own transaction records at least as long.
• Respond to complaints through the platform's channel — operators are now obliged to maintain them, and an unanswered complaint can become a TTPM claim.
• Do not assume a "no refunds" policy protects you. It doesn't.

Where to check: KPDN (kpdn.gov.my) for the Regulations and consumer protection enforcement; SSM (ssm.com.my) for registration; LHDN (hasil.gov.my) for e-Invoice and income tax; the Tribunal for Consumer Claims at ttpm.kpdn.gov.my.