B40, M40 and T20 income ranges: where your household sits

DOSM publishes household income for each of 100 percentile groups. The B40 covers percentiles 1 to 40, the M40 41 to 80 and the T20 81 to 100, so the ranges below are the edges of those groups in DOSM's 2024 table.

For scale: one employee on the national median salary of RM2,940 is a B40 household on that income alone. Two earners on that median make RM5,880, which is M40 nationally.

The table places common household incomes nationally and in two contrasting states: Selangor, where incomes are among the highest, and Kelantan, where they are the lowest.

W.P. Kuala Lumpur has the highest median household income (RM10,802) and Kelantan the lowest (RM4,083). The T20 starts highest in W.P. Putrajaya (RM19,032) and lowest in Kelantan (RM7,003). In Kuala Lumpur the B40 runs up to RM9,632, well above the national B40 limit of RM5,858.

The median household income rose from RM3,626 in 2012 to RM6,338 in 2022 and RM7,017 in 2024. These are nominal figures, not adjusted for inflation.

The figures come from DOSM's Household Income Survey, run at least twice in every five years. Household income is the gross monthly income of all members of a household, from salaries and from non-salary sources such as property income, dividends and interest. The official statistics cover Malaysian citizen households.

DOSM notes that the percentile-level figures carry larger relative standard errors than the headline median, so treat a household close to a boundary as near the line rather than firmly on one side.

B40, M40 and T20 are statistical groups. Government aid programmes set their own eligibility rules and income lines, so check the programme you are applying to. For individual pay rather than household income, see average salary in Malaysia.