Direct answer: An Employment Pass (EP) is the pass that lets a non-Sarawakian work in Sarawak. EXPRT is not a pass — it is the online platform inside GENESIS where the EP application is submitted and tracked. The EP itself is issued by JIMS (Jabatan Imigresen Malaysia Negeri Sarawak), requires a minimum basic salary of RM3,000 per month, and is valid for 1 to 5 years per pass — but only 5 years in total across the initial approval and every renewal combined. Once that cap is reached, the expatriate must leave and apply for a new EP.
Updated 30 October 2026 · Official sources: GENESIS — EXPRT module page and EXPRT FAQ (genesis.sarawak.gov.my)
Key Facts at a Glance
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Is EXPRT a type of visa? | No. It is the platform. The passes under it are Employment Pass (EP) and Professional Visit Pass (PVP) |
| Is PVP available yet? | Not yet. GENESIS states PVP is "to be launched soon" |
| Who does this cover? | Non-Sarawakians — explicitly including West Malaysians, Sabahans, and non-resident foreigners |
| Who issues the EP? | JIMS (Sarawak Immigration) |
| Minimum salary | RM3,000 per month |
| Validity per pass | 1–5 years, renewable |
| Total cap | 5 years combined, including all renewals. Then leave and re-apply |
| Minimum age | 27 (below 27 considered case by case) |
| Who submits? | The company. An individual cannot apply for themselves |
| First step | Advertise the role on JobSarawak for at least 14 days to obtain a Hiring Outcome Report |
| How long is the Approval Letter valid? | 1 month — then it lapses |
| Is a Labour Licence needed? | Yes, mandatory under the Sarawak Labour Ordinance (Amendment) Act 2025, for new applications from 1 Nov 2025 and all renewals |
EXPRT Is a Platform, Not a Pass
This is the single most common misunderstanding, and it causes real damage because people search for "EXPRT visa" and end up reading the wrong rules.
EXPRT stands for Expatriate Platform for Recruitment & Talent. It is a submodule of GENESIS, sitting under "Gateway & Employment for Non-Sarawakians". Inside EXPRT you manage two things:
- Employment Pass (EP) — the work pass. Currently the only one live.
- Professional Visit Pass (PVP) — for foreign talent with acceptable professional qualifications, up to 12 months. GENESIS lists this as "to be launched soon", so it is not something you can apply for today.
So the correct sentence is not "I am applying for an EXPRT". It is "I am applying for an Employment Pass, and the application is submitted through EXPRT."
The distinction matters practically. If you treat EXPRT as the pass, you will look for "EXPRT requirements" and miss the actual gate — which is the employer's eligibility, not the applicant's.
Who This Actually Covers
Here is the part almost nobody explains properly.
EXPRT is for Non-Sarawakians. GENESIS defines that term to include:
- West Malaysians
- Sabahans
- Non-resident foreigners (NREs)
That means a Malaysian from Kuala Lumpur or Kota Kinabalu taking a job in Sarawak goes through the same EP process as a foreign national. This is not a foreign-worker scheme. It is Sarawak's control over who works in Sarawak.
Two consequences follow, and both catch people out:
A West Malaysian does not need a visa — but does need an EP. The immigration paperwork is different, the employment pass requirement is not. Companies routinely assume a Malaysian hire needs nothing, then discover the EP requirement months later when the employee is already working.
Statutory bodies and government agencies cannot use EXPRT at all. GENESIS is explicit: they must submit directly to JIMS Bahagian F, and applications through the system are not accepted. If you are in that category, every step below is wrong for you.
The Full Chain, In Order
The order is fixed. Skipping a step does not slow the application down — it stops it.
1. Advertise on JobSarawak for at least 14 days. This produces the Hiring Outcome Report (HOR), which is the evidence that the role was genuinely opened to Sarawakians. Exemptions exist for Key Post, Shareholder, Specialist, and Cross-posting positions.
2. Register accounts in ALIANCE. Individual account first, then company account. Both are required before anything can be submitted. All modules — JobSarawak, SAFHIS, EXPRT — are reached through the same single sign-on at aliance.sarawak.gov.my.
3. Submit the EP application in EXPRT. This is where the company documents and the applicant documents meet.
4. Receive the Approval Letter. It is valid for one month. This is not a formality — it is a hard clock.
5. Apply for eVDR and eVISA with JIMS. The Approval Letter is the document that lets you do this. Let the month pass and you go back to step 3.
6. Labour Licence is applied automatically. GENESIS states the system auto-applies for the Labour Licence after verification of the eVDR and eVISA. Its validity follows the EP validity.
7. EP is issued by JIMS, then NSIC. The Non-Sarawakian Identity Card completes the chain.
For renewals, steps 1 and 5 drop out — no HOR, no eVDR. See the renewal section below.
Employer Eligibility: The Numbers That Stop Applications Cold
Most failed EP attempts we see are not rejected. They are never submittable, because the company does not meet a threshold. Check these before anything else.
Paid-up capital
| Ownership | Minimum paid-up capital |
|---|---|
| 100% local (Malaysian) | RM250,000 |
| Joint venture (foreign + local) | RM350,000 |
| 100% foreign-owned | RM1,000,000 |
Individual shareholding — applies when the expatriate is also a shareholder
| Applicant background | Minimum shareholding per person |
|---|---|
| Peninsular Malaysia or Sabah | RM50,000 |
| Foreign national (joint venture) | RM100,000 |
| Foreign national (100% foreign-owned) | RM150,000 |
Company type. GENESIS is required to be a private limited company (Sdn. Bhd.) with a valid ROC number and SSM registration. Sole proprietorships and partnerships are stated as not eligible.
⚠️ One caution you should know about. The GENESIS FAQ is not fully consistent on this point. A later answer in the same FAQ lists a much wider set of allowed company types — including sole proprietorship, partnership, LLP, foreign LLP, and non-profit organisations. We are not going to pick a side for you. If your entity is anything other than a Sdn. Bhd., confirm directly with GENESIS on +60 16-811 0799 before you spend anything. Two answers in the same official document means you want it in writing.
Restricted sectors. These sectors may only apply for shareholder positions — not ordinary employee positions:
- Spa, reflexology, massage, and health establishments
- Hairdressing, barber shops, beauty salons
- Manpower supply agencies
- Petty traders, hawkers, store operators
- Scrap and recycling businesses
If your company is in one of these and the candidate is not a shareholder, there is no application to make.
Applicant Eligibility: Age, Qualification, Salary
Four things must line up at the same time. This is where most rework originates, because each one can be fine on its own and still fail in combination.
Age. Minimum 27. Applicants below 27 are considered case by case — which means they are not automatically excluded, but you should expect scrutiny and you should not promise anyone an outcome.
Qualification and experience — the ladder
| Qualification | Minimum relevant experience |
|---|---|
| Bachelor's degree in a related field | 5 years |
| Diploma in a related field | 7 years |
| Skills certificate in a related field | 10 years |
Note the words "in a related field". A degree in an unrelated discipline paired with experience in another field is not the same thing, and it is one of the most common reasons a file comes back.
Salary. Minimum basic RM3,000 per month. Basic — not gross, not inclusive of allowances.
Position. A full-time role that is not one a Sarawakian could fill. This is why the JobSarawak advertising step exists; it is not paperwork for its own sake.
Passport. At least 12 months of remaining validity at submission. If it is shorter, the applicant must renew the passport at JIMS before submitting. There is no workaround, and discovering it at submission costs weeks.
Documents the Approval Letter Needs
Company side — this is the official list:
- Certificate of Incorporation (Form 9)
- Summary of Share Capital & Shareholders/Members (Form 24)
- Director & Officers (Form 49)
- Trade Licence
- Tenancy Agreement / Property S&P
- Latest SSM company profile printout
- Latest annual financial statement — only for joint ventures or wholly foreign-owned entities
- Latest E-Filing with receipt — only if the company has operated more than one year
- Company bank statement — mandatory for new applications in the Services sector, and for all renewal applications
Applicant side: passport, photographs, and the academic and employment evidence that supports the qualification-and-experience ladder above.
Every supporting document must be a Certified True Copy (CTC) before upload. Documents you submitted previously and which are still valid can be reused — but anything new or updated must be certified again. An uncertified upload is a return, not a query.
Where Applications Actually Break
These are the failure patterns we see repeatedly. None of them are about the applicant being unqualified.
The Approval Letter expires while everyone waits. One month is short. Companies get the letter, then start gathering eVDR materials, then discover the letter has lapsed and the application must be resubmitted from the EXPRT stage.
The four-way mismatch. Job title, salary, qualification, and years of experience must describe the same person. A "Senior Engineer" title with a diploma and four years of experience fails the ladder. A salary below RM3,000 fails outright. A degree in an unrelated field fails the "related field" test. Each of these is fixable before submission and expensive after.
Employer and applicant records disagree. The company states one salary; the employment letter states another; the bank statement shows a third. This is the single most common source of rework, and it is entirely preventable by reading both sides together before uploading.
Sequence errors. Applying for a Labour Licence before the eVDR is verified, or starting the EXPRT application before the JobSarawak 14-day window has run, means the system simply will not advance. People then re-enter data, which creates duplicate records.
The 5-year cap is discovered too late. The 5 years is cumulative across the initial approval and all renewals. Teams plan renewals as if the clock resets. It does not.
A missing bank statement in the Services sector. It is mandatory for new Services-sector applications, and applicants routinely treat it as optional because it is not required for every sector.
Renewal: The Three Things Nobody Tells You
One — the three months is after expiry, not before. This is widely misunderstood. GENESIS states that a renewal application may be submitted within three months after the EP expiry date. If the EP has been expired for more than three months, renewal is no longer permitted and a new application is required. Plan backwards from the expiry date and treat the grace window as an emergency margin, not a schedule.
Two — renewal is simpler than you think. No eVDR is required. No Hiring Outcome Report is required. Once the Approval Letter is issued, the Labour Licence is applied for automatically. Renewal is genuinely lighter than a fresh application, which is why letting an EP lapse is such an expensive mistake.
Three — payment comes before the letter. For renewals, the Approval Letter is only issued after full payment is received. You cannot download it and pay later.
Other renewal points worth knowing:
- All supporting documents must be CTC. Previously submitted documents that are still valid can be reused; anything new must be certified.
- A change of job position or salary does not block renewal. Update it inside the renewal application. The renewal is unaffected as long as the expatriate remains employed by the same company.
- One application can carry multiple expatriates, provided every individual's documents are complete.
- The EP is tied to the employer. Because renewal depends on the expatriate remaining with the same company, moving to a different employer is not a renewal — it is a different application.
Where AUSVJ Helps
We are not a submission clerk, and this is not a page where we promise an approval. Here is specifically what we do on an EP file, and where it changes the outcome.
We run the eligibility arithmetic before anyone pays anything. Paid-up capital against the three tiers, shareholding against the three tiers, company type against the Sdn. Bhd. requirement, sector against the shareholder-only list, and the applicant's age and qualification ladder. Most of the files that reach us already have a problem at this layer — and it is the cheapest layer to fix, because nothing has been submitted yet.
We reconcile the employer side and the applicant side against each other. Form 9, Form 24, Form 49, Trade Licence, tenancy, SSM profile, and bank statement on one side; passport, certificates, and employment history on the other. We are looking for the specific contradiction that will cause a return: a salary that does not match, a job title the qualification cannot support, a company address that differs from the tenancy agreement. This cross-reading is the part clients most often skip, because each document looks fine in isolation.
We check the sequence before the clock starts. Whether the JobSarawak 14-day window has actually run, whether an exemption applies, whether the passport has 12 months left, whether the eVDR materials are ready before the Approval Letter is generated. The one-month letter validity is the tightest constraint in the whole chain, and it is the one people plan for last.
We prepare the submission so it survives first review. CTC certification on every document, consistent naming, correct forms, no duplicate applications from re-entry after a sequence error.
We stay on it after submission. Follow-up, responding to queries, and organising supplementary documents when something is asked for — including the renewal timing question, which is where the expensive mistakes happen.
What we do not do: guarantee an outcome, quote an approval timeline GENESIS does not publish, or tell you a threshold can be waived when it cannot.
If your company is planning a hire, or you already have an EP running and the renewal date is closer than you thought, send us the current state in a couple of lines. We will tell you which of the checks above you would fail first.
Common Questions
Is EXPRT a visa? No. EXPRT is the platform. The pass is the Employment Pass, issued by JIMS.
I am a West Malaysian. Do I need an EP to work in Sarawak? Yes. EXPRT covers non-Sarawakians, which GENESIS defines to include West Malaysians and Sabahans. You do not need a visa, but you do need the pass.
Can I apply for myself? No. The application must be submitted by the company.
What is the minimum salary? RM3,000 per month basic.
How long is an EP valid? One to five years per pass, but five years in total including all renewals. After that the expatriate must leave and apply for a new EP.
Can I renew after it has expired? Within three months after the expiry date, yes. Beyond three months, no — a new application is required.
Do I need a Labour Licence? Yes, for new applications submitted from 1 November 2025 and for all renewals. It is applied for automatically once the eVDR and eVISA are verified.
Does a renewal need an eVDR? No. Nor does it need a Hiring Outcome Report.
My company is a partnership. Can we apply? The GENESIS FAQ gives two different answers on company type. Confirm with GENESIS before proceeding — we will not guess on your behalf.
Can one application cover several expatriates? Yes, provided all required documents for each person are included.
Want Your Case Checked Before You Submit?
Send us the company's paid-up capital, the applicant's age and highest qualification with years of experience, and the proposed job title and salary. Three lines is enough for us to tell you whether this file is submittable as it stands.
If it is not, you will hear that from us — not from a rejection three months later.
Related Guides
- Sarawak work permit 2026/2027: the complete overview
- SANSOLS: hiring general and skilled foreign workers in Sarawak
- eVDR: the entry visa that comes before the pass
- SAFHIS: the medical screening step after arrival
- HAVEN: hiring a foreign domestic helper in Sarawak
- Sarawak PLKS: application, collection and renewal guide
