Chase an unpaid fee or invoice
Being owed money is common, and it is fixable more often than people expect. Where you go to get it depends on what you were on that job: employee, freelancer, gig worker or seller. Some of those routes are free and don't need a lawyer.
What reaches you, and in what order
Contracts Act 1950
Act 136The contract exists even if nothing was signed: a WhatsApp thread and a delivered job is a contract. Section 74 gives compensation for loss caused by the breach.
Gig Workers Act 2025
Act 872** `You are covered two ways. Either you took the work through a platform, or your kind of work is named in the Schedule, with no platform needed at all. The Schedule names acting, film crew, singing, playing, composing, lyric writing, make-up, hair, styling, photography and videography.
Employment Act 1955
Act 265If you were in truth an employee, the Labour Department is the cheap route: the Director General can hear a wages dispute under s.69 of the Employment Act 1955 and order payment with no cap on the amount. It is an alternative to suing, not a bar on it, so you keep the civil claim if you would rather have it. In Sabah and Sarawak the Employment Act does not apply; the equivalent route is the Labour Department under the Labour Ordinance of Sabah or of Sarawak. Labelling you a freelancer does not make you one.
Industrial Relations Act 1967
Act 177For dismissal rather than unpaid wages the route is s.20 of the Industrial Relations Act 1967. You file written representations with the Director General for Industrial Relations, at the Industrial Relations Department office nearest the place you worked, within sixty days of the dismissal. You do not file at the Industrial Court. If conciliation fails the Director General must refer the case to the Industrial Court himself; since 1 January 2021 that is no longer a Ministerial discretion. Miss the sixty days and the Director General cannot entertain you at all.
Subordinate Courts Act 1948
Act 92There is no Small Claims Act, which is why you cannot find one. The small claims procedure sits in Order 93 of the Rules of Court 2012 and runs in the Magistrates' Court under this Act. Up to RM5,000, you file on Form 198 and you appear yourself; no advocate represents either side. For most unpaid arts invoices this is the cheapest route there is. ALIM has a guide to it.
Consumer Protection Act 1999
Act 599The Tribunal for Consumer Claims is cheap and fast and does not need a lawyer. It cuts both ways: a client can use it on you.
Stamp Act 1949
Act 378Stamp it. Section 52 keeps an unstamped instrument out of evidence, but the proviso to s.52(1) lets the court admit it on payment of the duty and the s.47A penalty, and s.51 lets the document be impounded and stamped mid-case. So the defect is curable even at trial; it is just expensive, embarrassing and it hands the other side a delay. Stamp within thirty days of execution and none of this arises.
Limitation Act 1953
Act 254Six years for contract and tort. Section 29 postpones time where the claim was concealed by fraud, which is the argument when royalties were never reported.
Specific Relief Act 1950
Act 137When money is not the remedy you want and you need the work back or the use stopped.
Arbitration Act 2005
Act 646If the agreement has an arbitration clause, that is where this goes, not to court.
Match the forum to the amount before you do anything else, because the ceilings differ by a factor of two hundred and they are all verified against the Acts themselves. Small claims under Order 93 stops dead at RM5,000 and you appear in person. A First Class Magistrate can hear up to RM100,000 under s.90 of the Subordinate Courts Act 1948, and the Sessions Court up to RM1,000,000 under s.65; both are ordinary suits, with lawyers and costs. The Tribunal for Consumer Claims tops out at RM50,000 but it is for a consumer claiming against a supplier, which is usually the wrong way round for an artist chasing a fee. The Labour Department under s.69 of the Employment Act 1955 has no cap at all; the Director General may order payment without limitation of the amount. And the Gig Workers Tribunal has no monetary ceiling written into the Act: s.33(1) lets it grant any award it thinks just and appropriate and s.33(3) lets the complaint include consequential loss. One caveat on that last point, and it matters: the Gig Workers Tribunal Regulations 2026 are not in this library and we have not read them, so a limit could sit there. Check before you rely on it.
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This page is published by ALIM (Art × Law Initiative Malaysia) as general legal information for Malaysia’s creative communities. It is not legal advice. It does not take your circumstances into account, and reading it does not create a solicitor-client relationship with ALIM or with anyone associated with it.
The law changes. Each Act reproduced here is the Attorney General’s Chambers’ consolidated reprint and carries the date it was consolidated to; amendments made after that date do not appear in the text, and the authoritative version of any Malaysian law is the one published in the Federal Gazette. Subsidiary legislation, state enactments and local authority by-laws may also apply to your situation and are largely outside this library.
Please do not act, or decide not to act, on the strength of this page alone. Take advice from an advocate and solicitor on your own facts. To the extent permitted by law, ALIM and its contributors accept no liability for any loss arising from reliance on this page.
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