State entertainment enactments
State entertainment and places of entertainment enactments and by-laws
State law
What this does to artists
Entertainment licensing sits on the State List, so outside Kuala Lumpur the rules that decide whether a show can happen are state enactments and local authority by-laws, none of which are on the federal portal. Selangor, Penang, Johor, Sabah and Sarawak each differ, and Sarawak and Sabah have separate immigration control on top.
This is the single largest gap in any Malaysian legal resource for the arts, including this one. Building it out state by state is a standing ALIM research task.
What to read first
Section numbers read out of the AGC text itself
Where this one bites
DJ a club night
You are playing other people's recordings to a paying room. Three separate licences, one venue licence, a stat…
ScenarioBusk or perform in the street
The rule that decides whether you can play is almost always your own council's by-law, and nobody publishes th…
ScenarioStage a play, gig or live show
Two sets of performing rights, a venue licence, a duty on admissions, and the question of what your cast actua…
ScenarioBring a foreign artist into Malaysia
Two gates, one tax, and the administrative one is the constraint on your timeline.…
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.
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