Form E & Form EA 2026: Employer Guide + Submission Deadlines

Two forms, names that differ by one letter, and two completely different jobs. Every February and March, someone in a Malaysian SME gets them mixed up. The HR executive hands out Form EA and assumes the employer’s filing is done. Or the boss files Form E on time and forgets that staff have been waiting on their EA statements since the last week of February.

There is a second problem that costs more. Plenty of directors believe a company with no staff or no trading activity has nothing to file. LHDN’s own explanatory notes for Form E say the opposite in capital letters: dormant companies, LLPs, trust bodies and co-operative societies are compulsory to furnish Form E and C.P.8D.

This guide is written for owners and admin staff of small and mid-sized companies who handle payroll in-house. We cover what separates the two forms, who must file, what C.P.8D is, the deadlines for year of assessment 2025 filed in 2026, how to submit through MyTax, and what happens when you miss the date.

Form E vs Form EA: What Each One Actually Does

Form E goes to LHDN. It is the employer’s annual return. It reports how many employees you had, the total remuneration you paid, and the total monthly tax deductions (PCB) you withheld and remitted. The deadline is 31 March.

Form EA does not go to LHDN at all. It goes to your employees. Each employee receives a statement listing their income for the year, their PCB, and their EPF and SOCSO contributions. They use it to complete their own Form BE or Form B. As an employer you prepare it and hand it over by the last day of February, and you keep a copy. You do not submit Form EA to the tax office.

The simplest way to hold it in your head: Form E goes up to the tax authority, Form EA goes down to your staff. Both are obligations. Doing one does not cover the other.

Note the sequence. Form EA is due before Form E, and that ordering is deliberate. Employees need their income figures early enough to file their own returns before 30 April.

Who Must File Form E

If you are registered with LHDN as an employer and hold an employer number (E number), the obligation applies to you. That covers:

• Sdn Bhd and Berhad companies
• Limited liability partnerships (LLP)
• Trust bodies and co-operative societies
• Sole proprietorships and partnerships with employees
• Hindu joint families and estates with employees
• Labuan companies

Dormant companies are not exempt

This is the question we field most often. LHDN’s explanatory notes state that dormant companies, LLPs, trust bodies and co-operative societies are compulsory to furnish Form E and C.P.8D. The definition of dormant covers both situations people usually assume are safe: an entity that has never commenced operations since incorporation, and an entity that once traded but has since stopped.

So the Sdn Bhd you incorporated two years ago and never traded through still has a Form E to file. You report nil headcount and nil remuneration, but the return still has to go in. Founders who set up a holding company or a shelf company for a project that never started are the usual casualties here.

What the exemption actually covers

The exemption stated in LHDN’s filing programme applies to C.P.8D, not to Form E. Employers that are sole proprietorships, partnerships, Hindu joint families and estates with no employees are exempt from furnishing C.P.8D. Companies are not on that list. If you are unsure which category your entity falls into, check the LHDN employer portal or ask your company secretary before assuming you are outside the net.

What C.P.8D Is and Why It Decides Whether Your Filing Counts

C.P.8D is the detailed employee listing that accompanies Form E. Form E gives the totals; C.P.8D gives the breakdown line by line. Each row carries an employee’s name, income tax number, identity card number, gross remuneration, benefits in kind, PCB deducted, zakat, and other deductions.

Here is the part that catches people. Your Form E is not treated as complete until C.P.8D is in. LHDN’s filing programme states that the e-E form is only considered complete if C.P.8D is furnished on or before the Form E submission deadline. Filing the e-E on 29 March and uploading C.P.8D on 3 April does not give you a March filing. It gives you a late one.

There are a few ways C.P.8D reaches LHDN:

• Key it in directly inside e-E. Workable if you have a handful of employees.
• Upload a file. For larger headcounts, prepare the listing in the format LHDN prescribes (Excel or txt) and upload it while completing e-E. Files that do not follow the prescribed format are rejected, so do not rename columns or reorder them to suit your own spreadsheet.
• Submit early through the pre-filing channel. LHDN has offered an early submission route for employee data, previously known as e-Data Praisi and later handled as e-CP8D, typically with a cut-off around late February. Employers who submitted through that channel were not required to repeat C.P.8D inside Form E. The name, the channel and the cut-off date for this route have changed over the years, so confirm what is available in MyTax for the current year before relying on it.

If your payroll system generates C.P.8D in LHDN format, most of the work is done. If you build it in Excel by hand, budget time to verify every employee’s income tax number. Missing or wrong tax numbers are the most common reason a C.P.8D file bounces back.

Deadline Calendar for Year of Assessment 2025

The table below covers 2025 remuneration reported during 2026. Dates are taken from LHDN’s return form filing programme for 2026.

One point on grace periods. Form BE and Form B get a genuine two-week extension for e-Filing. Form E does not get anything comparable. The extension listed for Form E in the filing programme runs to a few working days at most, which is not a buffer you should plan around. Treat 31 March as the real date and aim to be finished a week earlier.

These dates and grace periods are reviewed annually. Before you lock them into your compliance calendar, confirm them on the return form filing programme page at hasil.gov.my.

How to Submit Form E Through MyTax

Companies and Labuan companies have been required to file Form E through e-Filing since the year of remuneration 2016. Paper submission is not an option for these categories. The process runs roughly as follows.

1. Sort out your MyTax role first. Log in to MyTax with your identity card number and password. You need an Employer or Employer Representative role linked to the company’s E number. If you do not have it, apply through the role application menu. Approval is not instant, so do this in January or early February rather than the week before the deadline.
2. Open e-Filing and select e-E. Switch your role to employer, go into ezHasil Services, choose e-Filing, and pick the e-E form for the correct year of remuneration. For 2025 salaries, that is e-E 2025.
3. Complete the employer particulars. E number, entity name, address, employer status (still operating or dormant), and the accounting period end date.
4. Attach C.P.8D. Either key in each employee or upload the prescribed file. Cross-check that total remuneration and total PCB in C.P.8D agree with the summary figures in Form E. Mismatches trigger validation errors and cost you an evening.
5. Review, then sign digitally. Read it once more before submitting. Once it is in, corrections go through LHDN’s amendment procedure rather than an edit button.
6. Save the acknowledgement. Download the confirmation slip and a copy of the submitted form. Keep employment and payroll records for at least seven years in line with record-keeping requirements.

If the company has changed its registered address, changed name, or ceased operations, update those particulars with LHDN before filing season. Mismatched entity details are a common reason a submission stalls at the wrong moment.

What Goes Into Form EA

Form EA is not a free-format annual payslip. LHDN publishes a standard layout (C.P.8A) and employers should follow it so employees can transfer figures straight into their e-Filing. The core content:

The figures in Form EA should reconcile to your monthly payroll records. If your monthly process for salary and statutory deductions is not tight, our guide on calculating net salary and statutory deductions is worth reading before EA season starts. For the contribution lines, cross-check against our notes on EPF employer registration and SOCSO contributions so the EA figures match what was actually remitted.

Form EA is required for everyone who worked for you during the year, including leavers. An employee who resigned in March still gets an EA covering January to March. Directors who drew director’s fees are included too.

Penalties for Late or Missing Submissions

LHDN’s explanatory notes for Form E state plainly that failure to submit Form E by the deadline is a criminal offence and can be prosecuted in court. It is not treated as a paperwork slip.

These amounts are published in LHDN’s offences, fines and penalties listing. Amounts and provisions can be amended, so verify the current version on hasil.gov.my before acting on the figures above.

In practice, a submission that is a day or two late rarely ends up in court. The record of non-compliance sits in the company’s tax profile though, and it resurfaces when the company applies for tax clearance, seeks financing, or goes through due diligence in a sale. Companies that treat compliance loosely every year accumulate a file that becomes awkward to explain later.

Mistakes We See Most Often

• Dormant companies filing nothing. No staff, no activity, so the director assumes no obligation. LHDN’s notes say otherwise. A nil Form E takes fifteen minutes and closes the exposure.
• Form E submitted without C.P.8D. You think you are done; LHDN records the return as incomplete.
• Form EA handed out in April. Employees end up completing Form BE from estimates. If they get it wrong they carry the consequence, but the cause was on the employer’s side.
• Leavers forgotten. Staff who resigned mid-year are usually deleted from the payroll system and drop off the EA list.
• Benefits in kind left out. Company car, fuel card, phone, employer-paid rent. All of it is employment income for tax purposes and belongs in Form EA.
• Director’s fees not reported. A director drawing fees is an employee for Form E and Form EA purposes, even if that director owns the company.
• EA figures that do not tie to C.P.8D. When an employee’s EA total differs from what you reported in C.P.8D, that employee is the one who receives the query at e-Filing time.
• MyTax role not yet approved. The single most common reason a filing goes down to the wire in late March. Handle the role application early.
• Confusing Form E with other employer forms. Form E is not CP58 and not CP22. Commission and incentive payments to agents and distributors fall under CP58, which we cover in our guide on the CP58 form for business owners. New hire and cessation notifications are handled through CP22 and CP22A.

Frequently Asked Questions

My company has no employees at all. Do I still file Form E?

If the entity is a company, LLP, trust body or co-operative society, LHDN’s notes state the obligation applies even when dormant. The C.P.8D exemption in the filing programme covers only sole proprietorships, partnerships, Hindu joint families and estates with no employees. Confirm your entity’s specific position on hasil.gov.my or with your company secretary.

Do directors who only take director’s fees need to be included?

Yes. Director’s fees are remuneration for tax purposes, so the director goes into C.P.8D and receives a Form EA. This applies even where the director is the sole owner of the company.

Can I email Form EA to employees instead of printing it?

Yes. What matters is that each employee receives a complete, readable copy before the end of February. Most employers now send a PDF or publish it in an HR portal. Keep evidence of delivery for your own records.

What happens if I miss 31 March?

File as soon as you can. Late is better than never, because failing to file at all is the prosecutable offence. If the delay was caused by something you can evidence, such as a MyTax outage, keep the screenshots and be ready to explain it to your LHDN branch.

Is Form E the same as Form C?

No. Form E is the employer’s return about employees and PCB. Form C is the company’s own corporate income tax return, and its deadline is measured from the close of the accounting period rather than a fixed calendar date. A company with employees files both.

All my staff earn below the taxable threshold. Do I still issue Form EA?

Yes. The obligation to prepare Form EA does not depend on whether the employee ends up paying tax. Employees may have other income, and many need the EA for loan applications and other purposes.

An employee lost their Form EA. Can I reissue it?

Yes, and you should be keeping copies for at least seven years anyway. Reprint from your payroll system and make sure the reissued copy matches the original and what you reported in C.P.8D.

Do EPF and SOCSO contributions have to appear on Form EA?

Yes, Form EA has dedicated lines for EPF and SOCSO. Employees use those figures when claiming the related personal reliefs. They will likely ask about other reliefs too, and you can point them to our summary of personal tax reliefs for 2026.

Can I amend Form E after submitting it?

Amendments are possible, but not through an edit button in MyTax. You follow LHDN’s amendment procedure, which generally means submitting corrected information to the branch handling your file. Checking carefully before you submit is considerably cheaper in time.

My payroll software generates C.P.8D. Do I still need to review it manually?

Yes. The errors are rarely in the calculations. They are in the master data: missing income tax numbers, mistyped identity card numbers, leavers still sitting in the active list. The software reports what you fed it.

Getting Ahead of the Next Filing Season

Form E and Form EA are really January-to-December work, not March work. When monthly payroll records are clean, PCB is deducted correctly, and benefits in kind are logged as they are given, preparing both forms takes a few hours. When records are scattered across spreadsheets and WhatsApp messages, it becomes a two-week exercise with a much higher chance of error.

Three things are worth maintaining continuously rather than reconstructing in February: a master employee list with complete income tax numbers, a running log of benefits in kind given to each staff member, and a separate file for leavers so they do not disappear from the EA list. Those three account for most of the last-minute scrambling we see.

If the company has only just started hiring, register for an employer number with LHDN early. You need the E number before you can apply for the employer role in MyTax, and without it you cannot submit Form E at all, however complete your payroll data may be. The same applies where a company changes ownership or restructures mid-year.

All dates and amounts in this guide reflect LHDN information at the time of writing. Deadlines, C.P.8D formats and submission channels do change from year to year, so confirm the current position on hasil.gov.my or inside MyTax before you file.

SASCO handles payroll, Form E and C.P.8D preparation, and Form EA issuance for SME clients across Malaysia, including dormant companies that simply need a clean annual filing record. If you are not certain whether your entity has missed obligations in earlier years, get in touch for a review before the filing season starts.