VEP summons in Malaysia: how to pay it and be allowed to leave

A VEP summons in Malaysia is a RM300 compound issued by JPJ, Malaysia's Road Transport Department, to a foreign-registered car driven into or inside Malaysia without a valid Vehicle Entry Permit. Since 15 November 2025 the summons is not something you can settle later from Singapore. You pay it, and you finish the VEP registration the car is missing, before JPJ lets the car out of the country.

Most of the cars we hear about were not driven by people who ignored the rule. They had a tag sitting in the glovebox that was never activated, or a company car registered under the wrong name, or a VEP that expired quietly at the five year mark. This page covers what the stop looks like, exactly where the RM300 is paid, what pre-registration status means at the exit gantry, and what to fix so it does not happen to you.

Key takeaways

• The offence is driving a foreign-registered vehicle into or within Malaysia without a valid permit, under Section 66H(7) of Malaysia's Road Transport Act 1987. The compound is RM300 per summons (Malay Mail, 22 November 2025).
• Summonses have been issued since 1 July 2025. From 15 November 2025 a car with an unpaid VEP summons, or with no completed VEP registration, is held in Malaysia until both are settled (Bernama, 1 November 2025).
• Payment is cashless only: JPJ office counters, JPJ mobile counters, the VEP registration counter at Danga Bay, or online through MyEG.
• Pre-registered is not registered. A tag that was issued but never installed and activated still earns a summons. MOT counted 36,511 such tags as of 2 June 2025.
• Between 1 July and 20 November 2025 JPJ issued 4,634 summonses worth RM1.39 million at the Johor land border alone.

What a VEP summons is and who gets one

The law is Section 66H(7) of the Road Transport Act 1987 (Act 333). It makes it an offence for any person to drive a foreign-registered motor vehicle into or within Malaysia without a valid permit. That permit is the VEP, and for a Singapore car it lives on the RFID tag linked to a Touch 'n Go eWallet. The Ministry of Transport's media release of 4 June 2025 set out the whole enforcement plan, and the compound JPJ issues under it is RM300.

JPJ did not begin with fines, though: from 1 October 2024 it ran what it called an advocacy phase, in which officers inspected 52,012 Singapore vehicles at random and handed 2,245 of them (4.32 percent) a reminder notice instead of a summons. That phase ended on 1 July 2025. From that date a car in any of these three states gets a summons:

• No VEP at all. The car was never registered on the JPJ portal.
• Expired VEP. A VEP is valid for five years, and a lot of the earliest registrations are now coming up on that limit. Check the date on the portal before you assume you are fine; the five year rule is covered in how long your Malaysia VEP lasts.
• Pre-registration status, which means the application went in, JPJ approved it, a tag was issued, and nobody installed and activated it, so to the reader at the gantry this car has no VEP.

The third one is the trap. It catches the driver who did everything right except the last step. As of 2 June 2025, MOT's own figures showed 194,507 private tags activated and 36,511 tags issued but not yet activated. Every one of those 36,511 cars was one border check away from a summons. By 4 August 2025 Malay Mail was reporting RM445,800 in fines issued to Singapore vehicles without active tags, under a headline quoting the drivers: we did not know.

What happens at the checkpoint, by vehicle type

MOT's release includes a table that most guides skip. It matters because a company car and a private car are treated differently, and a pre-registered car is treated differently from one with nothing. This is the table as published, in plain words.

Two things follow from that table. First, an individual with a pre-registered tag still pays RM300; the only concession is that JPJ does not also make you finish the registration on the spot, because the registration already exists. Second, the one soft outcome, a reminder notice, is reserved for company cars that are already pre-registered. A company car with nothing gets the full treatment. If you drive a car that belongs to your employer or your own Pte Ltd, the registration has to be under the company, with the company's documents. The process is different and it is in the company car VEP guide.

The stop itself

The check happens on the Malaysian side, at the border lanes on entry or exit, or at a JPJ operation inland. Since 1 July 2025 the VEP system lets JPJ see outstanding summonses and offences linked to a foreign vehicle at the point of entry or exit, which is how Transport Minister Anthony Loke described it to Parliament in a written reply on 26 November 2025. Under Section 63 of the same Act, JPJ officers can detain a vehicle with unpaid summonses or order it to turn back until everything is cleared. In practice you are directed out of the lane, the officer records the car and issues the summons, and you are told what has to be done before the car can cross.

Where and how to pay the summons

Payment is cashless. Do not turn up with ringgit notes and expect a counter to take them. The channels JPJ and MOT have named are these:

• A JPJ office counter, with the summons and the car's documents. For most drivers that means the JPJ Johor Bahru office.
• A JPJ mobile counter. These are set up at the enforcement operation itself, which since July 2025 has run at the land border crossings, so a driver stopped there can usually pay on the spot.
• The VEP registration counter at Danga Bay. This is the same place windscreen tags are fitted, so a driver who has to pay and complete registration in one go usually ends up here. It was named as a payment point in JPJ's 1 November 2025 announcement.
• Online through MyEG, the Malaysian e-government portal that handles JPJ summonses. Have the summons in front of you when you log in.

Keep the receipt on your phone. If the record has not synced by the time you reach the exit lane, the receipt is what you show. You can also confirm whether anything is still outstanding against the car with our Malaysia saman checker before you head for the border, which is a better time to find out than at the gantry with a queue behind you.

If the car also needs its registration completed

Paying the RM300 is the quick part. If the car had no VEP or an expired one, the registration itself has to be done before the exit, and that means an application on the JPJ portal, approval, a tag, and activation. In normal times an application takes 5 to 10 working days to come back approved. Border cases may move faster, but we cannot promise a same-day outcome and neither can anyone else; JPJ decides. Plan for the possibility of a night in JB.

What changed on 15 November 2025

Between 1 July and 15 November 2025 a driver could, in practice, be summonsed and still drive home, then deal with it later. The 1 November 2025 announcement by JPJ director-general Datuk Aedy Fadly Ramli closed that gap. From 15 November, in his words, fines will be imposed and vehicle owners must settle them and complete VEP registration before departing Malaysia, and the same announcement widened both where the rule is enforced and whom it covers.

• Enforcement went nationwide. It had been concentrated in Johor. A Singapore car without a valid VEP in Penang, Melaka or Kuala Lumpur is now subject to the same action.
• The scope was spelled out: privately owned vehicles and company-owned private vehicles that lack a VEP, hold an expired VEP, or are still in pre-registration status.

The numbers give a sense of how often this is happening. JPJ reported 3,148 summonses worth RM944,400 by 1 October 2025, then 4,634 summonses worth RM1.39 million by 20 November 2025, all at the Johor land border. Between 1 July and the November announcement JPJ said it had inspected 55,486 vehicles and installed 303,183 tags on private cars and 31,643 on company cars. A separate figure Loke gave Parliament, 2,916 summonses as of 21 September 2025, counts only cars that had never registered, which is why it is lower.

Our reading of those figures: about one car in fourteen inspected (4,028 of 55,486) has been getting a summons, and the share that were pre-registered rather than unregistered is large enough that JPJ keeps naming that category in every statement. The penalties themselves, and the other ways to fall foul of them, are in the VEP penalty guide.

How to make sure you are never the car pulled aside

Every case above comes down to one of four checks, and each takes a few minutes from Singapore.

1. Log in to the JPJ portal and read the status. Approved is not the finish line. If the status is anything other than active with a tag linked, the car is in the pre-registered group. Our VEP status checker walks through what each status means.
2. Activate the tag. A windscreen tag is fitted and activated at Danga Bay; a headlight tag can be fitted in Singapore. The steps are in how to activate a VEP RFID tag. Until it is activated, the tag is a sticker.
3. Check the expiry. A VEP runs five years from approval, and the earliest registrations are now reaching it. Renew before the date rather than after: the renewal guide has the steps.
4. Match the registration to the owner. A car sold, transferred to a company, or re-registered under a new number needs its VEP updated or a new one. The old tag reads as the old car.

What we can and cannot do once you have a summons

We get this question on WhatsApp every week, so here is the honest answer. We cannot cancel a JPJ summons, appeal it, or pay it on your behalf; it is issued to the driver and settled through the channels above. What we can do is get the VEP application submitted correctly, chase the approval, and get the tag fitted and activated at Danga Bay or in Bishan, so that yours is not the car waiting in JB for a registration to come through. The application service is S$125 per vehicle and installation with activation is S$50; the official portal at vep.jpj.gov.my is free if you would rather do it yourself, and for a car that is not under time pressure that is a perfectly good choice.

Frequently asked questions

How much is a VEP summons in Malaysia?

RM300 per summons, issued by JPJ under Section 66H(7) of the Road Transport Act 1987. The figure was confirmed in JPJ's enforcement reports of October and November 2025.

Can I pay the VEP summons after I get back to Singapore?

Not since 15 November 2025. JPJ requires the summons to be paid, and any missing VEP registration completed, before the vehicle exits Malaysia. Payment is cashless at JPJ counters, JPJ mobile counters, the Danga Bay VEP counter, or online through MyEG.

My VEP was approved but I never activated the tag. Will I be fined?

Yes. MOT's enforcement table treats a pre-registered VEP as a summons case for a privately owned car. The one exception is a company-registered car in pre-registration status, which receives a reminder notice and is allowed to exit.

Where is the nearest place to pay a JPJ summons after the Causeway?

JPJ mobile counters are usually stationed at the enforcement operation itself, at the Sultan Iskandar or Sultan Abu Bakar complexes. Otherwise the VEP counter at Danga Bay or the JPJ Johor Bahru office, or MyEG online if you have the summons number.

Can Radiant VEP Solutions settle the summons for me?

No. A summons is issued to the driver and paid through JPJ's channels. We can submit and chase the VEP registration and fit and activate the tag; without those two steps the car stays in Malaysia.

Sources

• Ministry of Transport Malaysia, media release: enforcement of VEP from 1 July 2025 at the Malaysia-Singapore land border (4 June 2025)
• Bernama: Singaporean vehicle owners, drivers to be barred from leaving Malaysia over unpaid VEP fines (1 November 2025)
• Malay Mail: JPJ slaps RM1.39m in fines on 4,634 Singapore vehicles at Johor border (22 November 2025)
• Malay Mail: JPJ says caught 3,148 Singapore vehicles without VEP since July (1 October 2025)
• The Star: 2,916 foreign drivers fined over VEP issues, says Loke (27 November 2025)
• Malay Mail: JPJ issues RM445,800 in fines to Singapore vehicles without active VEP tags (4 August 2025)
• JPJ Vehicle Entry Permit portal

Radiant VEP Solutions is not affiliated with JPJ. You can apply yourself for free at vep.jpj.gov.my. If you are already in Malaysia with a summons in hand and a registration to finish, or you want the car sorted before the next trip, send us the log card through the application page and we will tell you the same day what is missing.