Is Salary Calculated on 30 or 31 Days in Malaysia?

Your monthly salary is a fixed number, so it's a fair question: when you only work part of a month — you start mid-month, resign before month-end, or take a stretch of unpaid leave — is that partial pay worked out on 30 days, 31 days, or something else? The answer is more specific than most explanations online suggest.

The legal default: the actual number of days in that month

Under the Employment Act 1955 (Section 18A, read together with Section 60I(2)), the statutory formula for an incomplete month of work is: monthly wage ÷ the number of days in that particular wage period, × the number of days the employee actually worked or was entitled to be paid for. "The number of days in that particular wage period" means the real calendar length of that specific month — 28 or 29 in February, 30 in April, June, September and November, and 31 in the rest. It is not a fixed divisor.

Why you'll still see companies use a flat 26 or 30

Employers are allowed to use a different, simpler method — a fixed divisor of 26 or 30, for example — but only if the result is equal to or more generous than what the calendar-day formula would give the employee. A flat divisor that would pay the employee less than the statutory formula isn't compliant, even if it's what's written in the employment contract. So both approaches exist in practice, and the one that matters legally is whichever produces the larger number for the employee.

A worked example

Say your monthly salary is RM5,000 and you start a new job on 16 February 2026 — a month with 28 days. Under the statutory formula, you'd be paid for 13 days out of 28: RM5,000 ÷ 28 × 13 = RM2,321.43. If your employer instead used a fixed 30-day divisor, you'd get RM5,000 ÷ 30 × 13 = RM2,166.67 — less than the statutory result, which would not be compliant. A fixed divisor only becomes legal here if it's adjusted so the outcome is at least as favourable as the calendar-day method.

When this actually comes up

This only affects partial months — starting or leaving mid-month, or unpaid leave spanning part of a pay period. A full calendar month worked in full is paid at your full monthly salary regardless of whether that month has 28, 30 or 31 days; the divisor only changes the answer when you're being paid for less than the whole period.