Anthony Loke: JPJ no longer requires physical road tax and driver’s licence for private vehicles

Earlier this year, Transport Minister Anthony Loke had promised that for 2023, he will be working together with the Road Transport Department (JPJ) to implement several digitalisation initiatives in core services, which includes vehicle and driver licences. As such, Loke has today announced that the Transport Ministry and the JPJ will no longer need drivers to carry around a physical copy of their driver’s licence, nor do they need a physical copy of their road tax.

Instead, Malaysian citizens with private vehicles can use either the JPJ Public Portal or the MyJPJ mobile app to display both a digital copy of their road tax under the eLKM section, or their driver’s licence under the eLMM section on the app. The app is available on the Apple App Store, Google PlayStore and Huawei AppGallery.

Loke adds that as part of this initiative, Section 20 of the Road Transport Act 1987 (Act 333) that requires the display of their vehicle’s road tax will no longer be enforced for private vehicles from today onwards. This would just be the first phase of the initiative, which includes private vehicles and motorcyclists for now. The Transport Minister also encouraged drivers and vehicle owners to make the switch to the digital platform, claiming that with the shift towards digitalisation, the long lines and crowds at the JPJ counter can be reduced, increasing the overall productivity of the nation.

Nevertheless, for drivers and vehicle owners who aren’t quite ready yet to make the shift, you can still obtain a physical copy of your road tax and stick it onto your car as well as carry around your physical driver’s licence for now. Furthermore, drivers with learners driver’s licence, a vocational driver’s licence and foreigners with a Malaysian driver’s licence or foreign driver’s licence will still be required to carry around their physical driver’s licence. Similarly, if your vehicle is company-owned or registered under a non-citizen, you will still need to display its road tax.

In neighbouring Singapore meanwhile, they had also phased out physical road tax discs back in 2017, with drivers instead able to obtain a print out of their road tax online if they required one.

As for enforcement, the Transport Ministry states that for now, enforcement will be carried out against anyone driving a car without a proper driver’s licence or road tax under subsection 20(1), 90(1) and 26(1) of the Road Transport Act. This can be done likely via number plate recognition which checks vehicles on the move, thus reducing the need for road blocks that can affect everyone on the road.

If you still have questions or concerns over the digitalisation initiative, JPJ adds that you can email them at infodigital@jpj.gov.my or contact the JPJ hotline at 03-27242522.

Related reading

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