No highway use charge for motorcyclists: Malaysia govt

Published on August 27, 2025 at 08:33
2 min read
By Najmi Mamat, AFP Malaysia

Motorcyclists will not be charged to use Malaysia's toll highways, the highway authority said, contrary to social media posts claiming fees will be collected from October 2025. The agency is conducting tests for an open toll system that uses licence plate recognition technology, but two-wheelers remain exempt, a spokesperson told AFP.

"Motorcyclists will get to experience paying tolls starting October 2025," reads text overlaid on an image of a car next to a camera at a toll plaza shared on Facebook on August 9, 2025.

Its Malay-language caption sarcastically says, "thank you PMx", using a nickname for Malaysian Prime Minister Anwar Ibrahim.

Screenshot of the false Facebook post captured on August 26, 2025, with a red X added by AFP

The same graphic about the purported toll for motorcyclists was shared across Facebook, Instagram and TikTok, surfacing as Malaysia began testing a new tolling system that uses "Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR)" to ease traffic on the country's highways, with wider implementation across the country expected in October (archived link).

However, there are currently no plans to charge two-wheelers for the use of toll highways, the Malaysian Highway Authority said.

Motorcyclists are legally exempted from paying tolls on highways under the Federal Roads (Private Management) Act 1984, according to the federal government gazette (archived link). There have been no official announcements that this will change, as of August 27, 2025.

Keyword searches on Google led to an August 10 Facebook post on the Malaysia Works Ministry's official account reading: "BE AWARE OF FAKE NEWS" (archived link).

The ministry labelled the circulating graphic as "fake".

Screenshot of the Malaysia Ministry of Works statement on Facebook captured August 26, 2025

Meanwhile, the Malaysian Highway Authority (LLM) also released a statement on its official Facebook account clarifying there was no change to the categories of vehicles subject to tolls, which excludes motorcycles (archived link).

"The post contained inaccurate information that could cause misunderstanding among highway users and could unnecessarily alarm motorcyclists and harm the reputation of the government, the works ministry, LLM and the affected highway concessionaires," the statement further read.

A spokesperson for the LLM told AFP on August 18 that the new plate recognition technology will also not involve motorcyclists since two-wheeled motor vehicles are not required to pay toll when using the highway.

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