Campsite rules and permits in Malaysia

Since 10 June 2024, campsites in Malaysia have been covered by a national planning guideline — the Garis Panduan Perancangan Tapak Perkhemahan, issued by the Ministry of Housing and Local Government (KPKT). It sorts campsites into two categories: tapak perkhemahan asas (basic) and tapak perkhemahan premium.

Operators were given a two-year window to bring their sites into line, and that window closed in mid-2026.

The guideline exists because of a disaster. In December 2022, a landslide at a campsite in Batang Kali, Selangor, killed 31 people. The rules that followed are about siting, slope and safety, not paperwork for its own sake.

Licensing itself is handled by individual local councils — the PBT for the district a campsite sits in — rather than by one national authority. Several states, including Kedah, Negeri Sembilan and Pulau Pinang, have issued their own versions of the guideline on top of the national one.

This has a practical consequence worth knowing: there is no public national register of licensed campsites. Malaysia publishes searchable registers for hotels, homestays and tour agencies, but campsites were never added. You cannot look one up the way you can check a halal certificate. If licensing matters to you, ask the operator directly and ask which council issued it.

Separately, campsites inside forest reserves, recreational forests (hutan lipur) and state parks are run by state forestry departments, and usually carry their own permit or entry fee arranged with the managing office rather than a private operator.