5th November 2026 - 6 min read
Retirees can now opt to take their Employees Provident Fund (EPF) savings as a monthly income instead of all at once. Prime Minister Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim highlighted this option when he tabled Budget 2027 on 9 October 2026.
The monthly option is called i-Emas, and is open to EPF members at 55 and 60. EPF pays out their savings in regular amounts, and the money left in EPF keeps earning dividends. More than 21,000 members had signed up for i-Emas by May 2026.
Your parents can withdraw their EPF savings at 55. By then, their Akaun Persaraan, Akaun Sejahtera, and Akaun Fleksibel have been merged into one account, Akaun 55. All of it can come out in one go. Anything they contribute after 55 goes into Akaun Emas, which they can withdraw from 60.
i-Emas changes how that money is paid out. Your parents pick a monthly amount, from RM100 upwards, and EPF pays it on the 25th of each month. The payments run for at least 12 months and can carry on until age 100. They can also take part of their savings as a lump sum and get the rest through i-Emas.
This choice may not be your parents’ alone. If you’re in your 20s or 30s, you may be the one helping them use the i-Akaun app or fill in the forms. And if their savings run out early, your parents may need the family to help cover their monthly costs.
EPF’s Belanjawanku guide puts a single elderly person’s living costs in the Klang Valley at RM2,690 a month. That budget covers housing, food, transport, utilities, healthcare, and some money to spend as they like. EPF also sets three savings levels for members at 60, and each one is meant to pay a monthly income for 20 years.
Basic Savings is meant to cover essential needs, and it’s being raised in stages to RM390,000 by 2028. By our calculation, it pays about RM1,625 a month in the first year. That’s about 60% of Belanjawanku’s RM2,690, so your parents would need to spend less.
KWSP states Adequate Savings as RM650,000 for a reasonable standard of living. It pays RM2,708 a month in the first year, which just covers Belanjawanku’s budget. Enhanced Savings is RM1.3 million, for a more comfortable retirement. It pays RM5,417 a month in the first year, about RM2,700 more than Belanjawanku’s budget, so there’s money left for extras.
The three levels plan for 20 years, from 60 to 80. A 60-year-old woman can expect to live about 22 more years, to around 82, according to the Department of Statistics Malaysia (DOSM). A man of 60 can expect to reach around 79. So the average woman outlives the 20-year plan by about two years, and some parents will live longer. Savings planned for 20 years would run out.
Each extra year needs more savings. At the Adequate Savings income of RM2,708 a month, two more years add about RM65,000 by our count, before dividends and price rises. Your parents can build that up by working longer or adding to EPF through voluntary contributions. Keeping more of their savings in EPF after 55 also helps, because it keeps earning dividends.
If your parents have less than Adequate Savings, keeping their money in EPF helps it go further. EPF paid a 6.15% dividend for 2025 on both conventional and Shariah savings. Over the past ten years, the conventional dividend has ranged from 5.2% in 2020 to 6.9% in 2017. By law, conventional savings earn at least 2.5% a year, while Shariah savings have no minimum. Money taken out of EPF only earns what the bank pays, and the best standard 12-month FDs paid 3% a year in October 2026.
We took RM150,000 in EPF savings at 55 and paid it out at RM1,500 a month. For the lump sum, we assumed the money goes into a savings account that pays almost no interest, so we used 0%. For i-Emas, we used 2.5%, the legal minimum, and 6.15%, EPF’s dividend for 2025.
| Where The RM150,000 Is Kept | Yearly Return | How Long RM1,500 A Month Lasts |
| Taken out as a lump sum | 0% | 8 years 4 months |
| Left in EPF through i-Emas | 2.5% | 9 years 4 months |
| Left in EPF through i-Emas | 6.15% | 11 years 6 months |
At the 2025 rate, i-Emas pays RM1,500 a month for 11 years and 6 months. That’s 3 years and 2 months longer than the lump sum. The extra years come from the RM56,533 in dividends that the RM150,000 earns. In total, i-Emas pays out RM206,533. At the 2.5% minimum, the money still lasts a year longer. We worked these out ourselves, crediting the dividend once a year as EPF does and leaving inflation out.
DOSM expects both men and women to live to at least 79, but RM150,000 through i-Emas runs out at 66 and a half. If your mum or dad lives to the average age, that’s at least 12 years with no i-Emas income. To pay RM1,500 a month for 20 years, each parent would need about RM210,500 at the 2025 EPF dividend rate.
Monthly payments also make the money harder to spend all at once. A big balance in a bank account is easy to spend on a new car or a loan to a relative. That balance can also be lost to a “business opportunity” that turns out to be a scam. With i-Emas, most of the money stays in EPF, so less cash is within reach.
Before your parents apply, have a talk about money with them. Certified financial planner Goh Chee Keong suggests starting with how they want to spend their retirement, not how much they’ve saved. Once you know that, your parents can check their EPF balance in the i-Akaun app, and you can go through their monthly costs together.
Talk about big plans that would need a lump sum, such as renovating the house or a child’s wedding. Knowing these early lets your parents decide how much to keep in i-Emas and how much, if any, to take out. Ask, too, who they would turn to if the money ran short. If the answer is you or your siblings, their choice at 55 affects your own budget as well.
Your parents can sign up at an EPF branch or a self-service terminal, or online through the KWSP i-Akaun app or the i-Akaun website. Before they choose a monthly amount, they can use the retirement goal calculator in the app to estimate how much they’ll need.
EPF hasn’t said on its website whether your parents can change the monthly amount, or stop the payments, after they begin. Check with EPF first.
Civil servants on the government pension scheme must first return the government’s share of their EPF savings to KWAP, the Retirement Fund (Incorporated). Their pension already pays them for that share, so ask EPF how much will be left before choosing an i-Emas amount.
Follow us on our official WhatsApp channel for the latest money tips and updates.
As a creative content writer, Eloise has covered finance, business, lifestyle topics, and even moonlights as a singer-songwriter outside of RinggitPlus. Her current interests are learning the best ways to optimise spending and credit card hacks to gain more airline miles.
Comments (0)