Guide · Work · 4 min read
Giving notice when you resign
How much notice you need to give, how to give it, and when your last pay is due.
In plain English · by bruneilaws · not legal advice· Law as at 30 Sep 2026
On this page · 7 parts
The short answer
Check your contract first. If it says how much notice to give, that is the rule. If it says nothing, the Employment Act sets the minimum notice by how long you have been employed.
Who this covers
The Employment Act's definition of an employee includes a person who has entered into, or works under, a contract of service with an employer. It does not include a seaman, a domestic worker, or a person employed in a managerial, executive or confidential position.
The Minister, with the approval of His Majesty the Sultan and Yang Di-Pertuan, can also declare other classes of people not to be employees under the Act, by notification in the Gazette.
If your contract says nothing
Either you or your employer can give notice to end the contract at any time.
If the contract does not set the length of the notice, the Act sets a minimum that grows with how long the employee has been employed. The notice has to be at least:
- Less than 26 weeks: one day's notice
- At least 26 weeks but less than 2 years: one week's notice
- At least 2 years but less than 5 years: 2 weeks' notice
- At least 5 years: 4 weeks' notice
Giving notice in writing
Notice has to be in writing. You can give it at any time, and the day you give it counts as part of the notice period.
Either side can also give up its right to notice on any occasion.
Paying instead of working it
Either side can end the contract without notice by paying the other the salary, at the gross rate of pay, that would have accrued to the employee during the notice period. For a monthly-rated employee whose notice is less than a month, each day is paid at the gross rate of pay for a day's work. This also works after notice has been given under section 22, instead of waiting for the notice to run out.
Either side can also end the contract without notice if the other wilfully breaks a condition of it.
You can leave without notice if you or a dependant are immediately threatened by danger to the person, by violence or disease, that your contract did not require you to run.
Your last pay
Subject to the Act, if you resign after giving the notice section 22 requires, the total salary due to you must be paid on the day your contract ends.
Subject to the Act, if you leave without giving that notice, or leave before your notice runs out, the total salary due to you must be paid no later than 7 days after the day your contract ends.
Your employer may take out of the salary due to you any sum you are liable to pay in place of notice under section 23(1), unless a court or the Commissioner orders otherwise.
Subject to the Act, if your employer dismisses you or ends your contract, your salary and any other sum due to you must be paid on the day of the dismissal or termination or, if that is not possible, within 3 days after it, not counting rest days and public holidays.
If you are dismissed
After due inquiry, an employer may dismiss an employee without notice for misconduct inconsistent with the express or implied conditions of their service. Instead of dismissing the employee, the employer may downgrade them, or suspend them from work without salary for up to a week.
If you consider that your employer dismissed you without just cause or excuse, you may, within a month of the dismissal, make written representations to the Minister to be reinstated.
If, after considering the Commissioner's report on the dismissal, the Minister is satisfied that it was without just cause or excuse, the Minister may direct your employer to reinstate you and pay the salary you would have earned, or to pay you the compensation the Minister decides.
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