Malaysian receipt terms, decoded
Last updated: 20 August 2026
Between the last dish and the total there are usually four to six lines that nobody reads until they are trying to work out why the bill is bigger than the food. Some are taxes, some are the restaurant's own charges, and one of them is two sen of arithmetic about coins that no longer exist. Here is what each one means, in the order you are likely to meet it.
- SubtotalJumlah kecil
- The food and drinks added up, before any service charge, tax or discount. Everything below this line is calculated from it, so if the subtotal is wrong nothing under it can be right. Check it against the items above before you check anything else.
- Service chargeSC, Caj perkhidmatan
- Usually 10%. It is the restaurant's own charge, not a government tax, and no rule requires it to reach the staff — whether it is pooled and distributed is the operator's decision. A restaurant may set it at any rate or not charge it at all.
- Service taxSST, Cukai perkhidmatan
- The 6% line. A government tax under the Sales and Service Tax regime, chargeable only by an operator registered for it, which is tied to an annual turnover threshold. It is normally applied to the subtotal plus the service charge, so the 6% is charged on the 10% too.
- Sales taxCukai jualan
- The other half of SST, levied on goods rather than services. You will rarely see it on a restaurant bill; it turns up on retail receipts. If a bill shows both, they are taxing different things and neither is a duplicate of the other.
- SST registration number
- The identifier a registered operator must show when charging service tax. If a receipt has a 6% line but no registration number printed anywhere, that is worth asking about.
- NettNet price
- A price with the service charge and tax already inside it. A menu marked 'all prices nett' means the number you read is the number you pay — there is nothing more to add at the bottom. Its opposite is the ++ convention below.
- ++Plus plus
- Written after a menu price, as in 'RM28++', meaning the service charge and the service tax are both still to be added. On the usual 10% and 6% stacking, RM28++ becomes RM32.65 by the time it reaches your total.
- Rounding adjustmentPelarasan pembundaran
- One or two sen added or removed so a cash total lands on a multiple of 5 sen — Malaysia withdrew the 1 sen coin from circulation. Card and e-wallet payments are charged exactly, so this line usually appears only when paying cash.
- Cover charge
- A flat per-person charge for being seated, common at buffets, live-music venues and some hotel restaurants. Because it is per head rather than per dish, it is one of the few things on a receipt that genuinely should be divided equally.
- Corkage
- A fee for drinking your own bottle on the premises, charged per bottle. It belongs to whoever drank the bottle, not to the table, unless the bottle itself was shared.
- Takeaway / packaging chargeCaj bungkus
- A per-container charge for food packed to go. It attaches to the specific items that were packed, so it should follow those items to whoever ordered them rather than being spread across the table.
- DiscountDiskaun
- Where it lands matters. A discount on one dish should reduce that dish before the service charge and tax are worked out, so it benefits the person who ordered it. A whole-bill discount belongs to everyone in proportion, exactly like the tax.
- Void
- A line that was cancelled after being keyed in — a wrong order, or a dish sent back. A voided line should not be in the subtotal. If a void appears and the subtotal did not move, ask.
- Pax
- Number of people at the table. Harmless on its own, but it is the field a server uses to work out a per-head charge, so it is worth a glance if the bill carries a cover charge.
- JumlahTotal
- The final amount payable, after every charge, tax and adjustment. On bilingual receipts it sits where 'Total' would. This is the figure the individual shares must add back up to.
- Tunai / BakiCash / Change
- Tunai is the cash tendered, baki is the change given back. Neither is part of the bill — they record how it was settled. People occasionally mistake tunai for the total when it is larger than it.
- Resit / No. resitReceipt / Receipt no.
- The receipt and its serial number. The number is what you quote if you need the restaurant to look the transaction up later, which is the main reason to photograph the whole receipt rather than just the items.
- MejaTable
- The table number. Useful when a group splits across two tables and ends up with two receipts that both need to enter the split — see the trip guide for what to do with several bills at once.
The two lines that actually change what people owe each other are the service charge and the service tax — that guide works through how they stack and why splitting them equally overcharges the light eater. If your night produced more than one receipt, this one covers settling several at once.
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