Johor industrial land price in 2026: RM36 to RM160 psf by zone, plus data centre and foreign buyer rules

This is not legal or tax advice. It reports figures and rules published up to 29 October 2026. Johor and the federal government have changed data centre and land rules several times since 2024. Before you sign anything, ask a Malaysian lawyer to confirm the rules for the exact title.

Short answer

Large industrial plots in Johor recorded by NAPIC and in company filings sold for about RM36 to RM160 per sq ft between 2024 and 2026, depending on the zone. Johor is also the largest data centre market in Malaysia. Research houses put its live capacity at 825 to 1,110 MW in 2026, depending on how they count, with 3 to 8.5 GW more under construction or planned. Across Malaysia, 61 data centre projects have signed electricity supply agreements with TNB for 8.35 GW of maximum demand, and TNB calls Johor the country’s regional hub (TNB, 28 August 2026).

Industrial property in Johor changed hands 669 times for RM3.94 billion in the first half of 2026: fewer deals than a year earlier (732), but a higher total value (RM3.63 billion) (NAPIC, H1 2026). At RM36 to RM160 psf, one acre (43,560 sq ft) cost about RM1.6 million to RM7.0 million. These are single sales, not an average.

A foreign buyer can buy industrial property in Johor from RM1 million, with state consent and a state levy reported at 4% of the value since 1 July 2025. Agricultural land can only be leased. Power and water are now the main limits: Johor approves only air-cooled Tier 3 and Tier 4 data centres, and the federal government has put 24 new applications on hold.

How much data centre capacity Johor has

Each research house defines “live” and “pipeline” differently, so their figures do not match. We show them side by side rather than pick one.

Source (date)	Live capacity	Under construction + planned
JLL, via NST (28 Apr 2026)	850 MW	4,500 MW (1,800 + 2,700)
Cushman & Wakefield, H1 2026, via EdgeProp (27 Aug 2026)	1,110 MW	3,088 MW (602 + 2,486)
Knight Frank Data Centre Atlas 2026, via The Edge (30 Jul 2026)	1,110 MW	8,542 MW
BMI (Fitch Solutions), via FMT (23 Oct 2026)	about 825 MW	about 3,900 MW over three to five years

Three facts from TNB, the grid operator, are more useful than any estimate (Analyst Briefing 2QFY2026, 28 August 2026):

• Contracted power. Across Malaysia, 61 data centre projects have signed supply agreements for 8.35 GW of maximum demand. Johor accounts for 29 of them and 5.6 GW (67%).
• Power actually used. Data centres nationwide drew 1,256 MW in June 2026, up from 603 MW in June 2025. Contracted capacity is far above what is used today.
• In the system. 42 projects with 5.65 GW of maximum demand were connected or under construction at June 2026.

Cushman & Wakefield puts Johor’s colocation vacancy at 0.7%: new halls were taken up almost as soon as they were finished.

Approved investment. MIDA approved RM218.5 billion of investment in H1 2026, of which RM95.8 billion (about 44%) went to data centres and cloud computing. Johor received RM59.4 billion of approvals across all sectors; MIDA’s statement does not say how much of that went to data centres (The Edge, 28 August 2026). In a written parliamentary reply, the Digital Ministry said 27 data centre projects worth RM225.97 billion had been approved by the Data Centre Task Force as of July 2026, 16 of them in Johor (Bernama, 14 October 2026).

Johor industrial transactions in H1 2026

All figures come from NAPIC’s Property Market Report H1 2026. They exclude sales by developers where the individual title has not yet been issued.

	H1 2025	H1 2026	Change
Johor industrial transactions	732	669	−8.6%
Value	RM3.63 billion	RM3.94 billion	+8.6%
Bought by non-citizens	n/a	6 (RM73.7 million)	n/a
Malaysia, all states	4,148 (RM14.25 billion)	3,932 (RM14.78 billion)	−5.2% / +3.8%

• Rank. Johor was the second most active state for industrial property (17.0% of national deals), after Selangor (32.9%).
• Who buys. In Johor, company-to-company deals made up 380 of the 669 transactions and RM3.39 billion of the RM3.94 billion.
• Supply. Johor had 19,706 existing industrial units at H1 2026, 460 under construction and 360 planned. Only 76 completed industrial units were unsold.
• Prices. NAPIC says industrial prices were “generally stable”, with demand for warehouses, e-commerce and data centres driving rises in some locations. In GP Industrial Park (Johor Bahru district), 1.5-storey terrace factories went from RM800,000 to RM1.05 million, up 31.3%.

Prices by zone

NAPIC does not publish a price index for industrial land by zone. What it does publish is a list of the largest recorded sales, with land area and price. We divided each price by the area to get a price per square foot. A single sale is not a market rate: plot size, zoning, infrastructure and tenure all change the price.

Zone	Sale (year)	Area	Price	About RM psf
Pasir Gudang (Tanjung Langsat)	Industrial plot (2025)	109,564.71 m²	RM42.26m	36
Senai (i-Park Senai Airport City)	Industrial land (2024)	60,945.88 m²	RM49.20m	75
Plentong (Ban Foo)	Industrial land (2025)	82,793.51 m²	RM98.98m	111
Iskandar Puteri (Nusajaya Tech Park)	Industrial land (2024)	242,811.40 m²	RM300.56m	115
Senai (Taman Teknologi Johor)	Industrial plot (2025)	39,311 m²	RM49.08m	116
Iskandar Puteri (Tanjung Kupang)	Data centre land, approved Oct 2026	about 65 acres	RM398.11m	about 140
Iskandar Puteri (SILC Nusajaya)	Industrial land (2025)	55,899 m²	RM91.46m	152
Bandar Cemerlang	Freehold land sold to a data centre operator, Apr 2026	49.72 acres	RM346.53m	about 160

Sources: NAPIC H1 2026, Southern Region, Summary of Prominent Sales; The Edge, 9 April 2026 (Bandar Cemerlang); The Edge via KLSE Screener, 27 October 2026 (Tanjung Kupang; acreage of 65.28 acres from Cushman & Wakefield).

Two points stand out:

• Plots sold to data centre operators are at the top of the range. The Bandar Cemerlang seller said its price was 39% above nearby land sold at RM115 psf in 2025, and that it was agreed without an independent valuation.
• Sedenak Tech Park has no published price. It is the data centre cluster inside Ibrahim Technopolis (IBTEC), a 7,290-acre project in Kulai whose first phase is complete (NAPIC). A 145-acre plot in Sedenak Tech Park West was agreed for a gigawatt-scale campus in August 2026, but the price was not disclosed (EdgeProp, 20 August 2026). The nearest NAPIC figure is a 2,904,371.66 m² mixed development plot off Jalan Kulai–Sedenak, sold for RM625.25 million (about RM20 psf). It is not a data centre plot and is not comparable.

Asking prices on listing portals are not used here: they are not transactions.

Rules for a foreign buyer of industrial land in Johor

Each state controls land sales to foreigners under section 433B of the National Land Code. Johor’s land office publishes its rules (PTG Johor, read 29 October 2026):

• Who counts as foreign. A non-citizen, a permanent resident, a foreign company or institution, or a Malaysian company in which those persons hold more than 50% of the voting rights.
• Industrial property. Minimum price RM1,000,000, whether bought from a developer (no quota) or from an owner. The page refers to PTG Johor Circular No. 01/2017 for the detailed conditions.
• Agricultural land. A foreign buyer cannot own it, only lease it, for 10 years or more, through a locally registered company, for high-tech farming, agro-tourism or export agro-industry. Minimum RM1,000,000 or more than 15 acres, whichever is higher.
• Never open to foreigners. Malay Reserve land; land sold by court order or public auction; Bumiputera-quota property unless exempted; heritage-gazetted property; stalls and service workshops.
• Documents. For a company buyer: constitution, Forms 24 and 49, a board resolution and the company secretary’s confirmation of the current ownership structure, plus the sale agreement, a copy of the title and current land and property tax receipts.
• State levy. 4% of the value for industrial property from 1 July 2025, under Johor land office circular 03/2025, according to the law firm Y Kong, Wong & Partners (30 July 2025) and The Edge (30 June 2025). Residential, commercial and agricultural property pay 3%. The state land office page does not publish these rates.
• Tenure. It is written on each title: freehold, or leasehold for a fixed number of years. The Bandar Cemerlang plot above was freehold. Check the title, the remaining lease term and the permitted land use before signing.

Rules for homes are different: see our guide to foreign buyers’ minimum prices, state by state.

JS-SEZ: what is officially offered

The agreement creating the Johor-Singapore Special Economic Zone was signed on 6 January 2025 and exchanged before the two prime ministers on 7 January 2025 (Singapore EDB, 7 January 2025). The zone covers 3,505 km² of Iskandar Malaysia and Pengerang, across Johor Bahru, Iskandar Puteri, Pasir Gudang, Kulai and Kota Tinggi (NAPIC H1 2026). It has nine flagship zones, including Iskandar Puteri, Pasir Gudang, Senai–Skudai and Sedenak (MIDA, 27 January 2025).

The tax package, in force since 1 January 2025 (MIDA, 8 January 2025):

• 5% corporate income tax for up to 15 years on new investments in qualifying activities: artificial intelligence, the quantum computing supply chain, medical devices, aerospace manufacturing and global services hubs. Data centres are not on the published list.
• 15% personal income tax for 10 years for eligible knowledge workers.
• Tailored packages for flagship zones. MIDA has since issued detailed guidelines: one package for zones A to G, and separate packages for zones H and I (Rahmat Lim & Partners, 10 July 2026).

The Ministry of Economy reported RM76.98 billion of approved JS-SEZ investment in 2025 and RM5.49 billion in Q1 2026. In the same statement it said the zone’s master plan had not yet been launched (The Edge, 2 July 2026).

Power, water and the state’s position in 2026

• Federal limit on non-AI data centres. On 24 February 2026 the Prime Minister told Parliament that new data centres not related to AI had been restricted “almost two years ago”, because of water and electricity use (The Edge).
• 24 applications on hold. On 28 October 2026 the trade minister said the government has not decided on 24 new applications while the 117 approved projects are delivered, and that MIDA now checks water supply with each state before electricity is considered (NST).
• Johor: air-cooled Tier 3 and Tier 4 only. On 10 March 2026 the Menteri Besar said the state committee for data centres (JPPPDNJ) checks each project’s water and electricity needs and approves only Tier 3 and Tier 4 centres using air cooling. “If a data centre demands a high intake of water, we will not approve it” (Bernama). The state also plans 38 water supply projects worth RM15.3 billion.
• New projects deferred in Johor. Johor moved to defer new data centre development until 2027 because of water supply constraints. In a written parliamentary reply, the federal trade ministry said that, as of January 2026, no data centre investment in Malaysia had been deferred (Malay Mail, 11 February 2026).
• Grid connection. BMI ranks Johor’s electricity constraints as the most severe among major Asia-Pacific data centre hubs, and says grid connection, not generation, is the main obstacle (FMT, 23 October 2026). The Data Centre Task Force requires proof of an anchor tenant before a supply agreement is signed (The Star, 1 October 2026), and, according to RHB Research after a meeting with TNB management, all data centres are on a take-or-pay arrangement for their first five years of operation (The Star, 13 July 2026).
• Tariff. A new electricity tariff structure has applied since 1 July 2025. Analysts at a TNB briefing said data centres would fall in a new ultra-high-voltage category averaging about 60 sen per kWh (EdgeProp, 2 July 2025). This is an analysts’ average, not a published tariff line.

Questions

Can a foreigner buy industrial land in Johor? Yes, from RM1 million, with the consent of the Johor state authority. Permanent residents and Malaysian companies more than 50% foreign-controlled are treated as foreign. Malay Reserve land and auctioned land are never open to them.

Can a foreigner own agricultural land in Johor? No. The state allows only a lease of 10 years or more, through a locally registered company, for specific farming or agro-industrial uses.

What does industrial land cost in Johor? Large plots recorded by NAPIC in 2024-2025 sold for about RM36 psf in Tanjung Langsat up to about RM152 psf in SILC Nusajaya. Two 2026 sales to data centre operators came to about RM140 and RM160 psf. These are single transactions, not an average.

How much data centre capacity does Johor have? Between about 825 MW and 1,110 MW in operation in 2026, depending on the research house. Johor has 5.6 GW of contracted maximum demand with TNB.

Are new data centres still being approved in Johor? Only Tier 3 and Tier 4 centres using air cooling, according to the state (March 2026). At federal level, 24 new applications were on hold in October 2026 while 117 approved projects are built.

Do data centres get JS-SEZ tax incentives? They are not on the published list of activities eligible for the 5% corporate tax rate. MIDA decides eligibility case by case under its guidelines.

About this page

Smart Invest Malaysia’s editorial team publishes this page. It was first published on 26 November 2025 and last updated on 10 November 2026. Each figure carries its source and date. Prices per sq ft are our own division of the recorded price by the recorded area. If you find an error, tell us and we will correct it.

FAQ

How much does 1 acre of industrial land cost in Johor? From the large sales recorded by NAPIC and in company filings, prices ran from about RM36 to RM160 per sq ft. One acre is 43,560 sq ft, so that is about RM1.6 million to RM7.0 million per acre. Zone, plot size, zoning, infrastructure and tenure all change the price. These are single sales, not an average.

What is the current trend of industrial property prices in Johor Bahru? NAPIC says industrial prices in Johor were generally stable in H1 2026, with demand for warehouses, e-commerce and data centres driving rises in some places. Deals fell from 732 to 669, while their value rose 8.6% to RM3.94 billion. In GP Industrial Park, 1.5-storey terrace factories rose 31.3%, from RM800,000 to RM1.05 million.

Can foreigners buy landed property in Johor? This page covers industrial land, where a foreign buyer needs state consent and a minimum price of RM1 million. Agricultural land can only be leased. Minimum prices for homes, including landed homes, are set separately by each state. See our guide to foreign buyers’ minimum prices, state by state.

What we do not cover

• How a land purchase is paid for, and the tax treatment of rental income or a later sale.
• Stamp duty on industrial land transfers, which depends on the buyer and the instrument.
• Listed companies, funds or shares linked to data centres.
• Whether to buy, and future land prices.
• Land in other states, and homes in Johor (see our foreign buyers’ guide).