Letterhead format and design for Malaysian companies

What a Malaysian company letterhead must show

Section 30(2) of the Companies Act 2016 requires every company to disclose its registered name and company registration number on its business letters, notices and official publications, including in electronic form. The same rule covers websites, invoices, receipts, order forms and all other business correspondence. A letterhead is where most of this starts, so get it right once and every letter, quotation and PDF follows.

Element	Required?	How to show it
Registered company name	Yes, by law	Exactly as registered with SSM, including “Sdn. Bhd.” or “Berhad”
Company registration number	Yes, by law	12-digit number, old number in brackets
Former company name	Yes, for 12 months after a name change	Beneath the current name
Registered or business address	Expected	Full address with postcode and state
Phone, email and website	Expected	One main number and a general email
SST registration number	If SST registered	Next to the company number, useful when the letterhead is used for invoices
Logo and brand name	Your choice	Brand name may differ from the registered name

Two details catch people out. First, the registered name is the legal name, not your brand. If you trade as “Brand X” but your company is “ABC Trading Sdn. Bhd.”, the letterhead needs the company name, and the brand can sit beside it as the logo. Second, section 30(4) requires a company that changes its name to show the former name beneath the new one for at least twelve months.

Not sure your name is final yet? Check it first with our guide to the SSM company name search.

The 12-digit SSM registration number

Since 11 October 2019, SSM issues a 12-digit registration number. The first four digits are the year of registration, the next two are the entity type, and the last six are a running number. Companies registered before that date received a new number alongside their old one.

Write the new number first and the old one in brackets. Our own appears as 201501033547 (1158867-T). Banks, tender portals and long-standing customers may still use the old number, so showing both saves questions.

Formal letterhead format and A4 measurements

Malaysian offices print on A4. Many free templates from US sites are set to US Letter (8.5 x 11 inches), which leaves text shifted or cropped when printed on A4.

Area	Measurement
Page	A4, 210 x 297 mm
Side margins	20 to 25 mm
Header zone (logo, name, number)	About 30 to 45 mm from the top edge
Footer zone (address, contacts)	About 15 to 25 mm from the bottom edge
Body text	10 to 12 pt, about 1.15 line spacing
Logo height	About 12 to 20 mm

A common formal layout puts the logo at top left or centre, the registered name and number beside or under it, and the address and contacts in the footer. Leave the body area clear. A letterhead that fills half the page with graphics leaves little room for the letter.

Office laser printers cannot print to the very edge of the sheet, usually leaving a few millimetres blank. If your design has a colour band or image running off the edge, it has to be pre-printed by a printer with bleed, not printed in the office.

Word or Google Docs template versus printed letterhead

Option	Best for	Watch out for
Word (.dotx) or Google Docs template	Daily letters, quotations, PDFs	Fonts must be installed on every computer, or they swap to Arial
Pre-printed letterhead	Formal letters, edge-to-edge colour, special paper	Reprint cost when any detail changes
PDF letterhead	Emailed letters and quotations	Logo must be high resolution, not a screenshot

Most SMEs need the template more than the printed stock. Build the header and footer into the template so staff only type in the body. Lock the logo position and use a vector or high-resolution logo file so it stays sharp when exported to PDF.

For pre-printed letterhead, plain uncoated paper of around 80 to 100 gsm runs through office printers without smudging. Our print paper guide explains the options.

Digital letterhead for PDF and email

Most letters now leave the office as PDF. Section 30(2)(a) covers electronic documents too, so a PDF quotation or letter needs the same name and registration number as paper. Export from the template to PDF with fonts embedded, and keep the file under a few MB so it attaches cleanly to email. An email signature is not a letterhead, but it should carry the same company name and look.

The matching stationery set

A letterhead is usually designed with the rest of the stationery so the details and layout match.

Item	Common size in Malaysia
Letterhead	A4, 210 x 297 mm
Name card	90 x 54 mm
DL envelope	110 x 220 mm, takes A4 folded in three
C4 envelope	229 x 324 mm, takes A4 flat
Compliment slip	About 99 x 210 mm, one third of A4

If you use window envelopes, set the recipient address block on the letterhead to line up with the window when the page is folded. Check the window position with your envelope supplier before you finalise the layout. See our name card size guide for the card itself.

Common letterhead mistakes

1. Brand name only. No registered name or SSM number, which section 30 requires.
2. Old registration number only. Add the 12-digit number.
3. US Letter template. Set the page to A4 before you start.
4. Low-resolution logo. A logo copied from a website looks blurred in print.
5. Out-of-date details. A moved office or changed phone number left on old templates.
6. Too much decoration. Large graphics that crowd the letter.
7. Different versions in each department. One master template avoids this.

Getting your letterhead designed

A letterhead should follow the logo, colours and fonts in your brand guidelines. We design letterheads, Word templates and the full stationery set as part of our corporate identity service, from our studios in Petaling Jaya and Penang. Send your registered name, SSM number and the documents you send most often through the quote form.