Every February, Malaysians wait for two numbers: the EPF conventional dividend and the Simpanan Shariah dividend. For seven straight years the Shariah number came in lower. Then, for 2024 and 2025, the two matched exactly. This article lays out the entire published record, does the arithmetic on what the gap actually cost, and explains what changed. All rates are from EPF's own dividend table, crawled August 7, 2026.
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The full record, year by year
2017: conventional 6.90%, Shariah 6.40%, a gap of 50 basis points in the Shariah account's first declared year. 2018: 6.15% versus 5.90%, gap 25. 2019: 5.45% versus 5.00%, gap 45. 2020: 5.20% versus 4.90%, gap 30. 2021: 6.10% versus 5.65%, gap 45. 2022: 5.35% versus 4.75%, gap 60, the widest ever, and 4.75% remains the lowest Shariah dividend on record. 2023: 5.50% versus 5.40%, gap 10, the narrowest to that point. 2024: 6.30% versus 6.30%, gap zero. 2025: 6.15% versus 6.15%, gap zero again.
Two patterns stand out. First, the gap was never enormous: at worst 60 basis points, usually 30 to 50. Second, the trend since 2022 is unambiguous convergence: 60, then 10, then zero, then zero.
What the gap actually cost
Here is illustrative arithmetic using EPF's published rates. Take RM100,000 sitting in EPF at the start of 2017, ignore further contributions and timing effects, and compound each account's declared dividends through 2025. The conventional path multiplies out to roughly RM167,500. The Shariah path reaches roughly RM163,400. The difference is about RM4,100 on RM100,000 over nine years, or around 2.5% cumulatively. Real accounts receive ongoing contributions, so individual results differ, but the order of magnitude is honest: the historical cost of the Shariah election was real and modest, not ruinous.
And the entire cumulative gap was built in 2017 to 2022. A member who switched in January 2023 has since experienced gaps of 10, zero and zero basis points. On the published record, the cost of switching today has never been lower.
Why the Shariah account trailed
The Shariah portfolio excludes conventional banks, conventional insurers and other non-compliant holdings. Malaysian conventional financial stocks are heavyweight index constituents and performed well through much of 2017 to 2022, so a portfolio that cannot hold them gave up return. There is also the structural point EPF discloses plainly: Simpanan Shariah carries no statutory minimum dividend, whereas conventional guarantees 2.50%. The guarantee has never been the difference in practice, since the lowest Shariah declaration is 4.75%, but it exists.
The convergence since 2023 coincides with EPF restructuring its overall portfolio in ways that narrowed the difference between the two pools' holdings. Neither we nor anyone else can promise the parity continues. What can be said from the published record: the penalty shrank steadily and has been zero for two consecutive declarations.
The comparison most people miss
The relevant alternative to Simpanan Shariah is not Simpanan Konvensional; for a Muslim who wants Shariah-compliant retirement savings, it is the fee-charging halal alternatives. A Shariah PRS fund typically charges 1.50% a year in management fees plus a sales charge. A halal robo charges 0.2% to 0.8%. Simpanan Shariah charges the member nothing directly and declared 6.15% for 2025. On cost alone, no private halal product competes for the retirement core. The private products exist for money above and beyond EPF, not instead of it.
How to read the no-floor risk honestly
Critics of the Shariah election point to the missing 2.50% guarantee. Supporters point out it has never mattered. Both are right. The floor would matter in a severe, prolonged crisis in which the Shariah portfolio's returns collapsed below 2.50% while the conventional portfolio also struggled but paid its guaranteed minimum. That scenario has not occurred in the nine declared years, including the pandemic year 2020, when Shariah still paid 4.90%. Weigh it as a tail risk, not a headline risk.
Both accounts against the rest of the halal savings market
Context sharpens the comparison. Tabung Haji, Malaysia's other statutory Shariah savings institution, distributed 3.50% for 2025 on its own published chart, more than two and a half percentage points below EPF Shariah's 6.15%. Islamic digital bank savings accounts paid 3.00% to 5.00% when we surveyed published rates on August 6, 2026, and branch-based Islamic savings accounts sat at 0.10% to 1.25%. Nothing in the retail Shariah savings market has matched either EPF account's declared rates in recent years, which is worth remembering when someone suggests withdrawing EPF money early to invest it elsewhere. The comparison that matters for most people is not Shariah versus conventional inside EPF; it is EPF versus everything outside it, and EPF has been winning.
The one thing the outside options offer that EPF cannot is liquidity. Bank deposits are withdrawable; EPF is locked to its withdrawal rules regardless of which account you elect. The election changes the portfolio's compliance, not your access to the money.
What could reopen the gap
Honesty requires naming the scenario in which the Shariah account trails again. Conventional Malaysian financial stocks, banks above all, are exactly what the Shariah portfolio cannot hold, and in years when that sector rallies hard, the conventional portfolio has a tailwind the Shariah portfolio structurally lacks. That is the mechanism behind most of the 2017 to 2022 gaps. Nothing prevents it recurring. Equally, nothing guarantees it: 2024 and 2025 showed the two portfolios can deliver identical outcomes. Switch on conviction with open eyes, not on an assumption that parity is the new permanent state.
The bottom line
From 2017 to 2023 the Shariah election cost 10 to 60 basis points a year against conventional. In 2024 and 2025 it cost nothing. The cumulative nine-year drag on a static balance works out to roughly 2.5%. If Shariah compliance matters to you, that history reads as a modest price that has recently fallen to zero; the full guide to Simpanan Shariah covers how to make the switch. If it does not matter to you, there is no financial case for switching, and honesty requires saying so.
Frequently asked questions
Has Simpanan Shariah ever beaten the conventional dividend?
Not yet. It trailed from 2017 to 2023 and matched exactly in 2024 (6.30%) and 2025 (6.15%), per EPF's published table (crawled August 7, 2026).
What is the lowest dividend Simpanan Shariah has paid?
4.75%, declared for 2022. That was also the year of the widest gap versus conventional, which paid 5.35%.
Why did both accounts pay the same rate in 2024 and 2025?
EPF declares each account's dividend from its portfolio's actual performance, and the two portfolios' results converged. EPF has restructured its holdings in recent years toward assets compatible with both pools. EPF does not guarantee the parity will continue.
Does the 2.50% minimum dividend apply to Simpanan Shariah?
No, the statutory minimum applies only to Simpanan Konvensional. The Shariah account's rate is purely performance-based under the Wakalah structure.
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Where can I verify these numbers?
EPF publishes the full dividend history for both accounts on its official dividend page at kwsp.gov.my. We verified every figure in this article against that table on August 7, 2026, and our provider page for EPF tracks the series.