KUALA LUMPUR, Jan 7 — Tens of thousands of foreign travellers were stranded at Malaysia’s two land checkpoints with Singapore today after a major technical failure crippled most immigration autogates.
The situation was most severe at the Bangunan Sultan Iskandar Customs, Immigration and Quarantine (CIQ) Complex, where foreign visitors were forced to queue for up to two hours to complete immigration clearance, The Star reported.
The report said at least 39 autogates at the entry points and another 29 at the exit areas in the bus halls at BSI had been experiencing intermittent issues over the past few days, before completely shutting down on Saturday amid a surge in weekend traffic.
At the Kompleks Sultan Abu Bakar CIQ complex, which has 12 autogates, conditions remained under control despite the system disruption.
Malaysian passport holders were still able to use the autogates without interruption, while immigration processing for motorcycles and private vehicles continued as normal.
A security official told the news outlet that autogates at the KTM train station within BSI were also taken offline, adding that restoration work was underway and being carried out in phases.
“This is the first major system breakdown of the year, and it comes at an unfortunate time as we are seeing an increase in foreign arrivals linked to Visit Malaysia and Visit Johor 2026,” the official was quoted as saying.
To manage the crowd, the Border Control and Protection Agency (AKPS) has instructed officers to open all available manual counters to speed up processing, the official added.
As of press time, AKPS was preparing to issue an official advisory to inform travellers of the disruption and to caution them to expect delays.
A similar nationwide autogate failure occurred in July last year, affecting more than 380,000 foreign travellers at major entry points across the country.
Since June 1, 2024, nationals from 63 countries, along with diplomats stationed in Malaysia and their immediate family members, have been permitted to use autogates to facilitate faster immigration clearance.
