HRD Corp vs SBL-Khas vs "Claimable Courses": the difference

If you have ever been told a course is "HRD Corp claimable" and quietly wondered how that relates to the levy you pay, or to something called SBL-Khas, you are not alone. These four terms get swapped around in emails, invoices and sales calls as though they were synonyms. They are not. Each names a different part of the same system — and knowing which is which makes the whole thing click. This clarifier sorts the body from the money from the scheme from the label, all checked against HRD Corp's own pages. If a term is new, keep our glossary open as you read.

The cleanest way to see it: one is an organisation, one is money, one is a scheme, and one is just a name people use. Read across the table and the confusion usually disappears.

The structure here is drawn from HRD Corp's own pages: the levy and PSMB Act on hrdcorp.gov.my/employer, and the scheme described in the support-centre article titled "HRD Corp Claimable Courses (SBL-Khas) Scheme" — note how the title itself pairs the label with the scheme code.

HRD Corp is the organisation, not a scheme or a fee. It is the Human Resource Development Corporation — the statutory body under Malaysia's Ministry of Human Resources that administers the national training levy under the Pembangunan Sumber Manusia Berhad Act 2001 (the PSMB Act), referenced throughout the employer pages on hrdcorp.gov.my. It took over from the former HRDF, which is why older documents still say "HRDF" for the same thing.

Think of HRD Corp as the landlord of the whole arrangement: it registers employers, collects the levy, runs the funding schemes, approves training providers, and pays out claims. When a provider says it is an HRD Corp Approved Training Provider — as Carriera Academy is — that approval comes from this body. Everything else below sits underneath it.

Yes. The levy is the money, not the body and not the scheme. It is the statutory training contribution that covered employers pay to HRD Corp every month, calculated as a percentage of employees' wages under the PSMB Act 2001. That money pools into your levy account, and it is the budget every claimable course is ultimately funded from.

Crucially, the levy is what you pay in; SBL-Khas is what lets you take it back out for training. The two are easy to confuse because they touch the same account, but they point in opposite directions. For the exact rates, who must register, and how the contribution is worked out, see our companion guide on how much the HRD Corp levy is — the figures there are checked against HRD Corp's pages, and you should re-confirm them at hrdcorp.gov.my before budgeting.

In everyday use, almost — but technically they sit at different levels. SBL-Khas (Skim Bantuan Latihan Khas, which HRD Corp translates as the Special Training Assistance Scheme) is the scheme: the mechanism by which the course fee is debited from your levy account. "HRD Corp Claimable Courses" is the public-facing label for the courses run under that scheme.

The clearest proof is HRD Corp's own wording. Its support-centre article is titled "HRD Corp Claimable Courses (SBL-Khas) Scheme" — the label and the scheme code, side by side, describing one thing. Under it, HRD Corp states that "employers are not required to make an upfront payment for the course fee to the registered training provider, as the course fee will be debited from the employer's account." So when a trainer tells you a course is "HRD Corp claimable", they mean it qualifies to be funded under SBL-Khas from your levy. For the full mechanics — eligibility, the no-upfront rule and the grant flow — read our deep dive on what SBL-Khas is.

Knowing the four terms is one thing; using them is another. In practice, an employer touches all four in a single, ordered flow — and HRD Corp requires the grant to be approved before the training takes place. Here is the sequence.

Notice how each step maps to one of the four terms: the body registers you, the levy funds it, the scheme (SBL-Khas) is what you apply under, and the label ("Claimable Course") is what you picked. For the full document checklist and a screen-by-screen walkthrough of the e-TRiS application, see our HRD Corp claim guide.

Carriera is the training provider, not the levy and not the scheme. Carriera Academy Sdn Bhd is an HRD Corp Approved Training Provider, which means our corporate training programmes are HRD Corp Claimable Courses — and therefore fundable by Malaysian employers under SBL-Khas, subject to grant approval. Our programmes run online via Zoom and span tax (SST, e-Invoice, LHDN topics), Employment Act and HR, financial analysis and budgeting, Excel, and AI for productivity.

Because we sit on the provider side, we carry the paperwork-heavy parts of the flow with you — supplying the quotation, trainer profile and course content so the SBL-Khas grant goes through cleanly. We have supported 50+ companies across recruitment and training on this basis. Browse the live programme list on our corporate training page, or message us directly and we will point you to the right claimable course.

Sources: HRD Corp — hrdcorp.gov.my/employer (the levy and PSMB Act 2001) and the HRD Corp Support Centre article "HRD Corp Claimable Courses (SBL-Khas) Scheme". Verified live on 17 June 2026; scheme details and figures can change, so always confirm the current position on hrdcorp.gov.my before acting.