Best time to visit Kota Kinabalu

Malaysia · Southeast Asia

All twelve months scored on daily temperature, rainfall, humidity and holiday crowding.

The year in Kota Kinabalu

Tap a month for its page

Sweet spot
Good
OK
Avoid
Busy

Good for

Beach and sea Feb–Apr · fair Jan, May–Sep

Go in Feb, Apr or Jul — these months score within a whisker of each other; 30C max, 11 rainy days. Mar is the next best.

No dry season: more than 6 rainy days in every month.

Plan this trip

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Where to stay

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Things to do in Kota Kinabalu

Atkinson Tower Built in 1902 in memory of Francis George Atkinson, the first district officer of Jesselton, as Kota Kinabalu was then called.
Kota Kinabalu City Mosque This 'floating' mosque overlooking Likas Bay is the largest mosque in the city with interesting contemporary Islamic architecture.
Chinatown Located in the city centre surrounding Gaya Street and Pantai (Beach) Street.
Double Six Monument A memorial site on the location of the 1976 plane crash which killed the state chief minister Tun Fuad Stephens and other state cabinet members.
Sabah State Mosque The second largest mosque in Sabah, able to hold up to 5,000 worshippers.
Monsopiad Cultural Village It's about a 30-miunite drive from KK city in the district of Panampang, near Lok Kawi Zoo.
Petagas War Memorial Park dedicated to victims of World War II

Tours and tickets in Kota Kinabalu

Each site opens on its own search: choose your dates there. A few open on their home page, where you type the place too. Links marked Ad pay us a commission if you book, at no extra cost to you; most pay nothing, and what a site pays never decides whether it is listed or where. How we rank

Sights and their lines from Wikivoyage (Kota Kinabalu), licensed CC BY-SA 4.0, and Wikidata; in order of how often each one's Wikipedia article was read on phones in the last 12 months.

Month by month

No fare history for this route yet, so this ranking is climate and crowds only — the price column will fill in as the scanner collects.

Month	Max °C	Rain days	Humidity	Sun h/day	Verdict	Why
Jan	29°	13d	85%	8.6h	okbusy	busier than usual
Feb	29°	7d	83%	9.4h	sweet spot	29C max, 7 rainy days
Mar	30°	9d	81%	10.0h	okbusy	busier than usual
Apr	31°	8d	79%	10.4h	sweet spot	31C max, 8 rainy days
May	31°	13d	80%	9.6h	ok	31C max, 13 rainy days
Jun	30°	12d	79%	9.3h	ok	30C max, 12 rainy days
Jul	30°	11d	77%	9.5h	sweet spot	30C max, 11 rainy days
Aug	30°	12d	77%	9.4h	ok	30C max, 12 rainy days
Sep	30°	16d*	80%	8.9h	avoid	monsoon: 16 rainy days, 295mm
Oct	29°	19d	83%	8.4h	avoid	monsoon: 19 rainy days, 366mm
Nov	29°	16d	84%	8.9h	avoid	monsoon: 16 rainy days, 262mm
Dec	29°	16d	85%	8.5h	avoid	monsoon: 16 rainy days, 296mm

Rain days are the days with at least 1 mm of rain, as a weather station counts them.

Weather read at the waterfront, the centre, 5 km from the airport (BKI): ten years of ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalysis, through Open-Meteo's open data.* Rainy days in September are as the weather station at Kota Kinabalu (6 km away) counts them, where it and the model disagree on a wet month (WMO 96471, 2017–2026).

A busy month is a crowded one, not a bad one — usually it is crowded because the weather is good. It is flagged rather than scored down, and crowds alone never make a month “avoid”: that is reserved for weather worth skipping.

How busy it gets

About as busy all year round.

Then and now

Kota Kinabalu's May days now average 30.6°C, 1.6°C warmer than in 1981–1990. 12 of 12 months are clearly warmer.

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
1981–90	27.5°	28.0°	28.7°	29.0°	29.0°	29.3°	28.9°	29.1°	28.7°	28.1°	27.8°	27.9°
2017–26	28.5°	28.6°	29.5°	30.5°	30.6°	30.2°	30.3°	30.3°	29.9°	29.1°	29.1°	28.8°
Change	+1.0°	+0.7°	+0.8°	+1.5°	+1.6°	+1.0°	+1.4°	+1.2°	+1.1°	+1.0°	+1.3°	+0.9°

The average daily high, month by month, for the nearest ERA5 grid cell. Bold is a clear change; grey is within the ordinary spread between years. Every destination, ranked.

Getting there

How far Kota Kinabalu is, and what it costs, depends on where you set off from — the months above do not.

Before you go

Type G plugs at 240 V. Drives on the left. The currency is the Malaysian ringgit. UK Foreign Office: avoid all but essential travel to parts. Everything for Malaysia: cost of living, languages, emergency numbers and health.

Being there

On arrival

Paying — Cards work in most shops, restaurants and hotels, but DuitNow QR codes are even more common; visitors from 21 countries, India, China, Japan and Australia among them, can pay them with the Touch 'n Go eWallet, signing up with their own phone number and a card from home. Take cash to rural areas.
UPI, for visitors from India — Not accepted for paying here; bring a card that works abroad.
Tipping — Not customary; many air-conditioned restaurants add a 10% service charge, shown as ++ on prices.

Getting around Kota Kinabalu

Apps — Rides: Bolt, Grab. Maps: Google Maps, Apple Maps. Messages: WhatsApp.

The city centre is quite small, and you can walk from one end to the other in less than 30 min. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Kota Kinabalu, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0.

Help

Emergency — police and ambulance 999 · fire 994. From a mobile, 112 also reaches an ambulance.
TravelCharika is not an emergency service: we cannot call for help or send anyone. Numbers can change; if one fails, ask someone local or your hotel.

Put together by hand from the sources listed, checked 3 October 2026. Apps, cards and rules change, so check before you rely on one.

Sources (19)

Kota Kinabalu in pictures

KotaKinabalu Sabah Sacred Heart Cathedral 01 — i

CEphoto, Uwe Aranas, CC BY-SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

What Kota Kinabalu is like

Kota Kinabalu is the capital of Sabah on the island of Borneo, often referred to by locals as just KK. This Malaysian city is a growing resort destination due to its proximity to tropical islands, sandy beaches, lush rainforest and Mount Kinabalu. More on Wikivoyage

Worth seeing: Atkinson Tower (on a hill beside Jalan Tunku Abdul Rahman, a few min away from the city centre). More on Wikivoyage
Worth doing: Try dives, leisure diving, technical diving and snorkelling are all available from Kota Kinabalu. More on Wikivoyage
Getting in: There are direct international flights from these destinations to Kota Kinabalu: Bandar Seri Begawan, Brunei (Royal Brunei Airlines), Hong Kong (Air Asia), Manila, Philippines (Cebu Pacific & Philippines AirAsia)… More on Wikivoyage
Staying safe: Kota Kinabalu is a safe city by Malaysian standards. The crime rate is lower than in the Western states of Kuala Lumpur or Johor Bahru, or any city of similar size in Peninsular Malaysia. More on Wikivoyage

From the Wikivoyage article on Kota Kinabalu, written by travellers and licensed CC BY-SA 4.0; the full article has far more. The numbers above are measured; this is experience.

Around Kota Kinabalu

Also in Malaysia

Nearby

Kind of place

Kota Kinabalu is in Malaysia, Southeast Asia. Distances are great-circle, so a short one can still be a long way round.

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