Who can be the 24-hour contact person for a Malta short let?

Explanatory rather than news. Annex 4, Category E of the Tourism Accommodation Regulations asks for a designated natural person available on a twenty four hour basis to receive complaints, and a proviso says that person's name, surname and contact number shall be kept updated at all times. The Malta Tourism Authority asks for a copy of both sides of that person's identity card with the application, and the notice outside the unit carries their number.

A short-let licence in Malta puts a named person on call at all hours. The requirement sits in Annex 4, Category E of the Tourism Accommodation Regulations, S.L. 409.24, made by Legal Notice 92 of 2026, and it has applied since the regulations came into force on 15 June 2026. This is explanatory rather than news.

Who can be the 24-hour contact person for a Malta short let?

It has to be a person rather than a company. Item 2(f) of Annex 4, Category E asks for the identification of a designated natural person available on a twenty four hour basis to receive complaints, and the Malta Tourism Authority's own application page for short-let rented accommodation says a named natural person must be available on a 24-hour basis to handle complaints. Both have said so since 15 June 2026.

The same item carries a proviso, and it is the part that creates work after the licence has been issued rather than before.

What the role asks for

Availability at all hours

The wording is a twenty four hour basis, and it is not limited to taking a message. The instrument ties the availability to receiving complaints and to addressing any problems that can arise in connection with the licensed activity.

A name, not a role

Item 2(f) asks for identification of the person. The Authority's application page asks for a copy of both sides of the identity card of the applicant, of the designated person, and of the operator where that is somebody else.

Details that stay current

The proviso says the name, surname and contact number shall be kept updated at all times. That is a standing obligation on the licence rather than a box filled in once at application.

Why the agency cannot itself hold the role

This section is our own reading. The instrument says natural person, and a limited company is not a natural person, so our reading is that a letting agency or a management company cannot itself be named as the designated person on the licence. What an agency can do is put forward one of its own people by name and keep that name current. Where the named individual leaves the agency, the obligation to update does not leave with them, because the proviso sits on the licence and the licence is held by the proprietor in title.

What the Authority asks you to file

The Authority's application page for short-let rented accommodation, read on 15 October 2026, lists the documents an application must carry. Two of them bear on this role.

• Copies of both sides of the identity cards of the applicant, of the designated person, and of the operator where that is a different person.
• Police conduct certificates for the applicant and for the operator where that is a different person. The page lists these for the applicant and the operator, and not for the designated person.

The page says contact details must be kept up to date, and that the notice displayed outside the property shows 24/7 contact details.

Changing the person reaches the licence and the notice outside

Two things follow from a change of contact, and the second is the one that is visible from the street. Regulation 4(7) of S.L. 409.24, which applies to operating licences generally, says the licensee shall inform the Authority of any changes or alterations. Separately, the notice fixed outside the unit carries that person's number, so a new contact means the notice outside is wrong until it is reprinted.

What the notice outside has to carry, and which licences it reaches, is a separate question with a separate answer. We set that out on the short-let standards guide.

Where this leaves an operator

This section is our own reading. The role is cheap to satisfy and easy to let go stale, and staleness is the failure mode: a number that rang in June and is dead in October breaches a proviso that says at all times, and it does so in a document fixed to the outside of the unit where an inspector reads it before knocking. Two things are worth doing this week. Check that the number on the notice outside is the number that will actually be answered tonight, and check that the name beside it is the person who will answer it. We make a free generator that prints the address, the licence number and the named responsible person onto a sheet, and the layout on it is ours rather than the Authority's.