Setting up a short let in Malta.
10 steps in four stages, in the order they actually come, under the Tourism Accommodation Regulations 2026. Each one links to the page that holds the detail, so nothing here is a summary of a summary.
- Stage 01Before you letFind out whether the place can be licensed at all, and whose name goes on the licence.
- Stage 02Getting licensedFit the place out, write the waste plan, and send the application in.
- Stage 03Running itThe things that come round with every guest and every night you let.
- Stage 04RenewingWhat you send in again when the licence comes up, and what your licence keeps.
Before you let.
Find out whether the place can be licensed at all, and whose name goes on the licence.
- 01
Check the property can be licensed at all
Licences go to the proprietor in title, which includes an agent or a lessee holding a mandate. The premises need valid development permission and an architect who will certify they conform to it and are fit for habitation. Bedrooms in a basement or underground are not approved. If the planning position is wrong, nothing later in this list can fix it.
- 02
Work out how many people it may sleep
Two per bedroom as approved by the Planning Authority, and ten per unit at most, unless the unit has independent access from a road. A bedroom for one is at least 9 square metres and grows by 4 for each further person, with a minimum internal width of 2.75 metres. Bunk beds are not allowed and neither are sofa beds. A licence applied for before 15 June 2026 keeps its acquired bed count through renewal.
Getting licensed.
Fit the place out, write the waste plan, and send the application in.
- 03
Fit the property out
The Sixth Schedule sets 148 standards and 137 of them are mandatory, from a first aid box and a safe to bed linen, towels and a gas detector. Some apply only to some properties. Work through the ones that apply to yours before an inspector does.
The standards, filtered to your property- 04
Write the waste collection management plan
It has to accompany every application and every renewal, and standard 7.2.1 separately requires the collection schedule to be displayed where guests see it, with separation facilities provided. The instrument does not prescribe the plan's contents, so what matters is that it describes the arrangements actually in place.
Collection days and times by locality- 05
Apply to the MTA
The application is online, the decision takes up to 60 days, and there is an inspection before a licence is issued. An appeal goes to the Tourism Appeals Board within 15 days. The nine documents below travel with it.
- 06
Tell the block administrator
If the property is in a condominium, the licensee notifies the block administrator in writing once the licence is issued, and sends a copy to the MTA. Neighbours have no veto. This is a notification, not a request.
Running it.
The things that come round with every guest and every night you let.
- 07
Register for the eco-contribution, VAT and tax
The eco-contribution is €1.50 per night per adult guest, capped at €22.50 per person per visit, and the MTA registers existing licence holders itself. It has to appear separately on a fiscal receipt. Accommodation in licensed premises carries VAT at the reduced rate, and a short let is trading income rather than falling under the 15% final withholding tax.
What the eco-contribution is, and who is liable- 08
Put the sign on the door
Standard 1.1.2 wants the address, a statement that the premises is licensed short-let rented accommodation, the licence number, and the name and 24-hour contact of a designated person. In a condominium it goes on or next to the unit's own door. The number on it has to be answered around the clock, so decide the rota before you print.
Make the sign, free- 09
Keep the person on the sign answering
Annex 4 Category E 2(f) makes a designated natural person available 24 hours a licensing criterion, and requires the details to be kept updated at all times. In practice that is a rota rather than one person, and when the rota changes the sign says something that is no longer true.
Keep a sign current after printing it
Renewing.
What you send in again when the licence comes up, and what your licence keeps.
- 10
Renew, with the waste plan again
A licence is valid for a determinate period and renewable, and the instrument does not name the period. It does say that all applications and renewals are accompanied by a waste collection management plan. A property licensed before 15 June 2026 keeps its acquired rights through renewal, including its bed count.
What a renewal asks for again
What the application asks for.
Nine documents, listed by the MTA on its own short-let application page.
- 01Identity card, both sides, for the applicant and for the operator where there is one
- 02Valid police conduct certificate for the applicant, and for the operator where there is one
- 03Memorandum and articles of association, or the deed of partnership, if the applicant is a company
- 04Board or partnership resolution appointing the official representative, for a company
- 05The latest approved development permission from the Planning Authority, with the drawings and the unit outlined in red
- 06A pre-1968 compliance certificate, where the premises were built before 1968
- 07An architect's certification that the premises conform to the planning permission and are fit for habitation
- 08Third-party liability insurance covering the property and the common parts
- 09A waste collection management plan
Templates to take with you.
We wrote both of these ourselves, and each one says so at the top. The MTA does not publish a form for either of them.
Standards checklist
All 137 mandatory standards with a tick box each, filtered to what your property has. Walk the rooms with it before an inspection or a renewal.
Choose your property, then printInventory and condition report
A ruled blank for recording what is in the property and the state it is in, signed by both sides at the start of a stay. It settles a deposit argument, and where the Private Residential Leases Act reaches a letting it is the document that Act asks for.
The sign, the in-unit poster, the waste collection management plan and the condominium administrator letter are generated from your own details once a unit exists, so they live in the account rather than here.
The same sheet, filled in for you to copy.
It opens with the address, the owner, the person staying and their passport or identity card number, and it takes the electricity and water readings on the day, because those are the numbers nobody can reconstruct once the argument has started. Then it counts everything: six mugs, five wine glasses because one was chipped, four bath towels.
The contents come from the Sixth Schedule, which is where the law says what a property must hold, and each line prints the standard it came from so you can check it. The conditions and the notes are invented, because only the person standing in the room can write those.
The worked example
A one-bedroom apartment, filled in, with the parties, the meter readings and a count against every line.
The steps and the standards are from L.N. 92 of 2026 (S.L. 409.24) on legislation.mt. The document list is the Malta Tourism Authority's own, from its short-let application page, read on 9 August 2026. thetenant.app is not the MTA, certifies nothing, and does not give legal or tax advice. The licence and the duties under it stay with the licence holder.
What the licence requiresQuestions about getting licensed.
- How long does the MTA take to decide a short-let licence application?
- The regulations set a 60-day decision, with an inspection before the licence is issued. A refusal can be appealed to the Tourism Appeals Board within 15 days.
- Whose name can the licence be in?
- The proprietor in title. The regulations include a mandated agent, a lessee, an emphyteuta and a usufructuary in that, which is what lets a property manager hold a licence for a property that is not their own.
- How often does a Malta short-let licence have to be renewed?
- We cannot tell you, and nor can the instrument. L.N. 92 of 2026 says a licence is valid for a determinate period and renewable, and it does not say what that period is. Annual is what secondary sources say, including an MTA spokesperson describing the annual licence to Times of Malta on 20 July 2026, and that is corroboration rather than confirmation. Ask the MTA licensing directorate before you plan around it.
- What has to be done again at every renewal?
- The waste collection management plan. The regulations require one with every application and with every renewal, so it is the document worth keeping current rather than rewriting each time.