Malta · Tax regime
Global Residence Programme
This is Malta's longest-standing special tax status for third-country nationals. It gives a 15% flat rate on foreign income remitted to Malta, subject to a EUR 15,000 minimum annual tax that covers the whole family.
The 183-day-elsewhere rule is the part clients miss. GRP does not require you to live in Malta. It does require that you do not settle anywhere else, which makes it a regime built for the genuinely peripatetic, not for someone quietly tax-resident in a high-tax state. Foreign capital gains stay outside the Maltese net even when remitted. That is a real structural advantage over most remittance-basis jurisdictions.
Qualifying routes
Must be retained for the whole time the special tax status runs. It may not be sublet.
Must be retained for the whole time the special tax status runs.
Minimum annual rent.
Minimum annual rent.
The facts
- Minimum
- €220k
- Total landed cost
- EUR 15,000 minimum tax per year for the whole family, plus a one-off application fee of EUR 6,000, reduced to EUR 5,500 if the qualifying property is in South Malta, plus the property cost and professional fees.
- Route type
- Tax regime, not a visa
- Timeline
- 3–6 months (Special tax status determination.)
- Physical presence
- There is no minimum stay in Malta. But the holder must not spend more than 183 days in any single other country in a calendar year. The binding constraint here is what you must avoid, not what you must do.
- Family
- SpouseDependent childrenDependent relatives, in defined circumstances
- Permanent residency
- The GRP is a tax status, not a right to permanent residence. It grants residence permission that renews as long as the conditions hold.
- Citizenship
- This programme offers no path to citizenship.
- Language test
- Not applicable
- Dual citizenship
- Permitted
- Requirements
- non-EU, non-EEA, non-Swiss nationalqualifying property owned or leased at the thresholds above, retained throughoutstable and regular resources sufficient to maintain the applicant and dependants without recourse to Maltese social assistancecomprehensive health insurance covering Malta and the EUEUR 15,000 minimum annual taxA fit and proper test applies. Applications must go through an Authorised Registered Mandatory.
- The EUR 15,000 minimum tax is payable whether or not you remit anything. Think of it as a floor, not a ceiling.
- The qualifying property must be held for the entire life of the status, and it cannot be sublet. Lose the property, and you lose the status.
- The condition limiting you to no more than 183 days in any other single jurisdiction is easy to breach without realizing it, and hard to undo once broken.
- GRP status alone does not make you Maltese tax resident for treaty purposes in every counterparty's eyes. Treaty access can be challenged where there is little substance behind it.
- Remitting foreign capital to Malta needs care. The distinction between remitted income and remitted capital is the whole regime, and sloppy banking can collapse it.