Visa information

Malta offers three named routes in the 2026 guide: the Nomad Residence Permit for remote workers earning €3,500 a month, the Global Residence Programme for non-EU movers who buy or rent property, and the Malta Permanent Residence Programme via investment. The guide scores Malta 70/100 for visa and bureaucracy, and every plan tier measures the paperwork stage in weeks, not days.

The three routes the guide names

Nomad Residence Permit — for remote workers, set at €3,500/mo for a year, renewable.

Global Residence Programme — for non-EU movers, tied to a property purchase or rental, with a 15% flat tax.

Malta Permanent Residence Programme — permanent residence via investment and government contribution.

The guide also lists a fourth, retiree-specific route — the Malta Retirement Programme — covered in full on the Retirement page.

The income and tax tests — what the sources actually say

The only income threshold the guide prints is the nomad one: €3,500 per month. The guide's remote-work section adds that the permit runs up to 4 years and carries 10% tax — so the visa list's “for a year, renewable” and the “up to 4 years” line read as the same permit: a year at a time, renewable up to four.

For the Global Residence Programme, the guide states the property condition (purchase or rental) and the 15% flat tax, but prints no property value, rent minimum, or income threshold — so none is stated here. For the Permanent Residence Programme it names only “investment and government contribution,” with no amounts. At the guide's exchange rate of $1 ≈ €0.86, euro thresholds convert at roughly that rate for planning.

What the paperwork costs — plan budgets, not government fees

The guide does not list individual government visa fees. What it gives is a bundled “Visa, permits & translations” budget line in each move plan, and those lines are the only sourced cost figures for the application itself:

• $1,050 — Affordable plan (you file yourself)
• $1,500 — Mid-range and Retirement plans
• $3,600 — Luxury plan (the plan notes the luxury tier adds an immigration lawyer)

The Retirement plan carries one further, separate line: $2,800 for “Retirement visa, lawyer & pension certification”, covering an immigration lawyer, apostilled pension letters, medicals and translations.

Application steps and timelines, by tier

The guide builds the application into each plan's timeline rather than printing a single step list. The common sequence across the plans and checklists is:

• Choose the route first and print its requirements; the Affordable checklist starts with “Visa route chosen and requirements printed.”
• Gather and legalise documents — apostilles and translations are named in every tier; the Retirement paperwork stage adds pension or income letters certified and apostilled, a police certificate, a medical, and birth and marriage certificates translated.
• Check your passport — the Affordable checklist requires a passport valid 18+ months.
• Arrange health insurance before you file (see the Hospitals page for the guide's first-year insurance budgets).
• File — yourself on the Affordable tier, or with a lawyer or agent on the Mid-range, Luxury and Retirement tiers.

Paperwork-stage durations in the guide: ~10 weeks filing yourself (Affordable), ~8 weeks with a lawyer or agent filing (Mid-range), ~6 weeks with a lawyer filing everything (Luxury), and ~14 weeks for the Retirement paperwork stage. After the move, the settle stage includes registering your address and opening a bank account.

Renewals and the path to residency — the honest limit of the guide

On renewals, the guide says only what the route lines say: the Nomad Residence Permit is issued for a year, renewable, and runs up to 4 years in total. The Permanent Residence Programme is named as a programme, but neither the guide nor the site data gives its investment amounts, processing steps, or any path from the other permits to permanent residence or citizenship — so this page does not state them. Treat the routes and the €3,500 nomad threshold as sourced, and the long-term pathway as something to confirm with an immigration lawyer before you rely on it.

Frequently asked questions