If your Maltese company closes its books on 31 December, next Wednesday matters. 30 September 2026 is the day the company's tax for the 2025 financial year falls due. It is also the deadline for a paper return.
The online return is a different story. In January the Malta Tax and Customs Administration extended the web filing deadline for December 2025 year-ends to 27 November 2026. That extension is real, and companies that file electronically can use it. But it covers one thing only: the filing. The money is due on the original date.
That gap between the filing date and the payment date is where foreign founders get caught. The rules behind it are short, and worth knowing precisely.
What the MTCA actually announced
On 13 January 2026 the Commissioner for Tax and Customs published a notice extending the electronic filing deadlines for company income tax returns. It sets out, for each financial year-end, the manual return deadline and the extended web deadline. For a year ending 31 December 2025 the manual return deadline is 30 September 2026 and the web submission deadline is 27 November 2026.
The notice then adds the sentence that matters most:
These extensions apply only to the electronic filing of tax returns, and not to tax payments. Manual tax returns and all tax payments must reach the Malta Tax and Customs Administration by the due dates contemplated by the Income Tax Acts.
In other words, the extension is administrative relief for filing. It does not change the date on which the tax becomes payable.
Where the 30 September date comes from
The due date is not set by the MTCA's notice. It comes from the law.
Step one: the year of assessment. Under article 11 of the Income Tax Act, accounts are made up to the day before the year of assessment, and companies may be permitted to use a different accounting date. Tax for a year of assessment is charged on the income of the preceding year. A company with a calendar financial year 2025 is therefore dealing with year of assessment 2026.
Step two: the tax return date. The Income Tax (Statutory Dates) Rules, S.L. 372.16, fix the return date. For a company, regulation 2(c)(i) sets it as the last day of the ninth month following the end of the accounting period, or 31 March of the year of assessment, whichever is later. For a 31 December 2025 year-end, nine months later is 30 September 2026, which is later than 31 March 2026. The return date is 30 September 2026.
Step three: the tax settlement date. Regulation 5 of the same rules defines the "tax settlement date", the day on which tax becomes due and payable. In the ordinary case it is the same as the tax return date under regulation 2. The Income Tax Management Act confirms the structure in article 42(1A): tax for a year of assessment is due and payable by the tax settlement date, which may not be earlier than the tax return date.
So the payment date is tied to the legal return date, not to the date on which you happen to file. When the MTCA extends web filing, the legal return date does not move, and neither does the settlement date.
Other year-ends: the same logic, different dates
The MTCA table covers every year-end from 31 January 2025 to 31 December 2025. The rule is always the same: the payment follows the manual return date, not the web date.
| Financial year ending | Manual return and payment due | Web filing extended to |
|---|---|---|
| 31 January to 30 June 2025 | 31 March 2026 | 31 July 2026 |
| 31 July 2025 | 30 April 2026 | 31 July 2026 |
| 31 August 2025 | 31 May 2026 | 31 July 2026 |
| 30 September 2025 | 30 June 2026 | 31 August 2026 |
| 31 October 2025 | 31 July 2026 | 30 September 2026 |
| 30 November 2025 | 31 August 2026 | 30 October 2026 |
| 31 December 2025 | 30 September 2026 | 27 November 2026 |
Look at the October row. For a company with a 31 October 2025 year-end, 30 September 2026 is the web filing deadline, but the tax was already due on 31 July. The same date means two different things for two different companies. If you manage more than one entity, check each one against its own year-end.
What exactly you pay on 30 September
The amount due is the balance of the year's tax. Article 10(2) of the Income Tax Management Act describes the self-assessment that goes with the return: the tax chargeable for the year, less provisional tax already paid, tax deducted at source and any credits or reliefs due. Article 42(2) requires provisional tax to be paid during the year before the year of assessment.
In practice, that means a company that paid its provisional instalments on time owes only the difference on the settlement date. A company that paid little or no provisional tax owes most of the year's liability in one amount. Either way, the balance is due by the settlement date, whether or not the return has been filed.
Note the wording in the MTCA notice: payments must reach the administration by the due date. A transfer initiated late on the last day from a bank abroad is not the same thing as a payment received.
What the extra filing time is for
None of this makes the extension useless. It buys time for the part of the return that genuinely takes work. Article 10(4) of the Income Tax Management Act requires a company registered in Malta to furnish, together with its return, the documents specified in article 19(4) of the same Act. Article 10(5) adds that a return is not considered filed unless it is complete in all material respects, including the self-assessment where one is required, and accompanied by the documents the law demands.
That is the sensible way to read the two dates. The settlement date is when the company must know, and pay, what it owes. The extended web deadline is when the complete filing, with everything that has to go with it, must be in. Use the extra weeks for completeness, not for cash flow.
What paying late costs
The cost is set in article 44(2A) of the Income Tax Management Act. When tax is not paid by the date on which it is payable, interest is charged from the tax settlement date for each calendar month or part of a month during which it remains unpaid. For tax payable on or after 31 August 2022, the rate is 0.6 per cent per month, unless the Minister prescribes another rate by rules. Total interest cannot exceed the amount of the tax itself.
The "part of a month" wording is the detail to remember. A payment a few days late is charged as if it were a full month late. On a balance of €100,000, that is at least €600 for a short delay, and the charge grows with every further month or part of a month. Waiting to pay until the web return goes in at the end of November simply adds months of interest to a liability that was already fixed.
Why late payment also slows the refund
For many foreign-owned Maltese companies, the corporate tax payment is only the first half of the story. The second half is the shareholder refund, which is what brings the effective rate on distributed trading profits down; the corporate tax pillar explains the mechanics and the alternatives.
The refund provisions in article 48 of the Income Tax Management Act are written around "Malta tax paid" by the company on the distributed profits. Until the company has paid, there is nothing to refund. Once a refund is due, article 48(8) requires the Commissioner to pay it not later than the fourteenth day after it becomes due, a period that may be extended by up to twelve months where further due diligence verifications are needed.
So a late tax payment does not just add interest. It pushes back the start of the refund chain that the whole two-tier structure depends on. For groups built around a holding company, that delay flows straight through to the cash position at the top.
A short checklist for the next few days
Confirm the settlement date for each company. Start from the year-end, apply the nine-month rule and the 31 March floor, and check the result against the MTCA table. Do not assume the web date is the payment date.
Finalise the tax figure before the return. You do not need the web return to be submitted to know what you owe. Work out the self-assessment early enough to pay the balance on time.
Allow for transfer times. If the company's bank is outside Malta, build in the time needed for the payment to reach the MTCA by 30 September.
Keep proof of payment with the tax file. It is the simplest evidence that the settlement date was met if interest is ever queried.
Treat the web deadline as a filing deadline only. 27 November 2026 is the last date for the electronic return of a December 2025 year-end. It is not a payment date.
If you are still setting up, the step-by-step formation guide and the notes on substance requirements cover the structural side. For founders based in the United States, the US founder explainer sets out how the Maltese layer fits with home-country tax. The calendar, though, is the same for everyone: file when the extension allows, but pay when the law says.
Work with Sebastian
If you run a Maltese company from abroad and want its tax calendar, refunds and structure checked against your own year-end and your home country, book a consultation.
