Anyone who has spent a week in Sliema, St Julian's or Msida has seen them: electric kick scooters weaving between parked cars, crossing promenades and gliding past bus stops, their riders mostly bareheaded. Until last week Malta's micromobility law asked a lot of those riders, from a driving licence to third-party insurance, but it did not require a helmet. That has now changed.
The Government Gazette of 23 October 2026 carried Legal Notice 303 of 2026, the Micromobility (Amendment) Regulations, 2026. It is a single page with two operative changes. The first is a new rule on protective gear. The second attaches a fine to it. Read together with the existing Micromobility Regulations, S.L. 65.32, it completes a fairly strict rulebook that many riders, residents and newcomers alike, have never read in full.
What L.N. 303 of 2026 says
The amendment was made by the Minister responsible for transport, after consultation with the Authority for Transport in Malta, under article 54 of the Traffic Regulation Ordinance and article 43 of the Authority for Transport in Malta Act. It inserts a new regulation 20A into the Micromobility Regulations, headed "Obligation to wear protective gear":
"No person shall ride an e-kickscooter on a road, on any footpath, shared footpath, promenade, cyclepath or pedestrian zone, without wearing a helmet made of material capable of resisting blows, securely fitted and fastened on the rider's head."
Three features of that sentence matter in practice.
- It covers every place a scooter may legally go. Roads, footpaths, shared footpaths, promenades, cyclepaths and pedestrian zones are all named. There is no exemption for a short ride along the seafront or a slow trip through a pedestrian zone.
- The helmet has to be a real one. The test is a helmet "made of material capable of resisting blows". A cap or a decorative hat does not meet it. The Legal Notice does not name a technical standard, so the wording of the regulation itself is the yardstick.
- It must be on and fastened. A helmet hanging from the handlebar or worn with the strap open does not satisfy "securely fitted and fastened on the rider's head".
The second change amends regulation 27(12), the penalty that until now applied only to regulation 20 (the high visibility vest at night). It now reads "regulations 20 or 20A". The consequence: riding without a helmet is an offence carrying, on conviction, a fine (multa) of €200, the same amount as riding without a vest after dark.
The Legal Notice names no separate commencement date; it was published in the Government Gazette on 23 October 2026.
The rest of the rulebook
The helmet rule sits on top of a framework that has applied since the Micromobility Regulations took effect on 27 December 2019, as amended by L.N. 275 of 2023. For anyone who rides, or is thinking of buying a scooter after a move, these are the rules that apply alongside it.
Registration, licence and insurance
Under regulation 3, every e-kickscooter must be registered and licensed with the Authority for Transport in Malta. Registration requires a manufacturer's certificate, or a report signed by a warranted engineer, confirming that the scooter cannot exceed 20 km/h. The administration fee is €10. The registration number comes as a plate or sticker, the annual licence as a hologram sticker, and both must be displayed in a conspicuous position. No annual circulation fee is payable.
Riding an unregistered or unlicensed scooter on a road is an offence with a fine of €500 (regulation 27(1)).
Regulation 4 requires third-party risks insurance under the Motor Vehicle Insurance (Third-Party Risks) Ordinance. The penalties for riding uninsured are severe and rise with each offence: a first offence carries a fine of €2,329.37 to €4,658.75 or up to three months' imprisonment, or both; a second €4,658.75 to €5,823.43 or up to six months; a third or later €5,823.43 to €6,988.12 or up to a year, with forfeiture of the scooter or a further fine equal to its value. A conviction also brings, unless the court orders otherwise for special reasons, a twelve-month driving licence disqualification (regulation 27(2) and (2A)).
Regulation 5 sets the rider requirements. The rider must be at least 16 and hold a valid driving licence in Category A, AM or B, issued in line with the Motor Vehicles (Driving Licences) Regulations, and must carry it and show it to the Police or another enforcement officer on request. Riding without meeting these conditions carries a fine of up to €1,200 or up to a year's imprisonment, plus disqualification from holding a driving licence for at least three months on a first conviction and at least a year on a second (regulation 27(3)).
For newcomers this is the point most often missed. A scooter is not a bicycle under Maltese law. Anyone who arrives without a recognised licence in one of those categories cannot legally ride on the road, whatever their age.
Where you may ride, and how fast
Scooters may use footpaths, promenades, shared footpaths, cyclepaths and pedestrian zones (regulation 7), but riders there must pay the utmost attention and give precedence to pedestrians at all times, and must not obstruct cycle traffic on cyclepaths.
Regulation 8 makes it an offence to ride:
- on the arterial and distributor roads listed by the Authority in the Gazette, except parts that form part of the Safe Cycle Route Network;
- in any tunnel or underpass;
- in any other road or public space the Authority designates and signs as off limits.
The fine is €200 for the listed roads and designated areas and €500 for tunnels and underpasses (regulation 27(5) and (6)).
The speed limits in regulation 9 are 20 km/h on roads and 10 km/h on footpaths, promenades, pedestrian zones, shared footpaths and cyclepaths. Exceeding them by up to 5 km/h brings a fine of €34.94 and three penalty points on the rider's driving licence; exceeding them by more than 5 km/h brings €69.88 and six penalty points (regulation 27(7)). The points are recorded under the same regime that applies to car drivers, which is a good reason to take the scooter limits as seriously as the ones in a car.
How you ride
The behaviour rules in Part II are short and strict:
- One person per scooter. Carrying a passenger is an offence (regulation 10).
- No holding on to moving vehicles (regulation 11) and no towing carts, trailers or other objects (regulation 12).
- Keep to the left and ride in single file except when overtaking (regulation 13).
- No riding freehand (regulation 14).
- No mobile phone or any other object in your hands while riding (regulation 15).
- No headphones or earphones, or any gadget that may impede hearing (regulation 16).
- Signal turns by hand if the scooter has no indicators (regulation 17).
- No riding against the direction of traffic unless signs and markings allow it (regulation 18).
The fines differ. Passengers, holding on, towing, keeping left and riding freehand carry €50 to €100 (regulation 27(8)). Using a phone carries €200 (regulation 27(9)) and using headphones €300 (regulation 27(10)). Missing hand signals, contraflow riding and missing lamps carry €100 (regulation 27(11)).
Equipment: lights, vest and now a helmet
Part III now has three equipment duties. A scooter used on the road needs a head lamp and a tail lamp clearly visible to others (regulation 19). Between sunset and sunrise, a rider on a road must wear a high visibility vest (regulation 20). And under the new regulation 20A, every rider wears a helmet everywhere a scooter may legally go.
Parking
Scooters may be parked on pavements, promenades, footpaths and in pedestrian zones, but not so as to obstruct pedestrians, hinder people with reduced mobility or block access (regulation 21). Where racks or marked bays exist, riders must use them. On roads without dedicated spaces, a scooter may be parked perpendicular to the pavement but never in a bay marked for another type of vehicle (regulation 22). Badly parked scooters can be fined for illegal parking or obstruction and removed under the clamping and removal regulations (regulation 23).
Everything else counts as if you were driving a car
Regulation 6 requires riders to observe all traffic regulations, including pedestrian crossings and traffic lights. Regulation 28 adds a catch-all: any traffic offence committed on a scooter that Part VI does not regulate specifically carries the same penalties and consequences as the same offence in a motor vehicle. It also applies articles 15A to 15I of the Traffic Regulation Ordinance, the provisions on driving while unfit, over the alcohol limit or under the influence of drugs, including breath and drug testing, to scooter riders in the same way as to motorists.
What happened to rental scooters
Visitors sometimes ask why the scooter-sharing apps familiar from other European cities are absent in Malta. The answer is in the same regulations. Part V, which used to license e-kickscooter sharing operators, was repealed by L.N. 275 of 2023, and the related offences in regulation 27(13) and (14) ceased to be in force on 1 April 2024. With Part V gone, the regulations no longer provide for sharing services at all: the rulebook is written for scooters that are registered, licensed and insured by their owners, and the helmet duty falls on whoever is riding.
What riders should do now
For anyone who already rides, the checklist is short:
- Buy a proper helmet and wear it fastened on every ride, including short trips on promenades and through pedestrian zones.
- Check that the scooter's registration sticker and annual licence hologram are displayed and current.
- Confirm that the third-party insurance is valid. Riding uninsured is the most expensive mistake in the rulebook.
- Carry your driving licence. Without a Category A, AM or B licence you may not ride on the road at all.
- Keep a high visibility vest with the scooter for rides after sunset.
For people choosing where to live, the rules shape whether a scooter is a realistic way to get around. Distances between the coastal towns are short, but arterial roads and tunnels are closed to scooters, and routes depend on promenades, cyclepaths and the Safe Cycle Route Network. The guide to where to live and the look at population density explain why short-distance mobility matters so much on an island this crowded. Malta also has other everyday rules that surprise newcomers, among them the on-the-spot fines rule for visitors, under which fines above €200 can put leave to remain at risk, and the 2026 moving checklist covers the paperwork that comes before a licence or an insurance policy can be sorted out.
The text of the new rule is in L.N. 303 of 2026; the full rulebook it amends is the consolidated S.L. 65.32.
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