"Fiduciary services" is a phrase that covers a handful of quite different jobs: holding shares or property in the fiduciary's own name on your behalf, acting as trustee of a family trust, running the assets of a private foundation, or sitting on the board of your company. In Malta, each of those jobs has a legal definition, a licensing rule and a set of duties.
If you are thinking of using a Maltese nominee or trustee, or you already do, the useful questions are simple. What exactly is the fiduciary doing for you? Does the law require them to be authorised? And what does the law require of them once they are? The answers sit mainly in one statute, the Trusts and Trustees Act, Chapter 331 of the Laws of Malta.
The Word "Licensed Nominee" Is Out of Date
Start with a piece of history, because it explains how the market works today. Malta used to issue licences to "licensed nominees" and nominee companies. That regime was wound down by the 2004 reform of the Trusts and Trustees Act. Under the transitory provisions of Act XIII of 2004, which are printed at the end of Chapter 331:
- no further nominee licences were issued once the new Part came into force;
- existing licences expired two years later;
- licensed nominees had to apply for authorisation as trustees under article 43, or stop, and if they stopped, transfer what they held to an authorised trustee.
So when a Maltese firm offers "nominee services" in 2026, it is not holding a nominee licence. It is, or should be, authorised by the Malta Financial Services Authority under article 43 of the Trusts and Trustees Act, either as a trustee or as a fiduciary mandatary. The label matters less than the authorisation behind it.
Job One: Holding Shares or Property for You
The classic nominee job is holding legal title for someone else. The nominee is the registered shareholder of your company, or the registered owner of an asset, and holds it on your instructions.
Article 43(12) of the Act catches exactly this. Any person resident or operating in or from Malta who "acts as a mandatory in the holding of securities and, or immovable property for another person" needs MFSA authorisation. (The Act spells the word "mandatory"; most practitioners write "mandatary".) The requirement applies "irrespective of the extent of his activities, whether remuneration is payable therefor or whether he holds himself out as providing such services or not". There is no small-scale exemption.
To be authorised as a mandatary, article 43(13) requires, among other things:
- for a company: objects limited to acting as mandatary, at least three directors who are MFSA-approved persons, minimum capital of €15,000 kept at all times, insurance cover proportionate to the business, and fit and proper approval of anyone holding 10% or more;
- for an individual: operation in or from Malta, approved-person status, the same €15,000 capital and proportionate insurance;
- in both cases: systems that keep proper records of the identity and residence of the ultimate beneficial owners and of every transaction in the assets held.
That last point is the one people underestimate. A Maltese mandatary is required by law to know who you are and to keep the records. The nominee is not a mechanism for making the owner unknown to the fiduciary.
Nominees Do Not Remove You From the Register
The same is true of the company itself. Under the Companies Act (Register of Beneficial Owners) Regulations, every Maltese company must hold accurate, up-to-date information on its beneficial owners, including "the names of any persons holding shares as nominees, including reference to their status as nominee shareholders", and must file beneficial ownership information with the Registrar. The shortcut that lets a company's register of members double as its beneficial owners register applies only where, among other conditions, none of the shareholders acts as a trustee or in any other fiduciary capacity.
A nominee shareholder therefore changes the name on the register of members. It does not change who appears as beneficial owner. Anyone offering a Maltese nominee arrangement as a way to hide ownership from the authorities is describing something the regulations do not allow.
What a nominee can legitimately do for you is narrower but still useful: separate the person who administers the shareholding from the person who owns it, allow a professional to sign routine corporate paperwork when you are abroad, and keep your personal name off the everyday face of a company while the beneficial ownership records remain complete.
Job Two: Acting as Trustee
The second job is acting as trustee of a trust. Article 43(1) requires MFSA authorisation for anyone operating in or from Malta who receives property upon trust or acts as trustee, and who:
- is paid for doing so; or
- does so "on a regular and habitual basis"; or
- holds himself out to be a trustee.
That applies whatever the governing law of the trust and whether or not the trust property is in Malta. A professional trustee company in Malta is authorised under article 43, with the same basic conditions as a mandatary: limited objects, three approved directors, €15,000 minimum capital, insurance and proper records of the identity and residence of beneficiaries.
What a Trustee Owes You
Once appointed, a trustee's duties are set out in article 21 of the Act, and they are strict. Trustees must act "with the prudence, diligence and attention of a bonus paterfamilias, act in utmost good faith and avoid any conflict of interest". In practice, article 21 requires a trustee to:
- administer the trust according to its terms and keep the trust property vested in them or under their control;
- safeguard the property from loss or damage, so far as reasonable;
- draw up a written inventory of the trust property on accepting the appointment;
- keep trust property separate from their own and from other trusts;
- keep accurate accounts and records, disclose them to beneficiaries on request, and keep them for at least ten years after the trust or the trusteeship ends.
Unless the trust deed or the Act permits it, or a court authorises it, a trustee may not profit from the trusteeship, let others profit from it, deal with trust property on their own account or with close relatives, or enter into any transaction that creates a conflict of interest.
Trusts also have their own beneficial ownership rules, in the Trusts and Trustees Act (Register of Beneficial Owners) Regulations. A trustee has to hold, and report, information on the settlor, the protector, the beneficiaries and anyone else exercising control.
Job Three: Running a Private Foundation
The third job is administration of a foundation. Article 43(12)(b) requires authorisation for anyone in or from Malta who acts as administrator, trustee, director or similar functionary exercising control over the assets of a private interest foundation, again irrespective of the scale, remuneration or holding out. Article 43(15) sets the conditions, which mirror those for trustees and mandataries.
That matters if you are setting up a Maltese foundation for family wealth, a structure explained in the guide to the Maltese foundation. The administrator must be authorised, or exempt, and cannot be a friend doing it as a favour.
Job Four: Company Services
The fourth job is often bundled with the other three but sits under a different law. The Company Service Providers Act defines company services as forming companies, acting as or arranging for someone to act as a director or company secretary, and providing a registered office or business address. A person who provides those services by way of business needs authorisation under that Act.
Article 43(4) of the Trusts and Trustees Act lets authorised trustees and mandataries also act as company service providers, subject to the applicable rules. In practice, many Maltese fiduciary firms offer the whole set: formation, directors, registered office, nominee shareholding and trusteeship, under one roof and more than one authorisation. How that fits into a working structure is covered in the pieces on forming a Maltese company and on Malta holding structures.
A nominee director is a particular risk. Directors carry legal duties of their own, and a board that exists only on paper is the first thing a tax authority tests when it looks at substance.
Who Does Not Need Authorisation
The Act lists exemptions, and knowing them helps you judge an offer. Under article 43(6), banks, investment firms and insurers licensed to hold client assets may act as trustee without separate authorisation where trustee services are incidental to their main business. Under article 43(7), the requirement does not apply, among others, to:
- advocates, notaries, legal procurators and certified public accountants, but only where acting as trustee is necessary and incidental to their profession and they do not hold themselves out to the public as trustees; they must keep records of clients' assets for at least ten years;
- security trustees in financing transactions;
- liquidators and court-appointed administrators;
- unpaid trustees of charitable trusts who do not hold themselves out;
- co-trustees where the other trustee, or the majority of trustees, are authorised.
A lawyer or accountant who acts as trustee for one client as part of a wider mandate may be exempt. A firm that markets trustee or nominee services is not.
Maltese Shares and Property Held on Trust
One rule applies even where the trustee itself is not authorised, for example a foreign trustee. Under article 43(9), a trust or a mandatary may hold unlisted shares in a Maltese company, or immovable property in Malta, only if a "qualified person", an authorised trustee or other person recognised under the Act, is engaged in writing to carry out the compliance functions. That engagement must be notified to the MFSA before the property is acquired. Under article 43(10), no transaction in that property, including an assignment of beneficial interests, may take place without the qualified person's prior written consent.
If a foreign family trust plans to buy a Maltese home or hold a Maltese company, this requirement has to be built into the timetable.
How to Check a Fiduciary
The MFSA describes trustees and other fiduciaries as "gatekeepers to the financial system" and supervises them on a risk-based model, with on-site inspections as its most frequently used tool, according to its page on trustees and fiduciaries. For the person hiring one, three checks do most of the work:
- Look the firm up on the MFSA's Financial Services Register and confirm which authorisation it holds: trustee, mandatary, foundation administrator, company service provider, or several.
- Match the authorisation to the job. A company service provider authorisation does not cover holding your shares as nominee, and a trustee authorisation does not by itself make a firm your company secretary.
- Read the mandate or trust deed. It should state what the fiduciary holds, on whose instructions it acts, what it charges, and how you can replace it.
The wider regulatory landscape, including the other licence categories the MFSA administers, is set out in the MFSA explainer. For fiduciary services specifically, the law gives a clear rule of thumb: if someone in Malta holds assets for you, or controls them for your family, they need to be authorised, and they are required to know exactly who you are.
Work with Sebastian
If you want to work out how these rules apply to your own company, trust or personal position in Malta before the next deadline, book a consultation.
