Malta Highly Skilled Individuals Rules 2026: 15% Tax

For more than a decade, Malta had a quiet answer to a simple recruiting problem. A senior compliance head, portfolio manager or aviation executive moving to the island could elect to pay a flat 15% on their salary instead of the normal progressive rates, which reach 35% on chargeable income above €60,000. The best known version was the Highly Qualified Persons Rules, but there were several parallel schemes: one for innovation and creativity, one for aviation, one for maritime and offshore oil and gas, and, from late 2025, one for family offices.

That patchwork is gone. On 23 January 2026 the Government Gazette carried Legal Notice 20 of 2026, the Tax Treatment of Highly Skilled Individuals Rules, 2026. The rules are deemed to have come into force on 1 January 2026, and they fold the old regimes into one framework with one income threshold, one application window and a much longer list of eligible jobs.

If you are negotiating a Malta role for 2027, or you already hold a determination under one of the old rules, the details matter more than the headline rate.

One regime instead of five

The legal basis has not changed. Article 56(21) of the Income Tax Act allows an individual who earns emoluments under a "qualifying contract of employment" to have that income taxed at 15 cents on every euro, with the conditions left to rules made by the Minister for Finance. The old schemes were all built on that same sub-article. The new rules simply replace the separate sets of conditions with a single one.

Rule 12 lists the five regimes being wound down:

the Highly Qualified Persons Rules (S.L. 123.126);
the Qualifying Employment in Innovation and Creativity (Personal Tax) Rules (S.L. 123.141);
the Qualifying Employment in Aviation (Personal Tax) Rules (S.L. 123.168);
the Qualifying Employment in Maritime Activities and the Servicing of Offshore Oil and Gas Industry Activities (Personal Tax) Rules (S.L. 123.182);
the Senior Employees of Family Offices, Back Offices and Treasury Management Operations Tax Rules (S.L. 123.218).

Under rule 12(2), no determination may be issued under any of those five after 31 December 2025 for applications made after that date, and no further benefit may be claimed under them after year of assessment 2030. Anyone applying now applies under the 2026 rules.

The numbers: €65,000 floor, €7 million ceiling

Rule 3 sets the entry point. The employment income must be at least €65,000 a year, excluding the annual value of fringe benefits, and it must come from an "eligible office". The floor rises by €10,000 every five years, counted from the year after the rules came into force.

Opting in has consequences beyond the rate. Rule 8 deems a minimum of €65,000 to be taxed at 15% once you opt in, and it adds that the rate applies without any relief, deduction, reduction, credit or set-off, save for deductions of tax under article 23 of the Income Tax Management Act. Rule 9 caps the benefit: the 15% applies to emoluments of up to €7,000,000. Anything above that is "remaining income" and is taxed at the rates that would otherwise apply.

On a salary of €150,000, the difference is large. At 15% the tax is €22,500. Under the ordinary rates for a single resident in article 56(1)(b)(i), in the version that applies from year of assessment 2027, chargeable income above €60,000 is taxed at 35% less a fixed €9,400, which puts the tax on the same salary at €43,100. The regime is worth something only if the whole package holds up under scrutiny, which is why the conditions matter.

Who counts as highly skilled

Rule 4 lists eight conditions, and a beneficiary must meet all of them. In summary, you must:

earn employment income under a qualifying contract for work done in Malta (or for time abroad connected with it, or on leave);
be a genuine employee, paid, with the competence the job requires, as proven to the competent authority;
hold professional qualifications, which the rules define as a post-secondary qualification from a course of at least three years or, by way of derogation, at least five years of comparable professional experience;
not have benefited under article 6 of the Income Tax Act;
declare all employment income, including anything paid by persons related to your employer for activities that flow from the same job;
actually perform the functions of the eligible office;
show stable and regular resources, normal accommodation in Malta for yourself and your family, a valid travel document and private medical insurance covering you and your family;
not be domiciled in Malta;
meet any further conditions the competent authority sets, including on training staff in the field of your eligible office.

The last point is easy to overlook. The regime is for people coming in, not for Maltese-domiciled individuals changing jobs. It sits comfortably alongside the rules on non-dom status and the remittance basis, which govern how any foreign income you have outside the job is treated.

There is also an anti-abuse rule. Rule 11 allows the Commissioner for Tax and Customs to cancel the benefit where "artificial arrangements" are used, including side payments from related companies that are not declared in Malta, or collusion to dress up a contract as a qualifying one.

Which jobs qualify now

This is where the 2026 rules change most. The old regimes were split by sector, each with its own list and its own rules. The new rules gather the eligible offices into six schedules, each with its own competent authority:

Schedule I covers undertakings licensed or recognised by the Malta Financial Services Authority, the Malta Gaming Authority, the transport authority, the Office of the Chief Medical Officer and Malta Enterprise. The offices are C-suite and function heads: chief executive, chief financial, operations, technology, information, commercial and customer experience officers, heads of risk, compliance and anti-money laundering, and heads of marketing.
Schedule II is financial services specialists under the MFSA: portfolio managers, chief investment officers, senior traders, senior structuring professionals, actuarial professionals, chief underwriting officers, heads of investor relations and private equity fund managers, plus a separate set of family office roles.
Schedule III is aviation, maritime and offshore oil and gas servicing, with a long list that runs from accountable managers and flight operations roles to masters, chief engineers and ship superintendents.
Schedule IV covers embryologists and quality leads in assisted reproductive technology.
Schedule V is gaming: odds compilers, heads of research and development, senior analysts, chief legal officers, chief people officers and heads of responsible gaming, among others.
Schedule VI, under Malta Enterprise, opens the regime to STEM specialists: software developers, data scientists, cybersecurity analysts, AI specialists, engineers of several kinds, physicists, chemists, statisticians and others.

The last schedule is the one to watch. Science, technology, engineering and mathematics roles regulated, licensed or recognised by Malta Enterprise now sit on the same list as the finance and gaming jobs, under the same €65,000 floor. For the licensed sectors, the MFSA overview explains which firms sit under the regulator, and the iGaming and fintech piece covers the industries that have used these rules most.

How the application works

Under rule 5, you apply to the competent authority for your sector, not to the tax office. Applications can be made between 1 January 2026 and 31 December 2035, and none will be accepted after 31 December 2036. The authority has 90 days to issue a formal determination or a refusal, and the clock restarts if it asks for more documents. It informs the Commissioner, who endorses the decision.

A determination does not by itself lower your tax. Rule 6 requires you to exercise the option through a declaration endorsed by the competent authority, and the option counts only if the income is fully declared and the return is filed on time. One timing detail stands out: the option cannot be exercised for any year of assessment before 2027. Since Malta taxes a year's income in the following year of assessment, year of assessment 2027 is the one that covers income earned in 2026.

The benefit runs for five years from the year of the determination, with two possible five-year extensions applied for in the final year of each period. Rule 7(3) sets a hard stop: nothing earned after 31 December 2040 benefits, whatever the extension status.

If you already hold a determination under the old rules

Rule 12(1) gives existing beneficiaries a bridge. If you qualified under any of the five old regimes on 31 December 2025, you can apply to the relevant competent authority to be treated as a beneficiary under the new rules. The authority must decide within 60 days, and the new five-year period runs from the year of assessment in which that determination is issued. The deadline for these applications is 31 December 2028.

There is a phase-in for people whose old threshold was lower than €65,000. Under the second proviso to rule 3(1), the minimum is the old amount in the first year, the old amount plus €10,000 in the second year, and €65,000 from the third. If you are on an older, lower minimum, plan for the step-up in your salary negotiations now, because the floor applies to the income itself, not only to the tax computation.

The family office piece

Family offices received their own tax rules in October 2025, through Legal Notice 250 of 2025. About three months later those rules were on rule 12's list. The substance survived: the family office roles now sit in Schedule II of the 2026 rules.

The eligible offices are head of the back office or chief executive (or an equivalent title), chief risk officer, chief compliance and anti-money laundering officer, portfolio manager, chief investment officer, senior trader and senior structuring professional. They qualify when held with:

a single family office vehicle: fund managers exempt from an investment services licence under regulation 3(1)(f) or 3(1)(t) of the Investment Services Act (Exemption) Regulations, where the notified professional investor fund they manage invests a family's private wealth without raising external capital; registered trustees investing for a family trust in such a fund; or MFSA licence holders investing private wealth without external capital;
a multi family office, meaning a licence holder that exclusively manages the wealth of more than one high-net-worth family;
companies providing back office services or treasury management operations to those offices, confirmed as such in writing by the MFSA.

The residence side came separately. On 2 April 2026 the Residency Malta Agency published a Residency for Family Offices route. It describes three-year renewable residence permits for ultimate beneficial owners and senior employees of MFSA-authorised entities that form part of family office structures, together with their dependants. The permits carry the right to live and work in Malta and allow short visa-free travel in the Schengen Area. Applications go through Residency Malta after due diligence, with fitness and properness assessed by the MFSA when the entity is authorised.

Put together, the two instruments cover both halves of a move. The permit answers the question of who may live in Malta; the 15% rate is available only to the employees who meet the salary floor and the other conditions. An owner who draws no salary from the structure gains the permit, not the rate.

How it fits with the other 2026 regimes

The Highly Skilled Individuals Rules are an employment regime. They are not the Individual Tax Programme that replaces the GRP and TRP from 2027, which taxes foreign income received in Malta and has nothing to do with a Maltese salary. Nor do they grant permanent residence; people planning a longer stay should read the realistic routes to permanent residence separately.

What the rules do offer is a clear set of questions for anyone discussing a Malta role:

Is the job on a schedule? Match the title and, more importantly, the actual function to the list. The authority will check that you perform the office, not just that your contract uses the words.

Is the employer licensed or recognised by the right authority? The same job title qualifies with an MFSA licence holder and not with an unregulated company.

Does the package clear €65,000 without fringe benefits? A company car or employer-provided accommodation counts for the employment, not for the floor.

Are you domiciled outside Malta, and can you prove resources, housing and health cover? These are conditions of the tax benefit, not formalities.

Which year do you want the first determination in? The five-year clock starts with the determination, and 2040 ends everything regardless.

The headline rate is familiar. What is new is the breadth of the list and the fact that, since the start of 2026, there is only one door to it.

Work with Sebastian

If you are weighing a senior role or a family office move to Malta and want the 15% rules, the residence route and your home-country tax checked together, book a consultation.