I first set foot in Malta in the early 2000s. I came back. Then I came back again. I lived there twice, a year at a time. My sister-in-law Sabrina has been based in Valletta since 2012 and looks after our clients on the ground. Between us, we have watched this jurisdiction through multiple regulatory cycles, a pandemic, a global crackdown on tax planning, and a complete overhaul of EU residency-by-investment rules.
And we are still sending clients here.
That is not something I say about many places.
Most jurisdictions that looked attractive in 2012 no longer do. The UK’s non-dom regime — abolished April 2025. Cyprus’s non-dom framework — tightened. Portugal’s NHR — gone, replaced with something weaker. Ireland’s remittance basis — increasingly scrutinised. Malta has not just survived. For the right person, it has become stronger.
This series — Malta Unlocked — is not a brochure. It is what I tell clients in a paid consultation: the real picture, the real numbers, the real traps, and the real opportunities. Sabrina lives it. I have lived it. We have guided clients through it since before most of the current residence programmes even existed.
Here is why Malta is still on our shortlist in 2025.
The Tax Case Is Genuinely Strong
Malta is the last jurisdiction in the European Union with a functioning remittance-basis non-dom regime — and the only one that exempts foreign capital gains even if you remit them to Malta. That last point is not a footnote. It is the reason serious money is moving here.
If you are British, Irish, Australian, Canadian, or American and you have a portfolio generating capital appreciation abroad, Malta does not tax those gains. Ever. Not when they arise. Not when you bring the money in.
The UK abolished this in April 2025. Malta still has it. The comparison writes itself.
We will go deep on the non-dom regime, the Global Residence Programme, and the MPRP in later articles in this series. For now: the tax architecture is coherent, EU-compliant, and — for the right profile — extremely efficient.
The Jurisdiction Is Serious
Malta has been an EU member since 2004. It uses the euro. It has English as an official language. Its legal system is based on English common law. Its company registry, its courts, its financial regulator (the MFSA), and its tax authority are all functioning institutions.
This is not a tax haven in the classic sense. It is a small EU member state that has made a deliberate policy decision to attract mobile capital and mobile people through competitive tax design. That is a different thing — and it matters when you are choosing where to bank, where to base a company, and where to build a life.
The Ground Reality
Here is what most advisers cannot tell you: what it is actually like to live there.
Sabrina has been in Malta for over thirteen years. She knows which neighbourhoods suit families with children and which suit single professionals. She knows which property agents are straight and which are not. She knows the school options, the private healthcare clinics, the banking relationships, and which notaries move quickly.
I have lived in Malta twice, a year at a time. I know the heat of August, the beauty of a Maltese village festa, the particular quality of light over the Grand Harbour on a November morning, and the frustration of Maltese bureaucracy when it decides to move slowly.
We will cover all of it in this series: where to live, property, banking, schooling, healthcare, lifestyle, and the Catholic culture that makes this island unlike anywhere else in the EU.
Who Malta Is For
Malta is not for everyone. It is a small island of 316 square kilometres. Traffic is real. Construction is relentless in some areas. The summers are hot. If you need a world-class metropolis on your doorstep, Malta is not it.
But if you are a high-net-worth individual or entrepreneur who wants:
- A legitimate, EU-based, low-tax platform
- English as the working language
- A real Mediterranean lifestyle with serious infrastructure
- EU and Schengen access
- A jurisdiction that has been tested and has not broken
— then Malta belongs on your shortlist. It has been on ours since 2012. That is not going to change.
[Book a consultation](/consultation) if you want to talk through whether Malta fits your situation.
