Malta short-term rental regulation and SDEP status

What this means

Malta has a clear licensing route for holiday furnished premises such as apartments, studios, villas, farmhouses, terraced houses, and maisonettes.

The Malta Tourism Authority is responsible for issuing licences for tourism operators and publishes licensed-establishment information.

The MTA states that it is Malta's competent authority for collecting information under Regulation (EU) 2024/1028, and that every licensed operator must hold a new registration number, separate from the licence number, displayed on online short-term rental listings.

Implementation status

Servizz.gov describes the service as a licence for short lease of property as holiday furnished premises.

S.L. 409.24 — Tourism Accommodation Regulations, 2026 — was published on 15 April 2026 and is partially in force, with a point in time of 15 June 2026.

The new registration number is separate from the licence number and must be displayed on advertisements, listings and promotional material, including online platform listings, and on the external sign. The accompanying legal notice on data collection and sharing under the Regulation is still being drafted for approval and publication.

Short-let bookings are capped at 90 consecutive days, occupancy at two persons per bedroom and ten persons per unit unless the property has independent access from a public road, and basement bedrooms are prohibited.

The 2026 regulations require short-term rental owners/operators to affix a sign outside the property entrance with the licence number and a designated 24/7 contact person.

Short-let accommodations must submit and implement an adequate waste collection management plan. Operators without a valid MTA licence can face a three-year disqualification in addition to other penalties.

MTA application material lists required documents such as applicant/operator identity, company documents where relevant, third-party liability insurance, and planning/development-permit evidence.

Technical interface

An online application route and public licensed-establishments information exist.

The MTA publishes an STR Licence Check validator for licence-number lookup.

The MTA states that booking data will be exchanged with the authority on a regular basis; no platform-facing endpoint or onboarding route is published.

No Malta-specific Regulation 2024/1028 SDEP OpenAPI documentation, source code, sandbox, registration-number validation API, or platform onboarding process is currently available.

Malta also exposes a public data-service entry for the Holiday Furnished Premises Register, which may be relevant for identifier lookup or future validation.