Salaries and tax in Malta: what you actually take home

Customer support, hospitality and retail roles start around €18,000 to €26,000 gross, often with shift allowances, tips or commission on top. Mid-level professionals in tech, finance, marketing and iGaming operations earn €35,000 to €55,000; senior engineers, finance managers and compliance leads €55,000 to €80,000; heads of department and senior engineering roles €80,000 to well over €100,000. iGaming operators and fintechs pay at the top of each band, agencies and smaller local firms at the bottom. The salary guides on this site show live medians by skill, built from current listings.

Residents are taxed on worldwide income on a progressive scale, with three sets of bands depending on filing status. For a single filer the first €12,000 is tax free, €12,001 to €16,000 is taxed at 15%, €16,001 to €60,000 at 25% and anything above €60,000 at 35%. Married filers have a wider tax-free band (€15,000) and parents a slightly wider one (€13,000), with the 35% rate starting at €60,000 in every case. Tax is withheld from salary each month through the Final Settlement System, and most employees do not need to file a return.

Worked example for a single person on €40,000: no tax on the first €12,000, €600 on the next €4,000, €6,000 on the next €24,000, so about €6,600 of income tax for the year.

Employees pay 10% of their basic weekly wage in social security, matched by the employer, up to a weekly cap (around €55 a week in 2025 for anyone born after 1961). On €40,000 that is roughly €2,860 a year, which brings the net pay in the example above to about €30,500, or €2,540 a month. The contributions fund public healthcare, pensions and benefits.

Statutory bonuses of about €512 a year are paid on top of salary in four instalments in March, June, September and December. A thirteenth-month salary is not a Maltese convention, though some employers in finance and iGaming pay performance bonuses.

The Highly Qualified Persons scheme caps income tax at a flat 15% for senior roles in licensed gaming, financial services and aviation companies above a salary threshold of around €100,000 (lower thresholds apply in some cases). The part-time rule taxes qualifying part-time employment at a flat 10% on the first €10,000 a year for people who also work full-time, study or are pensioners. The Nomad Residence Permit taxes authorised remote income from foreign employers at 10%. Returning Maltese and some new residents have their own schemes; ask an accountant before relying on any of them.

Ask for the gross annual figure, whether it includes the statutory bonuses, what allowances are fixed (shift, meal, transport) and which are performance based, whether health insurance is included, and the notice period. Then run the gross through the salary calculator on this site to get the monthly net for your filing status, and compare it with the rent figures in the relocation guide. A €2,500 net salary with a €1,200 rent is a different life from the same salary with a €600 room.