What a company files in Malta [MT]

Every company registered under the Companies Act files an annual return. The return is made up to the anniversary of the company's registration and must reach the Registrar within forty-two days after that date, so the cycle is fixed by the date the company was entered on the register and never moves with the financial year, with the accounts, or with the calendar. The Registrar no longer accepts physical submissions: the return is filed through the BAROS portal, and the fee is set by the company's authorised share capital, not by its turnover or its activity. The annual confirmation of beneficial owners is delivered on the same anniversary clock but is a separate form with its own penalty, recorded separately in this entry.

The fee follows the authorised share capital and is lower for electronic filing: EUR 85 electronic and EUR 100 on paper up to EUR 1,500 of authorised capital, rising through EUR 300 / EUR 350 in the EUR 10,000–50,000 band and EUR 765 / EUR 900 in the EUR 500,000–1,000,000 band, to EUR 1,200 electronic and EUR 1,400 on paper above EUR 2,500,000. An investment company with variable share capital pays EUR 1,000. The range shown is the cheapest electronic fee to the dearest paper fee; since paper submissions are no longer accepted by the Registrar, the electronic column is the one that applies in practice.

Every company delivers annual accounts. A private company works to ten months from the financial year end plus forty-two days; a public company to seven months plus forty-two days. Audit is the default position in Malta and not a threshold obligation: the accounts are audited unless the company falls within the small-company exemption, which the Registrar publishes as a balance sheet total not exceeding EUR 46,600, turnover not exceeding EUR 93,000 and an average of two employees, under article 185(2) of the Companies Act. The Audit Exemption Rules, 2025 (Legal Notice 139 of 2025, made under article 96(2) of the Income Tax Act) sit on top of that for income tax purposes: a company meeting two of the three criteria in two consecutive accounting periods may discharge the audit report requirement with a review report under ISRE 2400, and a company meeting all three is exempt from the statutory audit requirement; a separate rule covers the first two accounting periods of a newly registered company with turnover not exceeding EUR 80,000. The exemption is therefore a two-layer test and the applicable layer depends on the company's own history, not on a single figure.

Extensions and exceptions: No general extension is published. The ten-month figure is the private-company period; a public company works to seven months plus forty-two days, which is the shorter deadline and is not reflected in the offset shown here.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.

A company files where it is incorporated in Malta, where its management and control is in Malta, or where it carries on a business activity in Malta. The return is due within nine months of the end of the company's financial year, with one carve-out that is a floor rather than an offset: a company whose financial year ends between 1 January and 30 June files by 31 March of the following year. The administration also publishes, each January, a table extending the deadline for returns submitted electronically; that extension covers the filing of the return only and does not move the date on which the tax itself must be paid. Returns are submitted through the administration's online services by registered tax practitioners.

Extensions and exceptions: Two separate things move this date. First, a statutory floor: a company whose financial year ends between 1 January and 30 June files by 31 March of the following year, which is later than nine months from its year end. Second, an annual administrative extension for electronic filing, published by the administration each January — for year of assessment 2026 the notice of 13 January 2026 extends web submission to 31 August 2026 for year ends up to 30 September 2025 and to 27 November 2026 for a 31 December 2025 year end. The administration states that «These extensions apply only to the electronic filing of tax returns, and not to tax payments»: manual returns and all payments stay on the statutory dates.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.

Regulation 6A of the Companies Act (Register of Beneficial Owners) Regulations, S.L. 386.19, requires every company, upon each anniversary of its registration, to make a return in the form set out in the First Schedule showing any change in the details of its beneficial owners, delivered to the Registrar for registration within forty-two days after the date to which it is made up. The confirmation travels with the annual return on the same anniversary clock but is a separate form carrying its own penalty. Two further duties sit alongside it and are not annual: a change in beneficial ownership must be notified within fourteen days after the date on which the change is recorded with the company (regulation 6), and a change in senior managing officials is separately notifiable under regulation 6A(3).

Malta has three registration routes and the choice, not the turnover alone, decides whether periodic returns are due. Article 10 is the full registration: the person charges VAT and recovers input VAT, and files periodic returns. Article 11 is the exemption for small enterprises: no VAT charged, no input VAT recovered, no tax invoices, and only an annual declaration instead of periodic returns. Article 12 covers a person not registered under article 10 who makes intra-community acquisitions or receives taxable services, with no mechanism for recovering VAT. The domestic annual turnover threshold for the article 11 exemption is EUR 35,000, applicable from 1 January 2025 under article 11 of the VAT Act (Cap. 406), item 16 of Part Two of the Fifth Schedule and Part One of the Sixth Schedule. A person above that turnover cannot use article 11 and therefore files the periodic return recorded here; a person below it may still opt into article 10 and then files periodic returns as well. Registration itself must be applied for not later than thirty days from the date on which the first supply for consideration is made.

Extensions and exceptions: The tax period is normally three months. The administration's FAQ states that the return is to be submitted «by not later than the twenty-second (22nd) day of the second month following the month during which the relevant tax period ends». The VAT Return Cycle page describes the same thing from the other side: the standard date is the fifteenth day of that month, and a person filing online receives «a longer submission/payment deadline, by 7 days from the 15th day of the month», which lands on the twenty-second. The extra seven days are for online filing and the payment moves with it, unlike the income tax extension, which covers filing only.

No date can be derived here. This deadline runs from something this page does not know — the financial year the company itself elects, or an event only you can date. What is published is the rule, not the day.