Greetings from the UK

Hi Caz,

welcome to the forum.

Check out the 'Cars and Transportation' section. There are many posts there that should answer most of your questions or tell you where to link to to find the regulations.

The question itself can only be answered on an individual basis as there are too many personal variables that will influence the decision.

We'll do our best to answer any questions left.

Cheers
Ricky

Thanks for reply. Just been checking out Transport Malta  website.

Hi Ricky.. where do I find the cars and transportation section?

hmmm found it!

I'm having a look at this too as we are driving over in January. It is a little confusing at times, but we are going to go down the exemption route I think, just not sure about the proof of residency thing, and Transport Malta just said, when I asked for clarification, "send everything in and then we will go from there" - not very helpful really as there are things that could be sorted (if needs be) if only they would answer my queries!!

Hi, yes we too find that getting any concrete answers from any relevant Maltese departments is not easy.

As we are not permanent residents and us our passports as ID... just hope they don't tell us we can't import because we do not have Maltese ID.. do you know anything about that?

by the way... what is the exemption route?

You can get your ID in five days or so. Just need to go to Valletta with your passport, then they send you a letter, then you go back and get your card. No idea if this will affect things.

If you have been resident outside of Malta for 24 months, you have owned and run your car for 24 months, and you are moving your residence to Malta, you can apply for exemption from registration. One car per person or married couple. The fee is Eur300, which usually much cheaper than registering it. Only thing is then you can't sell or scrap your car on Malta (if you do you must register it fully first).

thanks for that info. As we are not planning to be permanent residents yet there is no point in us going down that route.

W have a car we bought in Malta 3 years ago.. it is not ideal as it is old and compared to UK prices expensive for what it is. This year it has had a lot go wrong with it so we do need to change it , hence the interest in bringing one over from the UK. But we do need to find out if this is our best option.

Hi,

you will need to be ordinary residents to apply for any breaks on registration tax. As a tourist you can stay for 6 months with a UK -plated car but as soon as you apply for the ID card you are declaring yourself resident and have to register your car in Malta and pay tax or not , depending on the circumstances.

Cheers
Ricky

The only proof they need of living in Malta is a rental agreement covering 12 months. Therefore, if you plan on staying here for 12 months or more then it might be worth it. As long as you have been outside of Malta (in Congleton I suppose) for 24 months. For example our car, if we were to register it fully (one was planning on staying here for a while and keeping the car here) then it would cost about Eur1000, to be exempt (for as long or as short as we like) it would cost Eur 300... For us there is no question, we hope to be here 3 years or maybe a bit more, depends on the job.