Time required in Malta before applying to be Resident (EU citizen)

You can apply for residence at any time from day one onward,
you are obliged to apply by the time you have been here three months by Maltese Law.
You will need to give an address for where you currently live and prove it, ( although you should not need to under EU law) and as far as I know no check is made on  "Date of First Settlement in Malta". Just put any date in last three months!

Might take a few weeks to get your card through though, I have just done a simple change of address and am now in week five of waiting for new card!

Ray

Thanks Ray for taking the time to reply, that's very useful info.

As a follow-up question, the same form asks how long will be my "intended duration of stay in Malta". It partly depends how the Brexit negotiations go in my case but is there an answer which will trigger alarm bells? What is the purpose of this question do you think? I was going to say 3 years but I might stay longer than that. My concern is to become resident in Malta and registered for tax here as soon as possible.

Thanks again to you or anyone else who can help me understand this a bit better.

ianmalta wrote:

Thanks Ray for taking the time to reply, that's very useful info.

As a follow-up question, the same form asks how long will be my "intended duration of stay in Malta". It partly depends how the Brexit negotiations go in my case but is there an answer which will trigger alarm bells? What is the purpose of this question do you think? I was going to say 3 years but I might stay longer than that. My concern is to become resident in Malta and registered for tax here as soon as possible.

Thanks again to you or anyone else who can help me understand this a bit better.

In answer to "intended duration of stay in Malta", I can't remember what we put as it was a long time ago in, but 'indefinately' should suffice, again I don't think anyone at the Ministry will worry too much!
When you start the eResidence application you should get a blue 'Receipt', not sure whether that will suffice for registering for tax purposes but if not just go in to the tax office when you get your card. ( you can download the registration form on line from the Inland Revenue website.)

I had to do it twice because they lost the first form and even then there was no acknowledgement, just a Tax Return appeared the following year (and you often only get it a couple of weeks before it has to be returned!).

Ray

Thanks for another useful answer Ray. I will follow your advice.

We start our  residency application tomorrow in Victoria, having just got the S1 registered. As to Tax, I just went into the tax office in Victoria last week, only 2 simple forms to fill, they did need to see our Marriage certificate. Had my letter of registration 2 days later.  I have left my intended length of stay in Malta blank but will know more tomorrow.
The other Ray

Thanks Ray, this all sounds encouraging. I did not realise I could register for paying tax before my residency application was complete, so thank you for this. Although strangely I already have an income tax ID as part of the process of buying a property, arranged by my notary, so maybe this is all a lot simpler than I thought. If you encounter any unexpected problems along the way please do update the thread.

The tax was simple, if only everything else was. The S1 took 5 weeks for the wife and 3 weeks for me, strange that they both arrived in the same envelope. I will of course
update after tomorrows adventure into Maltese bureaucracy.
Ray

RayAucote wrote:

The tax was simple, if only everything else was. The S1 took 5 weeks for the wife and 3 weeks for me, strange that they both arrived in the same envelope. I will of course
update after tomorrows adventure into Maltese bureaucracy.
Ray

You will find the girls in the VIctoria office very helpful and compared to when the residence card was first introduced it should not take long, I think it was eight months we had to wait then compared to three weeks for a new one because of change of address.

RayAucote wrote:

We start our  residency application tomorrow in Victoria, having just got the S1 registered. As to Tax, I just went into the tax office in Victoria last week, only 2 simple forms to fill, they did need to see our Marriage certificate. Had my letter of registration 2 days later.  I have left my intended length of stay in Malta blank but will know more tomorrow.
The other Ray

As long as you get the right ladies in the office in Victoria you should have no problems at all, the hardest part will be if there are several people waiting you will have to stand out in the sun for a while!
We have just changed our address and it took 3 weeks for my wife's new card and I am now on 5 weeks and still waiting!

Ray

We needed passports, Certificates of Entitlement, pension statements and lease document for our apartment. No photo's needed as taken there. A few signatures and away we went with our receipts.
The whole process took 15 minutes for the both of us as we had prefilled the forms.
Forms   ID 1A   and   CEA form J  (Pensioners  in our case)

Things like intended length of stay and permanent address abroad were left blank on the forms.
We were told about 3-5 weeks for the cards to be ready.
Can't really complain apart from the fact that you have to wait outside. I would recommend getting there as soon as they open at 8:00 am.
Ray

It's so easy now, not like it used to be when you had to go to Malta and try to get there for 8.30.

@RayAucote.

Re: Excerpts from your post - ‘We needed…….lease document for our apartment………'

In this precise regard, the European Commission reported as follows on 3rd June, 2016: 

‘……..According to Article 8 of Directive 2004/38/EC, EU citizens who reside in another Member State for a period of longer than three months may be obliged to register with the competent authorities.

The mentioned article of the Directive establishes an exhaustive list of documents which can be requested by the national authorities to that end.

A lease agreement and a copy of the identity card of the landlord are not included in this list.

Consequently, such a requirement would be contrary to EU law……'

Fionn wrote:

@RayAucote.

Re: Excerpts from your post - ‘We needed…….lease document for our apartment………'

In this precise regard, the European Commission reported as follows on 3rd June, 2016: 

‘……..According to Article 8 of Directive 2004/38/EC, EU citizens who reside in another Member State for a period of longer than three months may be obliged to register with the competent authorities.

The mentioned article of the Directive establishes an exhaustive list of documents which can be requested by the national authorities to that end.

A lease agreement and a copy of the identity card of the landlord are not included in this list.

Consequently, such a requirement would be contrary to EU law……'

That has already been mentioned in post number 2 in this topic but the purpose of this Forum is to help others through your own experiences and the experience of members shows that authorities still will request to see your lease agreement regardless of what 'Chapter and Verse' of EU law that you like to keep quoting says.

Ray

F0xgl0ve wrote:

Fionn wrote:

@RayAucote.

Re: Excerpts from your post - ‘We needed…….lease document for our apartment………'

In this precise regard, the European Commission reported as follows on 3rd June, 2016: 

‘……..According to Article 8 of Directive 2004/38/EC, EU citizens who reside in another Member State for a period of longer than three months may be obliged to register with the competent authorities.

The mentioned article of the Directive establishes an exhaustive list of documents which can be requested by the national authorities to that end.

A lease agreement and a copy of the identity card of the landlord are not included in this list.

Consequently, such a requirement would be contrary to EU law……'

That has already been mentioned in post number 2 in this topic but the purpose of this Forum is to help others through your own experiences and the experience of members shows that authorities still will request to see your lease agreement regardless of what 'Chapter and Verse' of EU law that you like to keep quoting says.

Ray

@F0xgl0ve.

If, as you opine, ‘the experience of members shows that authorities still will request to see your lease agreement regardless of what 'Chapter and Verse' of EU law that you like to keep quoting says', why then, did you also venture to state ‘…( although you should not need to under EU law)… ‘ in your earlier post (number 2) on this thread?

In that the purpose of this forum is to help others, its members are entitled to support and substantiate each other's anecdotal evidence with sourced official references.

Post number 2: https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.p … 18#3665738

Hiya

I registered in Dec last year, only took a month to get my card. I did however make 1 mistake and had to make a second visit to put my paperwork in. I hadn't sorted my Health Insurance. Be sure to do all they require and it should be a simple enough process. The staff are very helpful so don't be too daunted.
Oh and parking is really difficult around the offices so if you can go along with a friend who can stay with the car it could be helpful.
Good Luck