Malta Single Permit: the EUR 600 fee and the 2026 pre-departure course

A Nepali worker needs a Single Permit to work in Malta, covering employment and residence in one document. Identità charges EUR 600 for a first application and a decision can take up to four months. Since 5 January 2026, the worker must complete a pre-departure course before the file is filed.

Who starts the file, and what it costs

The employer opens the application in the Identità online system, not the worker. The employer enters the post, the salary and the contract terms; the worker then has to endorse that application before payment can be made. Reverse the order and the file simply sits there, and employers often discover weeks later that nothing was ever registered.

The fees Identità publishes are set out below. They cover the permit only. Visa costs, medical checks, document authentication and travel sit outside them.

Most permits are issued for one year. Identità asks for renewals up to 90 days before expiry, and an employer who misses that window has a worker who is in Malta but no longer lawfully working. The Maltese permit is one national reading of a common instrument, which the Single Permit Directive explainer sets against the Dutch and Czech versions.

The 2026 pre-departure course

This is the substantive change Malta made in 2026. Under the Identità notice, from 5 January 2026 every third country national must complete a pre-departure course before a first Single Permit application, and from 1 March 2026 Identità refuses any application filed without the completion certificate. The two dates mark a transition window, so for anything filed after March the course is not optional.

The course runs about 20 hours across two modules, Living and Working in Malta, and Rights and Obligations at the Workplace. It ends with an online test and then a verification interview of roughly 20 minutes, conducted in English. The fee is about EUR 250. Because that interview is in English, it works as a real selection filter, and it is worth testing a candidate's spoken English at shortlisting rather than on the day of the verification call.

Nothing in the Identità notice says who pays the course fee, so it belongs in the contract between employer and worker. EUR 250 is a small line in a recruitment budget, but it is not refunded if the candidate fails the test or the interview, and the vacancy stays open.

The sequence stacks up like this: course and test, roughly two to four weeks; then the employer's online application and the worker's endorsement; then the Identità decision period, which the Single Permit Regulations allow to run to four months. Nepali document authentication and labour approval run alongside. The comparison in EU work permit timelines by country shows how Malta's four months sits against the other destinations.

Two figures belong in the plan together. The Single Permit Regulations allow four months for a decision, while the Identità processing period notice puts the average at roughly two months from the date the complete documentation is received. The operative word is complete: a missing insurance certificate does not push the two months back, it stops them from starting.

The permit is valid only for the employer and the post recorded on it. Under Subsidiary Legislation 217.17, work for another company, or in a different post at the same company, means a fresh file at EUR 600, and no work at all until the new permit is issued. The first employer is therefore not a small choice for the worker.

What this means for Nepali hiring

The Department of Foreign Employment recorded 6,334 Nepalis taking a labour permit for Malta in FY 2082/83. That volume is exactly what the new course requirement touches, because until this year filing the application was enough on its own.

There are two failure modes worth naming. The first is a file opened after 1 March 2026 without the course certificate: Identità refuses it, and both the EUR 600 and the four month clock restart from zero. The second is the renewal window. A one year permit expires quietly, the 90 day filing window passes, and the worker stops being able to work while still living in Malta and still on the payroll.

Plan a Malta hire backwards from the start date. Add the course weeks, the Identità decision period and the Nepali labour approval before committing to a date with the site. Our page for employers sets out how those three lines are held on one timeline.