Malta Citizenship by Investment Was Repealed in 2025

Malta citizenship by investment no longer exists: Malta has no citizenship by investment framework. The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on 29 April 2025 that the scheme breached EU law, and Malta repealed it three months later. The contribution figures still quoted across the investment migration web correspond to regulations that were deleted from Maltese law on 29 July 2025. There is no price for a Maltese passport in 2026 because there is no longer anything priced.

What replaced it is a discretionary merit route with no financial threshold written into it anywhere. That route is real, it is narrow, and it is not the old scheme with a new name. The difference matters commercially, because a file built for the old requirements does not convert into a file that satisfies the new ones.

Av. Serkan Kara · Serka Law Firm · Updated 30 September 2026

What the scheme required until 2025

The conditions below are taken from the Court’s own recital of the 2020 regulations in the judgment of 29 April 2025. They are set out here because they are the figures a buyer arrives with, and because seeing them stated as history is the fastest way to understand that the route is gone.

• A contribution to the Maltese Government of either EUR 600,000 or EUR 750,000, of which EUR 10,000 fell due as a non-refundable deposit with the residence application or eligibility form, the balance after approval in principle.
• Acquisition and holding of residential immovable property in Malta worth at least EUR 700,000, or a lease of residential property at a minimum annual rent of EUR 16,000 for at least five years.
• A donation of at least EUR 10,000 to a registered philanthropic, cultural, sport, scientific, animal welfare or artistic organization.
• Residence in Malta for 36 months where the payment was EUR 600,000, reducible to a minimum of 12 months where the payment was EUR 750,000.
• An eligibility assessment passed before an application for naturalisation could be submitted at all.
• Additional payments of EUR 50,000 for a spouse and for each child included in the application.

The judgment that ended it

The Court of Justice sat as a Grand Chamber and delivered judgment on 29 April 2025 in Case C-181/23, Commission v Malta. The operative part reads:

Declares that, by establishing and operating an institutionalised citizenship investment scheme, such as the Maltese Citizenship by Naturalisation for Exceptional Services by Direct Investment scheme, based on Article 10(9) of the Maltese Citizenship Act (Chapter 188 of the Laws of Malta), as amended by the Maltese Citizenship (Amendment No. 2) Act (Act XXXVIII of 2020) and the Granting of citizenship for Exceptional Services Regulations, 2020 (Subsidiary Legislation 188.06 of the Laws of Malta), which establishes a transactional naturalisation procedure in exchange for predetermined payments or investments and thus amounts to the commercialisation of the grant of the nationality of a Member State and, by extension, that of Union citizenship, the Republic of Malta has failed to fulfill its obligations under Article 20 TFEU and Article 4(3) TEU.

Malta was ordered to pay the costs. The ruling is not an instruction to adjust the pricing or tighten the due diligence. It holds that selling nationality in exchange for predetermined payments is the defect, which is why nothing that keeps a published price could have survived it.

What Malta then did to its own law

Act XXI of 2025

The Maltese Citizenship (Amendment) Act, 2025 was passed by the House of Representatives at its sitting of 23 July 2025 and assented to by the President on 24 July 2025. Two of its provisions carry the whole change.

Article 2 deletes the definition of “individual investor program” from the principal Act. Article 5 substitutes article 10(9), the provision the Court named, with a new sub-article that contains no money at all:

Notwithstanding the provisions of this Act or any other Act, the Minister may grant a certificate of naturalisation as a citizen of Malta by merit to an alien or stateless person, namely to a person who renders exceptional services or who makes an exceptional contribution, including through job creation, to the Republic of Malta or to humanity, or whose naturalisation is of exceptional interest to the Republic of Malta.

A proviso defines the terms. “Exceptional” means manifestly superior or adding value. Exceptional services and contributions are those rendered by scientists, researchers, athletes, sports persons, artists, cultural performers, entrepreneurs, philanthropists and technologists, among other persons of interest to the Republic. Exceptional interest refers to a person the Minister deems to possess the skills, profile, qualities, talents and expertise considered to significantly advance or benefit the national interest.

Elsewhere the Act sweeps the old vocabulary out. Every reference in article 25 to “exceptional services and the individual investor program” becomes a reference to article 10(9). Paragraph (i) of article 24 is deleted. A new article 27(4) provides that the 2025 Act does not apply to applications for naturalisation filed under article 10(9) before it came into force.

Legal Notice 159 of 2025

The regulations were rewritten five days later, published in the Government Gazette of Malta No. 21,478 on 29 July 2025. Legal Notice 159 of 2025 substitutes the title of the principal regulations so that Subsidiary Legislation 188.06 is now the Granting of Citizenship by Naturalisation on the basis of Merit Regulations, and restates their scope as prescribing the requirements for granting citizenship by naturalisation on the basis of merit in accordance with article 10(9).

What it removes is the machinery of the old scheme. Regulations 8 to 10 are deleted. Regulations 15, 16, 17, 18, 19 and 21 are deleted, which is where the contribution, the property condition, the donation and the residence period lived. Regulations 30 and 31 are deleted. The Second, Third and Fourth Schedules are deleted. The First Schedule survives only as the form of oath for the Evaluation Board.

The transitory provision is the sentence that closes the door on files already in flight:

Provided that any applications submitted under Part IV of the Granting of Citizenship for Exceptional Services Regulations which had not been approved for naturalisation by the Minister under the said Part IV prior to 29 April 2025, shall cease to have effect.

The cut-off is the date of the judgment, not the date of the Legal Notice. An application under the investment part that was pending on 29 April 2025 does not carry forward.

What the merit route actually asks for

The current regulations describe a two-stage process, and neither stage contains a figure. The Community Malta Agency processes applications on behalf of the Minister, and every application is presented to the Minister through the Agency.

The first stage is a proposal letter to the Evaluation Board through the Agency. It must contain an introduction to the applicant and any dependants with a comprehensive overview of achievements, a detailed description of the exceptional service or contribution the applicant intends to render or make, or a detailed description of why he should be considered of exceptional interest to the Republic, and a detailed plan of how he intends to continue contributing after naturalisation. Before the proposal reaches the Board, the Agency must cause due diligence of a four-tier nature or more to be performed by third parties including internationally recognized specialized providers, have the information verified independently, and complete a risk assessment.

The Board recommends, the Agency submits the recommendation, and the Minister approves or rejects. The regulations state that the Minister is not obliged to provide any reason in support of his decision and that the decision is final.

Only an applicant holding a letter of approval in principle may file the application itself. That application must be accompanied by proof of residence in Malta for at least eight months in the period preceding it, proof of title to adequate residential property in Malta, an indication of the exceptional service, contribution or interest together with an endorsement by a designated competent body, confirmation of adequate knowledge of Maltese or English, and proof of the other ties with Malta proposed in the letter. The oath of allegiance is taken within six months of the letter of approval, extendable by the Minister in exceptional circumstances.

The Evaluation Board is chaired by an advocate of at least seven years’ practice appointed by the Minister after consultation with the Cabinet, sitting with two members drawn from panels covering sport, culture, the arts, science, research, philanthropy, technology and entrepreneurship. The Board may interview the applicant in person, and may interview the legal representative of the body endorsing him.

What this is not

• It is not the old scheme rebranded. The qualifying act changed from payment to achievement, and the instrument that held the payments was deleted rather than amended.
• There is no published price. The regulations empower the Agency to charge non-refundable administrative fees set from time to time. An administrative fee is not a qualifying contribution, and no schedule of qualifying amounts remains in the subsidiary legislation.
• A quoted 2026 figure for Maltese citizenship corresponds to nothing in force. Any EUR 600,000 or EUR 750,000 offer describes regulations deleted on 29 July 2025.
• It is not an entitlement earned by satisfying a list. The Minister decides, gives no reasons, and the regulations state the decision is final.
• Residence is a condition, not a route. Eight months of residence appears at the application stage after approval in principle, and does not by itself open the merit door.

Malta or Türkiye: what an investor can still buy

A buyer who came for the Maltese scheme is now choosing between a merit route that sells nothing and the citizenship routes still written into law elsewhere. Set against Türkiye, the Maltese position reads as follows; each cell comes from the instrument of that State.

For an investor, Malta no longer answers the question; the Turkish routes are set out on Turkish citizenship by investment, and every program still open on the citizenship by investment country comparison.

Where independent counsel earns its fee here

The honest first question on a Maltese file is whether the achievements on the table read as manifestly superior in their field to somebody who assesses them for a living. Most do not, and hearing that early is worth more than a year spent assembling a proposal letter around a record that will not carry it. Serka acts as independent counsel on the file and never as an agent: we read the position against the statutory language above, we say which of the three limbs the case would have to run on, and we say plainly when the answer is none of them. We are not an agent, representative or licensed intermediary of the Community Malta Agency or of any Maltese authority.

Where a case does have a genuine claim to exceptional service, contribution or interest, the work becomes evidence assembly and endorsement: identifying the designated competent body that can speak to the field, building the achievement record so that a three-person board can assess it in one reading, and drafting a continuing contribution plan that survives the Agency’s compliance monitoring after naturalisation. That is a documentary discipline, and it is the part we run.

Sources

Every figure, quotation and date on this page comes from the Court of Justice of the European Union or from Malta’s own legislation portal, retrieved on 23 August 2026.

Related pages

• Citizenship by investment compared country by country
• Turkish citizenship by investment, route by route
• Cyprus: the program ended in 2020 and the law behind it was deleted in 2025
• Montenegro: applications closed on 31 December 2022
• Austria: there was never a program to close
• Greece: the Golden Visa is a residence permit, not citizenship

Anyone who had planned on Malta needs the plan read against the law now in force. If you were quoted a Maltese figure, send us the quote and the profile behind it: whether the merit route could carry your record, and which open route fits the same money, Türkiye’s included, follow from those two papers. The quickest ways to Serka Law Firm are info@serkalaw.com and WhatsApp on +90 530 127 59 35.

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