No capital contribution

Malta Retirement Programme

No minimum income. €7,500 of tax a year, whatever you earn of passive income. No investment, no donation, nothing to finance.

Malta runs two of these, and which one you can use depends on whether you draw a pension. No capital contribution either way — but a minimum tax of €7,500 or €15,000 whatever you earn, no route to permanent residence or a passport, and both close to new applicants on 31 December 2026.

What it asks for

The gate is income, not capital. There is no sum to transfer and nothing to hold for a qualifying period.

Main applicant

No minimum income. €7,500 of tax a year, whatever you earn

Spouse or dependent parent

€500 more per dependant, again as tax rather than as required income

The test is a floor on tax, not on income. Remitted foreign pension is charged at a flat 15%, subject to a minimum of €7,500 a year for the main applicant and €500 for each dependant. Below roughly €50,000 of remitted pension the minimum binds and the effective rate rises — at €20,000 remitted you are paying 37.5%, not 15%.

What it actually costs

Ninety days a year on average, which is the lightest presence on this site.

An average of 90 days a year in Malta across five years, and — the condition most guides omit — you must not spend 183 days or more in any other single country. It is not a low-presence permit so much as a requirement to be tax resident nowhere else.

Malta’s permanent residence programme asks for a property, a government contribution and a donation, and grants lifetime residence. This asks for none of that and grants a tax status. They are not alternatives so much as different products.

Income that counts

Foreign pension income, which must be at least 75% of your chargeable income
The pension must be remitted to Malta in full

Income that does not

Employment in Malta, beyond non-executive or public-interest roles
Any arrangement where the pension is less than 75% of chargeable income
Pension income kept outside Malta — remittance is the condition, not residence alone

Where the income comes from

This is a tax status, not a road to a passport. The Retirement Programme and the Global Residence Programme confer special tax treatment and a residence permit; neither counts toward Maltese permanent residence or naturalisation the way the Portuguese, Spanish, Greek and Italian routes count toward theirs. If a Maltese passport is the objective, this is the wrong instrument and citizenship by merit is the separate — and far more expensive — one.

How long it runs

Special tax status granted

Ongoing

Applied for through an Authorised Registered Mandatary; it is a status rather than a permit cycle.

Annual declaration

Every year

Confirming the 75% pension test, the remittance, the property and the minimum tax still hold.

Qualifying property

Throughout

Rent from €9,600 a year, or €8,750 in Gozo and the south. Purchase is an alternative, not a requirement.

Permanent residency. Not through this programme. It grants tax status, not a qualifying period. Malta’s permanent residence route is a separate programme requiring property, a government contribution and a donation.

Citizenship. Not through this programme either. Maltese citizenship by naturalisation for exceptional services by direct investment is a wholly separate and far more expensive route, and time spent under this status does not count toward it.

Tax

This route is a tax arrangement, so the tax is the product rather than a consequence of it. Foreign pension remitted to Malta is charged at a flat 15%, with a minimum of €7,500 for the main applicant plus €500 per dependant. Income arising in Malta is taxed at 35%. The minimum is what decides whether this works: it is payable in full whether the pension arrives or not, so a modest pension pays a high effective rate and a large one pays 15%. The Global Residence Programme is the non-pension equivalent and sets its minimum at €15,000. Both are questions for a tax adviser in Malta and in the country you are leaving.

Not for you if

You want a path to permanent residence or a passport — this route leads to neither
Your pension is modest: at €20,000 remitted the €7,500 minimum is an effective rate of 37.5%
Your pension is less than 75% of your chargeable income
You are unwilling to remit the pension to Malta in full
You intend to remain tax resident somewhere else, which the programme does not allow

Better than the investment route when

A large foreign pension makes a flat 15% genuinely cheap
Ninety days a year is all the presence you want to give
You already hold residence or citizenship elsewhere and want the tax position, not the passport
You would rather rent than put capital into Maltese property

The other way into Malta

EU citizenship in 14 to 16 months, and the route this one does not lead to, and roughly seven days a year of presence. It is the same country and a different price: capital instead of your time. Which of those you would rather pay is the whole decision.

Malta citizenship by merit

Retirement Programme or Global Residence Programme?

Malta runs two of these. The Retirement Programme is for people drawing a pension; the Global Residence Programme is for everyone else. Same 15% rate, same property test, and twice the minimum tax.

	Retirement Programme	Global Residence Programme
Who it is for	Foreign pensioners. The pension must be at least 75% of chargeable income and remitted to Malta in full.	Non-EU, non-EEA and non-Swiss nationals. No pension test and no requirement that income take any particular form.
Minimum tax a year	€7,500, plus €500 for each dependant.	€15,000, covering the beneficiary and dependants together.
Rate on remitted foreign income	15%.	15%. Identical, which is why the minimum is the whole difference.
Property	Buy from €275,000, or rent from €9,600 a year (€8,750 in Gozo and the south).	Buy from €275,000, or €220,000 in Gozo and the south. Rent from €9,600, or €8,750 in Gozo and the south.
Application fee	€2,500.	€6,000, or €5,500 where the property is in Gozo or the south.
Presence	An average of 90 days a year over five years, and not 183 days or more in any other single country.	No minimum in Malta at all. The same rule against 183 days elsewhere still binds.

Which one applies to you

If you are drawing a pension and it is most of your income, the Retirement Programme is the same product for half the minimum tax and a fifth of the fee. If your income is from anything else — a business, investments, property — the pension test rules you out and the Global Residence Programme is the one available. The decision is about the shape of your income, not the size of it.

Both close to new applicants on 31 December 2026.

Legal Notice 195 of 2026, published on 14 July 2026, brings in the Individual Tax Programme Rules from 1 January 2027. They fold the Retirement Programme, the Global Residence Programme, The Residence Programme and the UN Pension Programme into one framework, and the numbers move a long way: the pensioner minimum goes from €7,500 to €15,000 and the non-pensioner minimum from €15,000 to €35,000. Property rises to €700,000 to buy or €14,000 a year to rent, anywhere in Malta, and the fee to €8,500. Status granted under the present rules is protected until 31 December 2031.

Sources disagree on whether the deadline is met by having applied or by having been granted status. Some advisers read the transitional rule as covering applications submitted by 31 December 2026; others read it as covering status actually granted by that date. The difference matters enormously at this distance from the date, and it is a question for a Maltese adviser before you rely on either reading.

The same idea, in 4 other countries

Every one of these asks for income rather than capital, and none of them pays me anything to place it. What differs is how much income, how long you have to be there, and what you get at the end.

So who manages the money that qualifies you?

This visa does not ask you to invest anything. It asks you to prove No minimum income. €7,500 of tax a year, whatever you earn arriving, and to keep proving it — at every renewal, for five years, and then for five more if you want the passport. The capital behind that income has to survive a decade of markets while paying out the whole time, and it has to do it in a currency that may not be the one you are spending.

That is not an immigration question and your lawyer will not answer it. It is the question I am qualified to answer, and the one nobody in this market seems to ask before the application rather than after it.

What a million euros sustains for thirty years

S&P 500 Index€35,328 a year

Classic 60/40€35,575 a year

Fixed Income Plus€26,545 a year

The highest draw each shape sustains with under a one-in-ten chance of running out, after a 1% running cost, with the income rising 3% a year. The first two are within a rounding error of each other. The cautious one costs €9,030 a year, for life — because a portfolio you live on needs growth to replace what leaves, and safety is bought by giving up exactly that.

This route sets no minimum income at all, so there is no threshold to hold a portfolio against. What it sets is a minimum tax, payable whether the income arrives or not — which makes the question not whether the capital clears a bar, but whether it covers a fixed annual cost for as long as you hold the status.

Simulated on returns from 2007 onward, drawing whole historical years at random. One regime, not a forecast — and two limits push the failure rate down, so read it as a floor on the risk rather than a bound.

There is nothing to finance on this route and nothing for me to sell you on the visa itself. If you are weighing it against the investment programme, or wondering whether the income behind it will still be there in year seven, that is what the assessment call is for — $100, 30 minutes, and you leave with a direction rather than a brochure.

Book an assessment call — $100

Figures checked 2026-09-24 against secondary sources and correct as published then. Thresholds indexed to a minimum wage change annually, and immigration rules change without notice — confirm against the relevant government body before you commit to anything.