Malta citizenship by investment after the Court of Justice: what closed, and what stands in its place

Search for Malta citizenship by investment today and the results will tell you, variously, that the programme is suspended, that it is under review, that it has been replaced by something called citizenship by merit, and — on several pages still taking enquiries — what it costs.

One of those is close to right. The rest describe a state of affairs that ended on 29 July 2025.

This page sets out what the instruments actually did, in the order they did it, with the gazette number of each. It is short on adjectives because the chain does not need any.

How Malta citizenship by investment closed: three instruments in ninety-one days

29 April 2025 — Case C-181/23, Commission v Malta. The Court of Justice, sitting as a Grand Chamber, held that Malta's naturalisation-for-payment scheme was contrary to EU law. This is the judgment the whole subject turns on, and its case number appears on almost no page selling or describing the programme.

24 July 2025 — Act XXI of 2025, the Maltese Citizenship (Amendment) Act, published in Government Gazette 21,474. It substituted article 10(9) of Cap. 188, the Maltese Citizenship Act — the enabling provision under which the scheme's regulations were made.

29 July 2025 — L.N. 159 of 2025, published in Government Gazette 21,478. This is the operative step and the one that is almost never named. It did two things to S.L. 188.06, the subsidiary legislation in force since 20 November 2020:

• it retitled the instrument as the Granting of Citizenship by Naturalisation on the Basis of Merit Regulations; and
• it deleted Part IV, together with the Second and Third Schedules.

Ninety-one days from judgment to deletion.

Malta citizenship by investment is repealed, not suspended

The most accurate page on the first results screen at the time of writing belongs to a Maltese firm. It describes the ruling, it mentions the 24 July amendment, and it labels the status "Suspended". It does not name the case number, Act XXI or L.N. 159.

A suspension is a pause. It implies an instrument that still exists and could be switched back on — which is what a reader planning three years ahead will hear, and plan around.

That is not what happened. The scheme was not replaced by a new instrument and it was not paused. Its own regulations were amended: the part that contained it was removed and the container was given a different name. There is nothing left to resume. Anyone waiting for Malta to reopen the route is waiting for a new legislative act, not for a switch.

This distinction is the single most useful thing on this page, and it costs nothing to check: the retitling and the deletion are both in L.N. 159 of 2025, in Gazette 21,478.

Malta citizenship by merit: what stands in its place

What S.L. 188.06 now regulates is naturalisation on the basis of merit, under the substituted article 10(9) of Cap. 188. It is a different thing from what it replaced, and reading it as a rebranded version of the old scheme will mislead you on every material point.

The grounds are named, and money is not one of them

The regulations name the fields in which exceptional merit is recognised:

• science and research
• technology
• sport
• entrepreneurship, including job creation
• culture and the arts
• philanthropy

Entrepreneurship including job creation is the closest thing to an economic ground, and it is not a payment. Nothing in the list is satisfied by transferring money.

What the applicant must show

At least eight months of residence. The formal application must additionally show property and knowledge of the language.

What is not published: the price

This is the second finding worth the trip to the source. The regulations set no fee. The text says that fees that would be established by the Agency apply — which is to say the amount exists somewhere and is not in the instrument.

So any page giving you a figure for Malta citizenship by merit is not quoting the regulations, because the regulations do not contain one. Where such a figure comes from, we cannot tell you; we can tell you it is not from the law.

Oversight sits with a separate Office of the Regulator, under articles 25, 25A and 25B.

Malta's own government page still lists the repealed contributions

On 6 September 2026 — sixteen months after the judgment, thirteen after the deletion — the services pages of the Community Malta Agency, the government body concerned, still published the €600,000 and €750,000 contribution figures of the deleted route, under page timestamps dated February 2026.

We are reporting what a state website displayed on a date, not alleging anything about why. But it explains a good deal about why the market copy has not caught up: the pages that firms cite have not caught up either.

Maltese nationality law: the ordinary route, and what it really asks

Most people arriving at this subject would be better served by the ordinary route, which nobody advertises because there is no fee to earn on it.

Ordinary naturalisation asks for twelve continuous months of residence immediately before the application, plus four years within the six years preceding those twelve months.

Read that carefully, because the arithmetic is not what it looks like. The minimum is five years of residence, but they may be spread across a window of up to seven years — the four need only fall somewhere inside the preceding six, and they need not be continuous. That is more forgiving than a flat five-year rule for anyone whose residence has gaps, and less forgiving than it sounds for anyone hoping the twelve months can be waived. They cannot.

What this page does not cover about Maltese citizenship

Citizenship by descent and by marriage are separate routes under Cap. 188 with their own conditions. We have not read those provisions against the source, so they are not described here rather than being summarised from secondary accounts.

Frequently asked questions about Malta citizenship by investment

More on Maltese residence and citizenship

What the Maltese permanent residence programme costs and requires is in the Malta guide. How Malta's position compares with the Portuguese and Greek routes to a passport is in the passport piece. The residence card and its renewal are in the card guide, and the nomad permit in the nomad guide. Every act named here, with the date it was read, is on the sources page: the judgment at C-181/23, the amending act at Act XXI of 2025, the deletion at L.N. 159 of 2025 and the regulations at S.L. 188.06.

If you were counting on Malta citizenship by investment

We do not sell property, we do not sell citizenship and we do not give legal advice. What we do is put a person who knows what they are asking in front of a licensed firm in the right jurisdiction.

If Malta was your plan because of the passport, the honest position is that the plan needs rebuilding rather than adjusting: the merit route is not a priced product, and nobody can sell you a place in it. If what you actually wanted was EU residence rather than an EU passport, Malta still has a permanent residence programme and it is a different question with a published price. If it was the passport specifically, the routes that remain in this set are ordinary naturalisation somewhere — and those are measured in years of living there. Send the question through the enquiry form and say which of the two you meant. We take no part in the fee.

Sources for these Maltese citizenship figures

• The judgment, its date and its court: Case C-181/23, Commission v Malta, Court of Justice of the European Union, Grand Chamber, judgment of 29 April 2025.
• The substitution of article 10(9) of Cap. 188: Maltese Citizenship (Amendment) Act, Act XXI of 2025, Government Gazette 21,474 of 24 July 2025.
• The retitling of S.L. 188.06 and the deletion of Part IV together with the Second and Third Schedules: L.N. 159 of 2025, Government Gazette 21,478 of 29 July 2025.
• That S.L. 188.06 has been in force since 20 November 2020; the six merit grounds; the eight months of residence; the property and language conditions on the formal application; the absence of any published fee and the wording that fees established by the Agency apply; and the Office of the Regulator under articles 25, 25A and 25B: S.L. 188.06 as amended, read 1 September 2026.
• Ordinary naturalisation — twelve continuous months immediately before the application plus four years within the preceding six: Cap. 188, read 1 September 2026.
• That the Community Malta Agency's services pages still published the €600,000 and €750,000 figures under February 2026 timestamps: those pages as displayed on 6 September 2026, reported as what they showed on that date.
• That the highest-ranking pages for this query do not name the case number, Act XXI or L.N. 159, and that the most accurate of them labels the status "suspended": the first results screen and the page concerned, read 7 September 2026, reported as what they said on that date.
• Not covered and therefore not described: citizenship by descent and by marriage under Cap. 188. The provisions have not been read against the source.