Capital gains tax Malta: property pays 8% of the sale price, not the profit

The sale of your own home pays no final tax when you owned and lived in it as your only or main residence for at least 3 consecutive years immediately before the sale, and you sell within 12 months of moving out (article 5A(4)(c)). The home must not be part of a project, and you declare it as your main residence by an election to the Commissioner. Article 5(5)(b) gives the same exemption from tax on the gain.

The years can come from someone else. Time a parent or grandparent owned and lived in a home you inherited from them counts as your own, and so does a spouse's time when you inherit the home from your spouse. Since Act IX of 2025, when a couple who lived in the home for 3 years separate or divorce and one of them moves out, the home counts as vacated only when the other spouse moves out too (article 5A(4)(c)(vii)).

The 12-month window is where the exemption is lost. In the example the owner who sells 10 months after moving out pays €0. The same sale 14 months after moving out pays the ordinary 8% on the whole transfer value, €30,400, although the home was the owner's residence for 9 years.

Rules used: the exemption in article 5A(4)(c) and the 8% rate in the second proviso to article 5A(5)(a) of the Income Tax Act.

Article 5(6) of the Income Tax Act exempts the transfer of shares listed on a stock exchange the Commissioner recognises, and of listed fund units held in a prescribed fund. The exemption depends on the listing and nothing else. A listed share sold a week after you bought it is as exempt as one held for twenty years.

Unlisted shares, a stake in a private company, business assets, goodwill and intellectual property are capital assets under article 5(1)(a), and there is no separate capital gains rate for them. The gain is added to your chargeable income for the year and taxed at the article 56 rates of 0%, 15%, 25% and 35%, so the same gain costs more on a higher income.

In the example a single person with €35,000 of other income sells shares at a €40,000 gain. On listed shares the tax is €0. On unlisted shares the gain lifts chargeable income to €75,000, past the €60,000 start of the 35% band, and the tax on the gain is €11,500.

Rates used: the 2026 single schedule in article 56(1)(b), and the exemption in article 5(6)(b) of the Income Tax Act.

Crypto is not one of the assets article 5(1)(a) lists, so a gain on coins you hold as an investment is not a taxable capital gain. Crypto you deal in as a trade or business is business income under article 4(1)(a), added to chargeable income at the article 56 rates. The calculator taxes a crypto sale only when you mark it as trading.

Proviso (ii) to article 4(1) takes capital gains arising outside Malta out of tax for a resident who is not domiciled in Malta or not ordinarily resident there. Tick that status in the calculator and foreign assets drop out of the year.

Five rules decide more Maltese tax bills than the rates do.

• A low declared price does not lower the tax. The transfer value is the market value whenever that is higher (article 5A(6)(a)), and if the deed declares less than 85% of market value, the Commissioner can order the extra tax within 12 months of being notified of the transfer (article 5A(12)(d)).
• Building work can cost you the 5% rate. Article 5A(5)(e) does not apply if you or a related person carried out works needing development permission on the property in the 5 years before the sale, unless you bought it as your sole ordinary residence and said so in the purchase deed (article 5A(5)(e)).
• Property forming part of a project gets neither the 5% resale rate nor the own-home exemption.
• A loss on a property sale taxed under article 5A cannot be set against any income or gain (article 5A(9)(b)).
• A loss on unlisted shares or other article 5 assets reduces only capital gains in later years, never your salary, and it carries forward until it is used up (article 5(10)).

The property rates have held since the 2015 reform. The second proviso to article 5A(5)(a) set 8% of the transfer value for transfers from 1 January 2015, and every year from 2021 to 2027 carries the same 8% ordinary rate, 5% resale rate, 10% pre-2004 rate and 12% rate on inherited property.

The income bands that tax unlisted shares and other article 5 gains widened from the 2025 basis year (article 56(1)): the single 0% band rose from €9,100 to €12,000, the married band from €12,700 to €15,000 and the parent band from €10,500 to €13,000. The 35% rate still starts at €60,000.

Act IX of 2025 added the separation rule to the own-home exemption: after a divorce or separation, the home counts as vacated only when both spouses have left it (article 5A(4)(c)(vii)).

The notary who publishes the deed collects the final tax and remits it to the Commissioner within 15 working days of the transfer, by bank draft or a cheque drawn on the notary's own account (article 5A(11)). Both parties must declare to the notary every fact that sets the rate or an exemption, and the market value where it is above the price (article 5A(12)(a)). The tax is final and separate from income tax, and no provisional tax is due on the sale (article 5A(10)(a)), so a property sale taxed this way does not go into your income tax computation.

Gains on unlisted shares and other article 5 assets go into your annual income tax return and self-assessment. The return for 2026 is due by 30 June 2027, with any tax still owed. For the 2025 basis year the Malta Tax and Customs Administration moved the 30 June date for filing and payment to 31 July 2026.