Maltese labor mandates a minimum weekly wage for all employees, as well as statutory increases employers must offer as an employee’s tenure increases. Here’s a breakdown of what employers should pay as the bare minimum.

• 18 and above: €181.08 (€724.32 per month)
• 17 years: €174.30 (€697.2 per month)
• Under 17 years: €171.46 (€685.84 per month)

After working a year with the same employer, an employee earning the minimum wage will be entitled to an increase of €3 per week added to the base pay. After the second year, that grows to an increase of €6 per week or a €24 bonus on the employee’s monthly paycheck.

Employees earning more than the minimum wage will get similar increases, starting in the second and third years of their continued employment with the same employer.

For customers of Remote, all employee payments will be made in equal monthly installments on or before the last working day of each calendar month, payable in arrears.

We can help you get a new employee started in Malta fast. The minimum onboarding time we need is only 7 working days.

Our team ensures your employees are onboarded and paid as quickly as possible while keeping your business compliant with all local employment legislation. The minimum onboarding time begins after the employee submits all required information onto the Remote platform. The onboarding timeline is also dependent upon registration with local authorities.

For all non-nationals of the country of employment, the Right to Work assessment (if applicable) will add three extra days to the total time to onboard. There may be extra time required if we need to follow-up on the right to work assessment.

Please note, payroll cut-off dates can impact the actual first day of employment. Remote has a payroll cut-off date of the 10th of the month unless otherwise specified.

Employees working a 40-hour week are entitled to 192 working hours (24 working days) off, plus 8 hours for every public holiday that falls on a weekend. The 192-hour base rate equals 24 days, calculated by 8 hours of work daily.

For example, for 2021 employees are guaranteed 216 working hours off plus 24 (8 working hours * 3) hours to cover for 3 public holidays that fall on weekends.

However, if the employee works below an average of eight hours daily, the basic holiday entitlement can be calculated by multiplying the number of working hours the employee puts in daily by 24.

Employees who’ve worked with an employer for less than a year will be entitled to paid vacation that’s equivalent to the length of time they’ve worked.

Employees are entitled to take the 14 national holidays off, with full pay. And should a national holiday fall on a rest day, an employee will be entitled to 8 working hours (i.e., 1 working day) off work as compensation.

The Maltese social security office handles a lot of the financial obligation for employees’ sickness benefits.

As a principle, an employer can either:

• pay an ailing employee the normal gross wage for the first three days of the illness, and then pay the gross wage, less the sickness benefit issued by the government, or
• pay the employee in full and get refunds from the employee for the sickness benefits paid to the employee by the social security office

In essence, the social security office pays a sickness stipend while the employee pays the difference between that amount and the employee’s normal wages.

Sickness benefit entitlements can be paid for up to 156 days and may be extended to 468 days in 2 years as per the Medical Board’s decision.

Pregnant or postpartum employees are entitled to 14 weeks of leave, with a maternity benefit of €97.84 per week (roughly €391.36 per month) paid by the employer.

After the first 14 weeks, the employee draws €179.33 weekly as a maternity leave benefit from the government over the next 4 weeks.

There are currently no provisions in the Maltese labour law regarding paternity leave. However, many global employers provide their own supplementary benefits including parental leave policies to support partners.