UK → MALTA Moving to Malta: how customs works, and the documents to expect

A van cannot drive to Malta, and the map makes people ask how the move happens at all. Here is the route our tool records. The lorry goes under the Channel in thirty-five minutes and crosses France. Then it drives the full length of Italy on the A1 and the A2 to the toe of Calabria. At Villa San Giovanni it boards the strait ferry to Messina. The heavier lorries use the Tremestieri port there, and the crossing takes about three quarters of an hour. The A18 then runs down the east coast of Sicily to Pozzallo, and the ferry to Malta sails from there, usually in an hour and three quarters.

Those sailings are not in the 29 hours of driving the tool records. The tool logs time on a ferry as the driver’s rest. They are in your range, though, and so is the wait for a sailing. That is why day 4 is the earliest delivery here, with a dedicated van quoted at 4–6 days and a shared 5 or 10 m³ load at 4–11 days. The Malta range sits beside the other southern lanes in how long a removal to Europe takes, our delivery-times guide.

Malta is in the EU, but a household from the UK reaches the EU in France, so French customs applies the EU rule for a change of residence from a third country. The regulation asks that you have spent twelve consecutive months living outside the EU, and that you have owned and used what you bring for six months. It wants a declaration inside twelve months of settling. Lend, pledge, hire out, give away or sell the goods within twelve months of that and the relief is lost, with import duty to pay. Alcohol, tobacco and commercial vehicles sit outside the relief, as does the equipment of a trade, apart from its portable instruments. Malta Customs publishes its own procedure for used household belongings on a transfer of residence from outside the EU. With the declaration lodged in France, it does not fall to you on this lane.

Residence runs on Malta’s clock, through Identità, the agency that issues the eResidence card. GOV.UK tells British nationals to apply for a residence permit once they arrive. Identità, for its part, notes that most non-EU applicants outside the Schengen area apply before entering Malta. British nationals, it adds, keep some of the conditions EU nationals enjoy. We do not advise on which applies to you, and a permit is not among the papers on this page. What the export declaration and the import clearance each need from you, and what happens if customs asks for one more document, is on our transfer of residence page.

Most people moving to Malta from the UK fly out long before the van arrives, so the question we hear is who will be there and when. We confirm the exact loading time to you in advance, and once we confirm the van we email you the driver’s name and registration. The same thread then carries the sailing and the arrival, so you are never left guessing at sea. Not in Malta yourself on the day? Name a competent representative when you book. We agree it with you then, and they stand in for you at unloading.

And once the boxes are in, the island gives you a year. You can drive on a UK licence in Malta for twelve months. After that you exchange it for a Maltese one, without a test, on a check code from the DVLA. An international permit will not do instead. Apply before the twelve months end, because the exchange can take time and you need the Maltese licence to keep driving.

Malta’s holidays cluster where a summer move lands. The Assumption on 15 August, which the island calls Santa Marija, is a public holiday under Maltese law. It sits in the week when the ferries from Sicily are fullest. Victory Day follows on 8 September and Independence Day on 21 September. Land a delivery on one of them and the building may be shut, so we fix the delivery day around them. The sea itself is the other variable: a rough night can hold a sailing, which is one more reason this lane is quoted as a range and never as a date.

The same Act lists the rest of the year, and it is a long list for a small island: fourteen days in all. They run from St Paul’s Shipwreck in February and St Joseph in March, through Freedom Day, Good Friday, Workers’ Day, the Sette Giugno and Saints Peter and Paul at the end of June, to the Immaculate Conception, Republic Day and Christmas in December. Nearly every month has one, so we check the delivery day against it rather than trusting a British calendar.

Before any of that comes your collection window, 4-day window for a shared 5 m³ load and a confirmed day for a full van. The loading day is ours to pick inside that window, and you hear the time before it. So be packed from the first day of the window, not the last. Your document pack is due 7 days before the window opens. The finalised inventory follows 3 calendar days before it, and your booking confirmation carries both. The 25% deposit secures the date; the balance is due when the lorry loads, with the sailings already inside the figure.

Gozo is one sailing further. From Valletta the road to Ċirkewwa is about half an hour, and the Gozo Channel ferry to Mġarr takes about twenty-five minutes and carries vehicles; the operator takes larger ones by arrangement. A Gozitan address therefore adds a third crossing and a queue to the far end of the range. Tell us the village when you ask for your quote, and we give you Gozo’s range, not Valletta’s.

Your price locks when you book, and the two sailings are inside it. So are the strait ferry, the tunnel and customs clearance; nothing about the crossing is added afterwards, which is the question the thread further down answers in a customer’s own words. In the examples we publish, the 10 m³ figure for London to Valletta is about £4,966, higher than any mainland lane for the sea and the road behind it. What moves the figure is in how much it costs to move abroad.

Outside the price, and said now rather than on the quay: Additional Crew for stairs and for streets the lorry cannot enter, and a load over its cap, which goes up one size at the locked difference the moment you tell us. Between loading and arrival, a capped policy with named exclusions stands behind your goods, and the cap and the excess sit in one place, our goods in transit insurance for removals page. A shared load to Malta is the slowest way across and the cheapest; our guide to part-load removals explains the trade.