Malta visa and entry requirements

The Schengen arithmetic

• 90 days in any rolling 180. Not 90 days per visit and not 90 days per country. Every day anywhere in the Schengen area counts against the same allowance.
• Malta is a full Schengen member, so a flight from anywhere else in the area is a domestic arrival with no passport check.
• Arriving from outside Schengen, the airport is an external border and EES applies - which on a small island with concentrated arrival times can mean a long queue.
• The rolling window is the part people get wrong. On any given day, count back 180 days and add up your Schengen days in that period.
• The passport must have been issued within the last 10 years and be valid for 3 months beyond your intended departure.

EES: no more stamps

• The EU Entry/Exit System has been fully operational since 10 April 2026.
• Your face and fingerprints are registered on first entry at a Schengen external border, and reused on later trips.
• No stamp goes in your passport. The system computes your 90/180 balance itself.
• Keep your own record of entry and exit dates. If the system's view and yours differ, you want the evidence.

ETIAS: not yet, and no date

• ETIAS has not launched and there is no announced launch date. The Q4 2026 target that circulated through 2025 was removed from the official pages in July 2026.
• Applications are not open. Any website selling you an ETIAS today is a scam.
• When it comes, the fee is EUR 20, free for under-18s and over-70s. The old EUR 7 figure is obsolete.
• It will be a travel authorisation, not a visa, valid three years or until the passport expires.

Where your nationality lands

• The Schengen short stay visa fee is EUR 90, EUR 45 for children aged 6 to 11.

• The ferry to Sicily is an internal Schengen crossing. The one to Tunisia is not, and is an external border in both directions.