Malta - British Expat Forum

Hi,

We heard that even if you are driving your car as a tourist (the 6 months that you have) you need to register (i.e. let them know you are here) with the police or Malta Transport. That is, if you intend to stay longer than the usual two week tourist. If you don't, then the police could give you trouble...
We are driving our Belgian car with Belgian licence plates, but came off the ferry without anyone asking anything.
Can anybody confirm this? I can't find any information on the transport website, but don't want to run into any discussions with police, or worse, having to leave the car with them.

thanks!
Liesbeth

Hi Liesbeth,

As far as cars, police, Malta Transport, are concerned there are 2 types of people, tourists and residents.

At the moment you are a tourist, so can drive your car on Belgian plates for the 6 months. However, a tourist can only be here for 3 months at a time, so you need to be leaving/coming back to keep this status. You will probably find that your Belgian Insurance doesn't cover the full 6 months either, so check that carefully and contact your broker if necessary.

If you apply for an ID card, residency, then you immediately lose the tourist status. This means you can't drive the car until it has Maltese plates, VRT and road licence, because you are now classed a resident.

Although you weren't stopped coming off the ferry, there was probably a MTA official standing somewhere noting down all the foreign plates.

Keep your boat ticket in the car as proof of when you arrived. It will be useful at a roadside stop. What you don't want to do is tell the MTA that you are now living here. That's when they will want to confiscate the car and/or give you a 30euro a day fine. They will try to catch you out by asking, "Can I see your ID card" or "How long have you been living here" or simply, "What's your home address".

As far as motoring goes, your home address is in Belgium, you merely have a holiday home in Malta.

Of course, if you are intending to keep the car, it's better to get it registered within the 3 months to save any hassle. There's plenty more info on importing/registering already on the forum.

Bob's advise looks spot on to me - its essential you do nothing to invalidate your tourist status, either in applying for something, or in saying something to an officlal that implies you are resident - unless, of course, you are resident, in which case you must stop driving the car immediately - this applies to everyone - no resident of Malta is allowed to drive a foreign plated car unless an exemption has been granted.

Your car can be in Malta 6 months in 12 for as long as you are not resident. You can be in Malta for 3 months at a stretch and renmain a tourisst.

thanks guys! It confirms what I thought, I definitely don't want to attract any attention to our situation. We'd like to go for residence, but not just yet. First wait and see if we really like it here