Malta - British Expat Forum

Does anyone know what documentation we need to show to customs to prove we intend leaving Malta with our car before the 6 month period expires. Do they have different import requirements if we only intended importing our car, say, 1 month, 3 months, or would we have to complete a temporary import permit, no matter how long we intend to be in Malta with our car.

The reason I asked;
On my previous posts I mentioned that we have a 10 years landrover discovery. I know it’s not financially viable to import our car on a permanent basis, but we are quite reluctant to get rid of it, so, we are looking at other possibilities.

One idea being; driving from the uk to Malta, enjoy the use of the car around Malta, explore every part of Malta and Gozo, then return to the uk, via the scenic route through Europe ( unsure where this would be, as yet), then sell the car at auction and fly back to Malta.

Benefits being; having a last final great journey with our car and enjoy touring Malta, Gozo and other parts of Europe. Also, we would not need to hastily purchase another car as soon as we arrived in Malta.

ADT: Malta Transport

[Link edited by Site Admin - it was making the page too wide for some people's screens. You can find out how to embed links in the FAQ board on the main forum. - Dave]

the answer might well be on the page above - if not this is the govt body to contact

Dee, I know the predicament you are in with your vehicle but have you thought of the expense with petrol, ferries, european breakdown cover etc. and a couple of nights hotel. I know the comfort of these cars are hard to rival having sold my Range Rover after eight years and at great pain to come over here as almost 16k sterling tax was too much of an ask. Now i enjoy my twelve year old Skoda, the roads here would kill most other cars in no time in particular when it has rained. I wanted the authentic Malta experience and have i got it. Have a good trip.

Thanks mark for the link, very helpful.

Dee vee, Thanks, I’m just weighing up all possibilities, but I think you’re right; it’s the letting go of the old car. I think after we give it some more thought, then selling the car and flying out will possibly win hands down. Saying that, I’m not dismissing anything at present.

Did it not concern you buying a second hand car in Malta? What is the general condition of second hand cars? Silly question I know, but did you find the suspension on most old cars past their best; given the condition of the roads. Can I ask how much you paid for your Skoda?

I would be interested to hear from anyone that has driven for uk to Malta with their car and stayed for a short period before driving back to the uk. What experience did you encounter with customs etc…. and was it worth the effort. Would you recommend it or not. It would be really good to know.

Sure dee, We bought this Scoda four years ago, it was then ten years old. O.K. U.K. price possibly about £20-£200 we paid LM.1400 this was then the going rate, I must say though, we use it daily and apart from a water pump and a few punctures, par for the course, it was a bargain. I think the uk garages charged me more than this for several repairs to R/R an average £400 bill per repair. I am waiting to drive my u/k car over when more favourable terms come to fruition but this could be a long wait. there does seem to be a large influx of toyotas from Japan flooding the island at good prices so you may get a bargain I did hear something about emmision levels not being to euro standards on some of these imports but didn,t take much notice so cannot confirm. Would be nice to do trip via road from u/k I even got my sat nav ready, can,t wait. good luck.

Thanks dee vee, appreciate the information.

I looked at buying a car on a trip to the UK, driving it back to Malta for a 6 month stint and then taking it back to the UK again before returning to Malta. My info at the time, and that seems to be confirmed by Mark's link, was that this couldn't be done on the "Tourist 6 month exemption" as the 6 month limit relates to your residence in Malta rather than the time the car is here.

I haven't bought a car here (decided I didn't need one), but I looked closely at a few for sale before deciding that. You can certainly buy a running, registered, freshly VRT inspected banger for around 300Lm. 600Lm will buy you something that will have a reasonable chance of lasting a year or few and passing the next VRT (getting tougher as time goes on I understand). From there on up it's your choice as to what you want. Just don't get hung up on age of the vehicle. A 10 year old car is expected to be fit for scrap in the UK. Here it will probably have at least another 10 years lifespan, and most drivers seem to treat their vehicles accordingly.

Sure cars cost more than the same model year would in the UK, but by the time you consider the projected longevity (low annual mileage, no road salt, affordable and available repair facilities) and associated considerably lower depreciation rates, not to mention the much lower running costs (inc insurance, registration, maintenance, repairs) I would suggest that the overall cost of car ownership is lower here.

Another thought. I also like driving holidays, so an alternative scheme comes to mind.

Why not take a couple of one way car hires. You could pick up a car in
Calais, drive down to say San Remo. If you have two drivers you could pick up a second car there, take the French one back across the border to Menton or even Nice, and then finish your journey in Genoa and leave the Italian one there. The steering wheel would be on the proper side too.

I suspect that you could find two cars for a week - 10 days for about the same cost as taking your own on the ferries. The one way fee isn't that expensive with some companies, and I've even found some that waive it for over 3 day hires in the UK.

You may even be able to find a company that does one way international hire - we did that years ago between Germany and France when my bike broke down terminally (god bless you AA travel insurance).

Thanks Peter, that was really interesting and helpful. I was interested in the “Tourist 6 month’s exemption”. Keith and I intend moving to Malta around March next year, so we are not presently resident, with this in mind, when we arrive, could we not be classed as tourists on a 6 month tour of Malta. How would they know we may intend staying longer? The accommodation rental agreement would initially be for 6 months, so no indication that we would be staying longer. We’re not planning to do anything illegal, but were wondering the pro’s and con’s etc.

To be honest, one of the advantages of the car is the usefulness of transporting our bits and bobs, including our computers etc. All the things that I don’t think will transport well and may end up in pieces or may not work. We really don’t have too much to transport, so the money we would spend on a carrier could go towards the trip; from my preliminary research carriers charge a minimum £400 to transport up to 2 cubic meters.

Touring Europe was an idea more to do with getting the last journey in the discovery, than the overwhelming need to tour Europe – we could do this anytime in the future really. But your idea of one way car hire is great and definitely something to remember.

Like you, we don’t think we will have a great use for a car after a time. I think the buses or hiring a car for short periods may suffice. That’s why I thought our car would be great to use for the first few months. I know there’s no monetary savings in my idea, but our car would be far more comfortable to use rather than anything we could afford to hire for 3 or 4 months.

Based on the level of consistency and competence of the Maltese government officials I've met here so far, you would have a better than average chance of getting away with it, but I suspect that you would be breaking the law if you did. Can't see how the law could be easily enforced once the Disco is off the island again though, as they would find it difficult to assess the value for tax purposes if they couldn't find it. Mind you someone posted a warning here that somewhere (don't think it was Malta) was giving folk arbitrary import tax bills if their vehicle was stolen or wrecked

If you want to apply for an ID card (useful but not essential) you will be asked if you plan to become resident. Likewise if you apply for a residence permit (theoretically required after 3 months residence, so I don't know what 6mth tourists are supposed to do). I somehow doubt that government agencies here are sophisticated enough to exchange information though.

Perhaps you should check the price of more carriers? Someone posted a cost of I think 500 quid for a full container a while back. Have you tried any of the "excess baggage" companies, or actually priced airlines excess baggage rates? I wonder if anybody else coming over at a similar time might want to share a container?

Ferry prices for vehicles seemed huge last time I looked - about 500€ return for a car on the Genoa ferry. The Sicily option didn't look much better either.

You can hire a car here for under 50Lm a week or about 9Lm a day if that helps.

As far as computers go, best thing I ever did was to switch over to laptops. Might not suit you though.

peterj wrote: Perhaps you should check the price of more carriers? Someone posted a cost of I think 500 quid for a full container a while back. Have you tried any of the "excess baggage" companies, or actually priced airlines excess baggage rates? I wonder if anybody else coming over at a similar time might want to share a container?.

do you mean £500 or £5,000 ? we paid £5,000 for a 40 ft container, but was professionally packed etc etc

on cars - the authorites are very hot on imported cars, and how long they stay here - its down to the traffic wardens, who go by the letter of the law somewhat more than the police

paolo
Joined: 29 Jan 2007
Posts: 9
Location: Portsmouth
Posted: Thu 7 Jun 2007 08:57 GMT Post subject:
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Just an update that might be of interest.

The cheapest quote I had was for 550 sterling plus vat which was to transport a car from Southampton to Valletta.

Any other costs, ie. custom clearance off loading etc are additional to that price.

Hi Mark

I assumed that the above was in a 20 foot container, maybe I'm wrong. I think someone else quoted a price of 1200 quid. Either way it makes 200 per cubic metre look pricey to me. Thats way more than I paid to do shifts to NZ and also NZ to Australia albeit a few years ago.

£500 I think that would be transported on a raft with a couple of dozen refugees

I believe that there is now also a Ro-Ro option from Southampton, Bristol or Tilbury. This is unaccompanied and you cannot load extra boxes like you can in a container but you can fill the car.

As for keeping the car on the island you can ask ADT for a permit to use the car for up to 6 months if you are not a 'resident'. This takes the form of green tax disc like object that keeps wardens and ADT officers at bay, but you must have the car taxed in its country of registration and insured for use in Malta (cannot insure it in Malta). Also it cannot be used by anyone else.

Last summer there was a scourge by ADT who posted their guys with cops on main junctions and stopped foreign registered cars (and some K plates too).

One more possibility for the Disco may be to convert it to a commerical before import as this has a much lower reg tax threshold. Anyone know of this being successfully attempted?

Thanks everyone,

I received a quote from a company to ship the car on a Ro-Ro option from Southampton to Valletta for £750 but you are not permitted to load anything into the car. I have yet to look at the excess baggage option, hopefully that will be cheaper than £400.

Peter, on the computer front, we have two laptops, two tower units and 7 screens in total; we both have a keen interest in the stock market; more a hobby than anything else, but it makes life easier to have more than one screen to view. Therefore, safe transport of our computers is important to us.

Thanks Mr Kriss, I’ll look into the green tax disc option; this sound exactly the thing we need.