The facts that are the same for everyone, in the order you meet them. Each carries its own review date because a plug type and a roaming rule do not age at the same speed. The decisions — where to stay, how long, whether to hire a car — have their own pages.
What documents do I need?
Malta is in Schengen: EU citizens enter on an ID card; everyone else on a passport. Since April 2026 the EU’s Entry/Exit System registers non-EU visitors — British, American and the rest — with a photograph and fingerprints on first entry, which at Malta has meant real queues for British arrivals; allow for it and don’t book a tight onward connection. ETIAS, the pre-travel authorisation, is not live and has no launch date; anything that tells you to apply is wrong as of today. The border detail is in Getting there. Reviewed August 2026.
Do I need cash?
Some — and more than the guidebooks suggest. Malta uses the euro, and by transaction count it is the most cash-heavy country in the euro area: the European Central Bank’s 2024 survey put cash at 67 per cent of payments at the till against a euro-area average of 52. The resolution is geographic.
On the tourist strip — Valletta, Sliema, St Julian’s, the resort hotels, supermarkets, pharmacies, the bus — a card does everything. Visa and Mastercard work at effectively every terminal; contactless, Apple Pay and Google Pay wherever contactless is, with the usual €50 ceiling before a PIN. The buses take contactless from the driver. American Express is unreliable outside upmarket places. Revolut is local infrastructure: roughly two-thirds of Maltese adults have an account, businesses use it, and a Revolut-to-Revolut transfer is a normal way to split a bill or pay a host.
Off the strip — village bars and band clubs, especially on Gozo; pastizzerias and kiosks; the Marsaxlokk and Valletta Sunday markets; festa stalls; tips; Comino, which has no ATM — it is cash. Small shops commonly set a €5 or €10 minimum for cards; a pastizz or a village coffee is coins. Carry a float of notes and coins at all times.
ATMs. The banks’ machines — BOV has the densest network; HSBC, APS, Lombard, BNF — add no access fee for a foreign card. The blue-and-yellow Euronet machines, about two hundred of them placed exactly where visitors walk, charge an access fee on every withdrawal and push a conversion to your home currency at their rate. Walk past them; at any machine that offers pounds or dollars, always choose euros; make fewer, larger withdrawals. HSBC Malta is being sold and its brand will go in 2027 — the machines will change name, not behaviour.
Tipping: not obligatory, appreciated. Five to ten per cent in a restaurant, unless a service charge is already on the bill, which tourist-area restaurants often add; round up taxis. Tips are cash. Reviewed August 2026.
What languages are spoken?
Maltese and English, both official; English is universal. Ninety-six per cent of people understand English; menus, signs, timetables and the buses are in English; Maltese — Semitic in structure, Italian and English in vocabulary, written in Latin script — is what you hear in the villages and on the radio. A visitor needs nothing else. Reviewed August 2026.
Will my phone work?
EU phones roam as at home; UK and US phones mostly pay by the day. EU and EEA SIMs roam like at home in Malta under a rule that runs to 2032, with a fair-use data cap set by the operator. UK SIMs, as of mid-2026: Malta is in every network’s Europe zone, and O2 is the only one of the big four that includes it — EE, Vodafone and Three, and Sky and VOXI, charge roughly £2 to £2.50 a day with fair-use caps. US phones: Verizon’s TravelPass and AT&T’s International Day Pass cost about $10–12 a day and switch themselves on at the first connection; land in airplane mode if you’d rather decide. Local operators GO, Epic and Melita all sell prepaid and eSIM — GO activates through its app, Epic has the only kiosk at the airport — and travel eSIMs work on all three networks. 4G is effectively everywhere; 5G covers the main island and thins on rural Gozo. Reviewed August 2026.
What plug do I need?
British type G — three rectangular pins — at 230 volts. A Mediterranean island with the plugs of Manchester. From the UK or Ireland, bring nothing. From Italy, Germany, France or anywhere continental, bring a G adapter; the voltage is the same, so no converter. From North America, bring the adapter, and a converter only for anything that isn’t dual-voltage — most phone and laptop chargers are. Receptions lend adapters; the airport and every supermarket sell them; some properties fit a continental socket, but don’t plan on it. Reviewed August 2026.
What if I need a doctor?
112 for everything; EHIC and GHIC are both valid. The EU EHIC and the UK GHIC cover necessary state care on the same terms as residents: Mater Dei in Msida is the national hospital; Gozo General in Victoria covers Gozo with helicopter transfer for anything specialist. Pharmacies can arrange a private GP consultation on the spot — the useful answer on a Sunday — and rotate Sunday opening by locality. UK prescriptions are not honoured; see a Maltese doctor. Tap water is safe (desalinated and chlorinated) and tastes poor; everyone drinks bottled. Mauve stinger jellyfish appear in spring and late summer — a purple flag on the beach, seawater or vinegar on the sting, never fresh water. Reviewed August 2026.
What are the driving rules?
Left-hand traffic; 50 in town, 80 outside; your EU or UK licence is enough. Traffic entering a roundabout often has priority unless signed otherwise — the reverse of home, worth knowing at the first one. Main roads are fine; minor roads are potholed, unmarked and washed out in winter. Parking is free but time-limited with a windscreen disc outside the main towns; Valletta is car-free in practice (use the underground car park at City Gate in Floriana); Mdina’s gate car park fills by mid-morning. Car break-ins at quiet car parks — Delimara Point and Marfa are named — are a recurring texture: leave nothing visible. Whether to hire at all is the question in Getting around. Reviewed August 2026.
What is open on Sundays and holidays?
Ordinary shops close; the tourist strips don’t. Fourteen public holidays, with buses on reduced timetables. Heritage Malta’s sites — the Hypogeum, the temples, Ġgantija, the national museums — close only on New Year’s Day, Good Friday and 24, 25 and 31 December. St John’s Co-Cathedral closes every Sunday and public holiday, lends shawls for bare shoulders, refuses beachwear and bans stiletto heels on its marble floor. Many restaurants close for weeks in January and February; Monday is the common closing day; Sunday lunch needs a reservation. Reviewed August 2026.
Is Malta safe?
Street crime is low; the real risks are specific. Car break-ins at Delimara and Marfa; late-night drunken incidents in Paceville; cliff jumping at Coral Lagoon, banned after serious and fatal accidents — no ladders, kayak or boat in calm water only; and swimming under a red flag, which the locals’ proverb about the sea’s “soft belly, hard head” covers. Official travel advice is the live check. Reviewed August 2026.
What time zone is Malta in?
Central European Time — the same as Italy and continental western Europe, one hour ahead of the UK all year, summer time from late March to late October. For what the calendar does to the trip, see When to go. Reviewed August 2026.