1,800+ applications closed · operating since 2016
Ask first, apply when you're ready
Most people start one of two ways. A 30-minute call where we map the trade-offs against your actual situation. Or a five minute quiz that narrows the list to programs worth a longer look. Both are free. Neither commits you to anything.
1,800+ applications since 2016 · 19 client nationalities · the desk closes at 30 concurrent files
The 12-month track is fiction for most files. Here is what the 36-month track really costs, what the residency stage involves, and the kinds of clients we send to Malta instead of Cyprus.
Malta’s citizenship-by-merit route has been called “the only proper EU citizenship programme” for a long time, and most of the headline copy you’ll find online still leans on the original 2014 framework. That framework is gone. The current Naturalisation for Exceptional Services by Direct Investment regulation, brought in after the Henley test-case ruling and the Commission infringement case that followed, runs on two tracks: a 36-month route and a 12-month exception.
Almost nobody qualifies for the 12-month exception. The 36-month track is what files actually run on.
You begin with a residence card. You spend three years on it, evidenced by tax filings, utility bills, and at least one demonstrable connection to Maltese life beyond the address on the file. Then you apply for naturalisation as a Maltese citizen on the basis of exceptional contribution.
The exceptional contribution itself is what most people refer to as the “Malta CBI cost.”
| Component | Amount | | --- | --- | | Government contribution to the National Development & Social Fund | €600,000 | | Qualifying real-estate purchase (held five years) OR approved lease (held five years) | €700,000 purchase / €16,000 per year lease | | Donation to a registered Maltese NGO | €10,000 | | Due-diligence fees (four-tier process, per applicant) | €15,000 main applicant; lower for dependants | | Identità government fees | €1,500 administrative + €5,000 passport | | Legal counsel (Identità-licensed agent, mandatory) | €30,000-€45,000 | | Our advisory fee | €35,000-€55,000 |
A four-person family on the lease variant, no real-estate purchase, lands around €755,000 to €795,000 above and beyond the lease payments. With the purchase variant, the total cost approaches €1.4M including the property, although the property is recoverable.
Maltese law allows the residency stage to be compressed to 12 months “in exceptional circumstances justifying expedited processing.” In practice, since the framework was re-issued, fewer than five files per year have been approved under the exception clause. The criteria are not published but include, in our reading: documented strategic investment in a Maltese strategic sector, ministerial-level introduction, and a contribution materially above the €600K floor.
If your file is not coming through the front door of the Maltese Office of the Prime Minister, you are on the 36-month track. Anyone telling you otherwise is selling you something.
The Malta file works for a narrow client profile. We’ve filed it cleanly for:
We do not send the file to clients whose only interest is the passport, who plan to keep their primary tax residency outside Europe, or who cannot or will not move themselves and their family to the island for at least 18 of the 36 months. The file gets returned at the end-of-residency naturalisation review if the substance argument is weak.
Cyprus closed its full CBI in 2020 and has only intermittently signalled re-opening. As of this writing the route remains closed. Clients who would have run a Cyprus file in 2017 currently land in Malta if they want EU, or in Greece’s renewed Golden Visa if residency is acceptable.
A clean Malta file we filed in late 2024 ran 41 months from engagement letter to passport ceremony. The breakdown was:
Three months over the headline 36 because of a court-vacation period that pushed the citizenship oath into the following civil session.
The €600K floor has not moved since 2024, but the legal-counsel band has crept up about 15% as more Identità-licensed agents have either left the practice or raised their rates after the 2024 framework re-issue increased their compliance load. If you are quoted €25K for the agent piece, the agent is either undercharging or under-scoping.
Files we’re quoting now in Q2 2026 are pricing in €795K-€820K all-in for a family of four on the lease variant. Numbers will be slightly higher in 2027.