Malta Corporate Tax Calculator

How Malta’s corporate tax and refund system works

Malta charges a flat 35% corporate income tax on a company’s chargeable income for the year of assessment 2026 — among the highest headline rates in the European Union, with no brackets and no reduced rate for small profits. Taken on its own, that number makes Malta look like an expensive place to run a company. It is not the full picture, and it is the single most important thing this calculator shows that most others do not.

Malta operates a full-imputation system. Instead of taxing the company at 35% and then taxing the shareholder again on the dividend (the “classical” system used in many countries), Malta is designed so the same profit is not taxed twice. The company pays the 35% at the time it earns the profit. Once that profit is distributed to shareholders as a dividend, eligible shareholders can claim a refund of most of the tax the company already paid. The result is that the true, effective rate of Malta tax on many types of income is dramatically lower than 35% — typically around 5% for ordinary trading profits. This is why Malta remains one of the EU’s most widely used jurisdictions for international trading and holding structures, even though it also has one of the highest headline rates on the continent.

Structurally, Malta keeps this simple in one respect: there is no municipal or local trade tax, no regional add-on and no solidarity surcharge on company profits. Everything runs through a single national 35% charge under the Income Tax Act, administered by the Malta Tax and Customs Administration (MTCA) — the complexity sits entirely in the refund mechanism, not in extra tax layers.

Rates and refund fractions

The 35% shown above is charged on the company’s chargeable income with no exceptions. What varies is the refund a shareholder can claim once that income is distributed, and the refund fraction depends entirely on the type of income involved:

• 6/7 refund — trading and active business income: the standard case for a Maltese trading company. The shareholder reclaims 6/7 of the tax the company paid, bringing the effective rate down to roughly 5%.
• 5/7 refund — passive interest and royalties: a lower refund applies to passive income such as interest and royalty receipts, giving an effective rate of roughly 10%.
• 2/3 refund — foreign income with double-taxation relief: where the company has already claimed relief for foreign tax suffered on the same income, the refund is 2/3 of the Malta tax paid; the overall effective outcome varies with the relief actually taken.
• No refund — domestic-source passive income kept by residents: where none of the refund conditions are met (for example, certain domestic passive income that is not distributed under a qualifying account), the company simply keeps paying the full 35% with no refund available.

Worked example: €200,000 in trading profit

Take a Maltese trading company with €200,000 of chargeable trading profit for the year:

• Corporate income tax: 35% × €200,000 = €70,000
• Profit after company tax: €200,000 − €70,000 = €130,000, available for distribution
• Shareholder refund (6/7 of tax paid): 6/7 × €70,000 = €60,000, reclaimed by the shareholder after the dividend is distributed
• Net Malta tax retained: €70,000 − €60,000 = €10,000
• Net effective tax rate: €10,000 ÷ €200,000 = 5%

The company pays €70,000 to the MTCA at filing time, exactly as the 35% headline rate suggests. The refund only arrives once the profit is actually distributed and the shareholder files a claim — so there is a cash-flow timing gap between paying the 35% and receiving the 6/7 refund back. But once both steps are complete, only €10,000 of tax on €200,000 of profit sticks: an effective rate of 5%, not 35%. This exists precisely because full imputation is designed so the same euro of profit is never taxed twice at 35% company level and again in full at shareholder level — the refund is what removes the double taxation.

Which refund applies to me?

The right refund fraction depends on where the income comes from, not on the legal form of the company:

• A Maltese company trading internationally, providing services, or running an active business (e-commerce, consultancy, manufacturing, iGaming operations, and similar) generally falls under the 6/7 trading bucket, landing at roughly 5% effective.
• A company earning mainly interest or royalty income — for example an IP-licensing or group-financing vehicle — typically falls under the 5/7 passive bucket, at roughly 10% effective.
• A company with foreign-source income that has already claimed double-taxation relief (treaty relief, unilateral relief, or the flat-rate foreign tax credit) generally falls under the 2/3 bucket.
• A holding company receiving dividends or capital gains from a qualifying participating holding may instead be fully exempt under Malta’s participation exemption, sidestepping the refund route entirely with a 0% outcome — worth checking before assuming a refund fraction applies.

The optional 15% FITWI top-up

Since Legal Notice 188 of 2025, a qualifying company can instead elect a flat 15% final tax under the Final Income Tax Without Imputation (FITWI) regime, in place of the standard 35%-plus-refund system. Under FITWI there is no shareholder refund — the 15% is final and settles the Malta tax position outright. The election is binding for at least five consecutive years once made, and a safeguard rule ensures the FITWI charge can never come out lower than the effective tax the ordinary imputation-and-refund system would have produced. FITWI is aimed principally at larger groups that want certainty and administrative simplicity, and it sits alongside — rather than replaces — the OECD Pillar Two 15% minimum tax that already applies separately to large multinational groups with consolidated revenue of €750 million or more.

What most calculators miss

Most public corporate tax calculators for Malta stop at the headline number: they multiply chargeable income by 35% and present that as “the” Malta corporate tax, or at best quote a single flat “5% effective rate” without explaining which income qualifies for it. Neither is accurate on its own. The 35% is real — it is what the company actually pays to the MTCA at filing time — and the 5% is also real, but only after distribution and only for the correct income type. Treating Malta as either “a 35% country” or “a 5% country” without the refund mechanism in between misses why Malta is used the way it is: as one of the EU’s most tax-efficient jurisdictions for trading and holding structures, built on a refund system rather than a low headline rate. This calculator models the 35% charge, the correct refund fraction for your income type, and the resulting net effective rate together, rather than collapsing them into one misleading number.

Related calculators and neighbouring countries

If you need the personal side of Maltese tax — payroll for directors or employees — see our Malta salary calculator, or for individual tax liability see the Malta income tax calculator. To compare Malta’s system against nearby jurisdictions, see the Italy corporate tax calculator and the Cyprus corporate tax calculator, another Mediterranean jurisdiction commonly compared against Malta for holding and trading structures.

Last updated and disclaimer

Tax year: year of assessment 2026 (basis year 2025). Data last updated 2026-07-01 (July 2026). Sources: PwC Worldwide Tax Summaries, the Malta Tax and Customs Administration (MTCA), CSB Group, and KPMG/Deloitte alerts on the FITWI Regulations (Legal Notice 188 of 2025).

This calculator provides an estimate only and is not tax advice. The refund system, the participation exemption and the FITWI election each involve conditions, timing rules and anti-abuse provisions that are not fully captured by a simple calculation. Please verify your specific position with a Malta-licensed tax advisor or accountant, or directly with the MTCA, before relying on any figure produced here.