Malta Hourly Paycheck Calculator

How FSS Tax, SSC and COLA Work in Malta

The Final Settlement System (FSS) is Malta's version of PAYE: your employer withholds income tax at source from every pay run, using whichever of three annual tax-rate schedules applies to you — single, married, or parent — each with its own tax-free threshold before the 15%, 25% and 35% bands kick in. Because FSS is calculated cumulatively across the tax year, occasional overtime or bonus weeks are taxed at your marginal rate for that pay period rather than pushing your whole year into a higher bracket.

Alongside FSS, both you and your employer pay Social Security Contributions (SSC) at 10% of gross pay each, up to an annual ceiling of €24,137 in pensionable earnings — once your cumulative earnings for the year cross that ceiling, the 10% SSC deduction stops (though FSS income tax continues as normal). SSC funds Malta's contributory pensions, sickness and unemployment benefits, and — unlike income tax — is a flat rate with no bands.

Every January, the government-set Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is added to the national minimum wage and, by convention across most collective agreements, to wages more broadly — a mechanic explained in full further down this page.

Worked Example: From Hourly Rate to Net Pay and Employer Cost

Take a retail assistant earning €8.00 an hour — above Malta's 2026 minimum wage of €229.44 for a 40-hour week (€5.74/hour) — who works a standard 40-hour week plus 5 hours of overtime at the statutory default rate of 1.5x.

1. Regular pay: 40 hours × €8.00 = €320.00.
2. Overtime pay: 5 hours × €8.00 × 1.5 = €60.00.
3. Gross weekly pay: €320.00 + €60.00 = €380.00 (€19,760 annualised).
4. FSS income tax (single rates, pro-rated from the annual schedule: 0% to €9,100, 15% to €14,500, 25% to €60,000): about €40.87 for the week.
5. Employee SSC (10% of gross, below the €24,137 annual ceiling): €38.00.
6. Net weekly pay: €380.00 − €40.87 − €38.00 = €301.13.
7. Employer SSC match (10% of gross): +€38.00.
8. Total employer cost for the week: €380.00 + €38.00 = €418.00.
9. Cost per hour actually worked: €418.00 ÷ 45 hours ≈ €9.29 — about €1.29 more per hour than the €8.00 rate the calculator started from.

Overtime and Minimum Wage Rules in Practice

Malta has no single statutory overtime rate written into general law — instead, the applicable multiplier depends on the Wage Regulation Order (WRO) covering your sector, if one exists. Where no sector-specific WRO applies, the fallback default is 1.5x the normal hourly rate for hours worked beyond 40 in a week. Many WROs go further for unsociable hours, setting Sunday and public-holiday work at double time, and in some sectors as high as 2.5x.

The national minimum wage itself is a hard floor rather than a guideline: as of 1 January 2026 it is €229.44 a week (about €994 a month, €11,928 a year) for workers aged 18 and over, already inclusive of that year's COLA increase. Paying below it is not legal regardless of whether pay is structured as an hourly, weekly, or piece rate.

• Statutory default overtime: 1.5x the normal hourly rate beyond 40 hours/week, where no WRO applies
• Sunday and public holiday work: commonly 2x under sector WROs, up to 2.5x in some industries
• Always check the Wage Regulation Order for your specific sector — WROs override the statutory default
• National minimum wage (2026): €229.44/week, €994/month, €11,928/year for ages 18+

What Employers Really Pay: The SSC Match and Total Cost of Employment

Malta keeps the employer side of the payroll equation comparatively simple: on top of gross pay, an employer's only mandatory statutory add-on is the matching 10% SSC contribution, capped at the same €24,137 annual ceiling that applies to the employee's own contribution. There is no separate payroll tax, no regional surcharge, and no equivalent of the training-fund or family-allowance levies found in several other EU states.

• Employer SSC: 10% of gross pay, capped at €24,137/year in pensionable earnings
• No additional national payroll tax or regional employer surcharge in Malta
• Total statutory on-cost is close to 10% of gross for most employees — markedly lower than typical Western European employer burdens of 25–30%
• Employers must still budget for the annual COLA increase (see below), which raises the wage floor — and often wider pay scales — every January

COLA: The Automatic January Increase Most Calculators Miss

The Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) is a flat euro-per-week increase — not a percentage raise — announced by the government in the October Budget Speech and applied automatically from 1 January the following year. For 2026 it added €4.66 a week to the national minimum wage. Because COLA is a fixed amount rather than a percentage, it represents a larger proportional increase for lower-paid workers than for higher earners, and it compounds year after year onto whatever base rate is already in place.

Employers and employees relying on last year's figures are routinely caught out each January, since COLA changes the minimum wage — and, by extension, many collectively bargained pay scales that are pegged to it — before most payroll software or generic salary calculators have updated their defaults. This calculator applies the 2026 COLA-adjusted minimum wage automatically.

• COLA is a flat weekly euro amount, not a percentage of salary
• Announced each October in the Budget Speech, effective from the following 1 January
• 2026 COLA: +€4.66/week, lifting the minimum wage to €229.44/week
• Applies automatically to the statutory minimum wage; many collective agreements peg broader pay scales to it too