Malta stamp duty exemptions: spouses, inheritance, groups and Gozo

Exemptions written into the Act

• Between spouses and former spouses. Article 32(3) charges no duty on transfers of immovable property or marketable securities assigned consequent to a consensual or judicial separation or a divorce, on the dissolution of the community of acquests, on an inter vivos transfer of the ordinary residence between spouses, or on a partition between a surviving spouse and the heirs of the deceased spouse.
• Between enrolled cohabitants. The same sub-article extends each of those to cohabitants whose cohabitation is enrolled by public deed under the Cohabitation Act, 2020.
• Within a group of companies. Article 32(6) allows the Commissioner to certify that no duty is chargeable, or to refund it, on a transfer of immovable property between companies in the same group, subject to a beneficial ownership test with a 20 percentage point tolerance.
• On a partition after inheritance. Article 32(5) removes the charge on a deed partitioning property between co-owners where duty on the transfer causa mortis has been paid or none was payable, and the notary makes the prescribed declaration.
• Family business property. Article 41C charges €3.50 per €100 on the first €500,000 of a commercial tenement transferred as a going concern to family members in a registered family business, where the property had been used in the business for at least three years.

Inheritance: the causa mortis bands

Article 35 sets special rules for declarations of transfers causa mortis. The first €35,000 of the value of a dwelling house that was the deceased's ordinary residence is left out of account, and no duty is levied at all where the beneficiary of that residence is the surviving spouse or cohabitant. Above the disregard, duty on the share transferred to a transferee occupying the dwelling as their own ordinary residence is charged at €3.50 per €100.

The Reduced Rate of Duty on Transfers Causa Mortis of a Dwelling House Rules (S.L. 364.22), made by Legal Notice 306 of 2025, widened the reduced-rate band for transfers taking place on or after 28 October 2025: the €3.50 rate now runs on the value above €35,000 up to €400,000 where the dwelling was the deceased's ordinary residence and is occupied by a transferee, and on the first €400,000 in the other case in article 35(2)(ii). The Act's own text still shows €200,000, which is why the rules have to be read alongside it.

Concessions that have closed

None of these is available on a purchase agreed today. They remain in the subsidiary legislation because the orders were never repealed, only time-limited, which is exactly why summaries written from a list of orders rather than from their commencement provisions get Malta wrong.

The provisional payment nobody budgets for

Article 3(6) makes a promise of sale invalid unless notice is given to the Commissioner, and requires that notice to be accompanied by a provisional payment equivalent to twenty per centum of the amount chargeable under articles 32 and 40. Rule 10 of the Duty on Documents and Transfers Rules requires the notice by electronic submission within 21 days of the promise of sale, with payment within ten days of the Commissioner's approval or 21 days of the konvenju, whichever is later. The provisional payment is set off against the duty on the final deed, and is refundable only where the promise has lapsed or both parties have rescinded it.

This page lists provisions; it does not tell you that one applies to you. Duty relief in Malta is conditional on declarations recorded in the deed, on certificates from the Commissioner and on evidence filed with the article 51 notice, and article 3(4) lets the Commissioner disregard a scheme whose main purpose was to reduce duty. Take the specifics to your notary.