{"id":50234,"date":"2026-05-30T08:30:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-30T06:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/magictowns.it\/?post_type=podcast&p=50234"},"modified":"2026-05-29T22:45:46","modified_gmt":"2026-05-29T20:45:46","slug":"italy-or-malta-where-would-you-move","status":"publish","type":"podcast","link":"https:\/\/magictowns.it\/fr\/podcast\/italy-or-malta-where-would-you-move\/","title":{"rendered":"Italy or Malta: Where Would You Move?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Luca:<\/strong> Happy Saturday, everyone! And welcome back to the Magic Towns Italy podcast with me, Luca, and Anna.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Hi!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Today we have two special guests. Not everyone knows this, but Magic Towns Italy has a sister site in Malta, Expatax Malta. And today we have Gill and Boba, who manage that website. Welcome!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Good morning.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Good morning<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Both you, Gill and Boba, you’ve been living in Malta for a long time, but you’re not Maltese.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> That’s right. I’m Irish, and I’ve been living in Malta since 2017 so I guess I can give an opinion on what expat life is like in Malta as an EU citizen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Hey everyone, thank you for the invitation. I’m Boba. I am Serbian national. I’ve been living in Malta since 2018. So I can tell you my point of view as a third country [00:01:00] national living in Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Lovely. And of course we have Anna and I, who are both Italian, although we have traveled the world. I personally lived in Malta for several years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, we get asked quite often what it might be like as a retiree or an expat who live in Malta versus Italy, and we thought this was a great time to get this straight from people who know both countries. So to start, lifestyle. How would you rate the lifestyle in Malta?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> I think Malta has a nice balance between work and personal life. The sea is never far away, and the weather encourages people to be outside for most of the year, and there is a strong cafe and social culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And one thing I particularly appreciate, and that is variety of beaches and swimming spots. Whether you prefer sandy beach or rocky spots, you can choose between. And one thing I’ve learned after eight years living in Malta, is that distance isn’t measured in [00:02:00] kilometers. It’s measured in the traffic. Two places can be five minutes or forty-five minutes apart, depending on what time you leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah, great point there, Bobby. Traffic is brutal in Malta. You can in peak hours expect to spend over an hour in your car to do a 20-kilometer journey, especially if you’re going, you know, from north to south or through the busy areas. And talking of busy, as wonderful it is to have beaches and such a plethora of beaches, there’s definitely a problem of overcrowding in the summer, so that’s something to be aware of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year in 2025, Malta had over four million inbound tourists, and given how small the country is, you can imagine, you know, what kind of bottlenecks that creates, not only on the roads but also on the beach. So if you’re thinking of going to the beach, then I would recommend that either you go early or you go off-season.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> How would you say that compares to Italy? You know Italy pretty well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> What I would say that where I think they differ so dramatically is given that Malta, you [00:03:00] know, is 14 kilometers by seven, it’s a very small island. You can feasibly get around Malta and Gozo without a car. But I think living in Italy where the villages are so far apart, I think you cannot live in Italy without a car. Perhaps, Anna, you think different given that you live in a big city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Yeah, I think that it really depends on where you live. Of course, if you live in a big city, you can definitely live without a car. But except for those cities, you definitely need a car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Although ironically, both Malta and Italy have some of the highest car ownership rates in Europe. In fact, Malta has the highest car ownership rate in Europe. It’s like two cars per person. And, and that’s not because cars are cheap, because actually a tax on cars is one of the few very punitive Maltese taxes. But the Maltese like to drive, and they drive everywhere. So the government has been trying to do whatever it can to facilitate public transportation, which means [00:04:00] buses. Of course, there’s no metro or anything. But it doesn’t really work. So I don’t know. Knowing both countries, I would say, sure, you can live without a car in Malta, but realistically you’re gonna be using taxis a lot or Bolt, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba, you’re a big user of this kind of like\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Big Bolt user. Yes, correct. I’m using a lot Bolt. I would use actually Uber, but in Gozo you can’t actually get to have an Uber, unlike in Malta. So yes, for the drivers it’s very hard to find the parking. So sometimes it’s just easier to call Bolt. Two minutes away and it drops you where you want. And then the buses, because for residents it’s free, so it’s very good for expats when they move. Once they get their ID cards, they’re going to have free Tallinja card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. No free buses in Italy. And also no Uber. That’s one thing that Italy is very bad at. You know, when it comes to lobbies, like the taxi drivers’ [00:05:00] lobby, several governments have tried many times to find ways to get Uber and Bolt and these other, ride app services in, but it has always failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Actually Uber exists in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, but it’s fake, meaning you use Uber to call taxi drivers in, like, three cities. It’s not like in many other countries where you have a huge amount of drivers you can call and, you know, it’s cheap and plentiful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah, you have a nationwide network in Malta and in most other European countries that we visited, but in the case of Italy, you know, it’s very expensive. It’s at least 150 euros to get a one-hour taxi ride from the airport to your destination.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I tried to get a Uber for some friends from Vicenza to Venice<\/a> Airport, which in the night is, like, a 40-minute drive, and it was quoted at 260 euro. I mean, you could buy, you could buy a very old car for that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> I’m not surprised. Yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> And how then the [00:06:00] people go around? I’m a bit curious to know, like, if a foreigner come and they need a transportation to the hotel, what they usually do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Well, they rent a car. Car rentals are cheap. Italy also has a great train network. We spoke about that last week. If you’re in the right place, there’s maybe, you know, a thousand towns in Italy that have decent rail connection that you can travel and go pretty far away with that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But if you’re out of those catchment areas, if you’re in Sardinia, for instance, well, you either buy a car or you better learn how to cycle.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> One of the other great things about living in Malta is obviously the weather. We have 300 days of sunshine a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I mean, you’re Irish, Gill. Do you really like the 300 days of sun a year?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> I find that the weather’s more even in Malta, the ranges of temperature, for example. Whereas in Italy it gets much hotter and much colder. Given [00:07:00] that Malta’s an island, you know, it rarely gets above 34, 35 in the summer, which I think is more tolerable than some parts of Italy can be in the 40s in the height of summer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Interesting. And you don’t miss the lack of a proper winter?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah, that’s a valid point, actually. Bobby and I often joke when we go around at wintertime because we see all the Maltese nationals, like, they feel that it’s winter, so you see the kids dressed up in scarves and hats, and it’s, I don’t know, maybe- When it’s like 18<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> degrees \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> it’s 17 de- exactly. And so people make it winter. But yes, of course, you miss, like, you know, the crisp mornings and the cool air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And, and that’s another kind of drawback for Malta because I find that there’s very little greenery, and that’s something I miss a great deal, obviously, coming from Ireland, and very little trees. So you don’t get the season changes, you don’t get the leaves, you don’t get all those things that you associate with winter and Christmas. Italy wins hands down in terms of greenery, [00:08:00] nature, respect for nature, clean air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> That’s true, because even in bigger cities, I mean, you can always, always find, like, parks and spots where you can just relax in the middle of nature.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> The joke is that the construction crane is Malta’s national tree, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> True. That was the most important thing to mention, the construction nowadays in Malta, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> How do you feel about that? Is there a lot of it? I don’t think our listeners know very much about how much construction there is in Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> More in Malta than Gozo, I would say. But given that I live already eight years, you kind of get used to it, so I don’t pay much attention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> What bothers you the most, the noise, the dust, the trucks?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> The dust. The dust. The dust is terrible. So the noise, you get used to it, like, during the day, but the dust is just everywhere. So no cleaning once a week. I have to do it every day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I think it’s fair to say that Italy is very much \u2026 [00:09:00] Maybe it has the opposite problem. Aside from very few areas, with rampant construction, and, you know, those may be parts of Milan, very few places, I think it is construction-wise pretty quiet. And you can definitely find towns where there is extremely low noise pollution. I found Malta to be very, very noisy. Oh, well, you should probably mention the biggest cause of noise in the summers: fireworks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Fireworks, correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Fireworks is almost a misnomer. I mean, it’s actually cannonball shots. So there is no pretty lights. There’s no beautiful firework display. They start from 8:00 AM in the morning- And they start firing cannons. It’s, I mean, you just, if you’re a foreigner, it’s so strange. It just makes you literally jump out of your skin. And every hour on the hour they must fire 20, 30 [00:10:00] cannons. And during the summer, different villages throughout Malta and Gozo have their own festivals, and it becomes like a competition. So the amount of noise at the weekends is just, it’s insane during the holidays.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Gozo is very small, so kind of we hear the fireworks from every feast, from every other village we hear in the town where we live because it’s actually very small. So the closer town it is, the stronger you hear. But yes, you can hear it every weekend.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I used to live next to the square where they fired these cannonballs, as Gill calls them, and it really did feel like we were in the war.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, yeah. Many foreigners complain about this, but the Maltese are extremely resistant to any kind of negative commentary about this. After all, they’ve been doing this for, you know, 100 years or more, so if you go to Malta, you just have to, you just have to deal with it. You know you can do? Mark down when your local [00:11:00] feast is and book a nice holiday abroad so you can come back to a little bit of quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> But the season started already, so we are in the firework season as of last week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay. Okay. So if we hear a cannonball fire while Baba is talking, we know why. And what about cost of living?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> If we’re looking at cost of living, we have to obviously look at what takes up the lion’s share for most people, and that would be rent. We did an interesting piece of research at Expatax, and we looked at over seventeen thousand properties that were advertised for sale or for rent in Malta, and we found there was a great deal of divergence in rental prices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So in areas like Sliema, St. Julian’s, Valletta, premium areas, you’re going to see rents averaging around one point five, one point six. But obviously for premium properties, the sky’s the limit because there’s a great deal of demand in those expat areas. And then you move to Gozo, and we find [00:12:00] that, you know, rent drops off dramatically. It’s down to maybe eight, nine hundred per unit. And then you have something in the middle. You have the south of Malta where you can find, uh, rents for around the eleven hundred mark. We’ve seen on average about a ten percent increase overall across property rental prices just in the last year, so that tells you how much rent is increasing and how it’s continuing to increase much faster than inflation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Yes, rent is definitely the most important cost of living nowadays, but then groceries are probably number two. Prices have definitely gone up since COVID, and if you’re raising a family in Malta, it’s not unusual to spend around 300 euro a week or even more once you combine grocery shopping with all the other household essentials a family needs for a regular basis.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> That’s 1,000 euro a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Correct. For the food, yes. Of course, this [00:13:00] isn’t just a Malta issue, it’s something that we’ve seen across Europe because Malta is an island and relies heavily on imports, global price increases, and tend to feel quite increased quickly here.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Well, I think everyone can agree that groceries have gone up across the board. It’s easy and quite common now to go to Greens or one of the premium supermarkets and walk out of the shop with two bags and have spent 50 or 60 euro. There are, of course, cheaper options. There are many farmers markets and local markets where you can buy eggs, cheese, vegetables, and they tend to be more reasonably priced.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> I think we can safely say that Italy is much cheaper in this. There are huge supermarket chains where you can budget shop, and then of course there’s town markets where you can get pretty cheap produce.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna, how do you find the cost of living in a big city? Would you say that you need a [00:14:00] thousand euro in four people a month to buy groceries?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> No, no, I wouldn’t say that. I think that it really depends on who you are. If you’re, like, an American retiree, it’s like paradise, like a dream. For Italians or expats working in Italy, I feel like, yeah, it really depends. I think that Italy is pretty cheap for restaurants or eating out. Grocery shopping is becoming more expensive. I spend around 100, something like that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> A week?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Week? Uh, but I mean- Or a<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> month?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> No, a month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> A month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Really?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Anna, I’m a bit worried about you. A life of water and white rice.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> No, let’s say 120.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Send some groceries to Anna \u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> No but I eat like lentils and chickpeas, so that’s why.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> You’re a vegetarian. We should mention that. That makes things be a little bit cheaper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Yeah. Maybe the only thing is rent. Rent is really expensive, especially in big cities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> [00:15:00] Like, How much would you say the rent for, for a decent flat in Rome might cost? Like an apartment for a couple.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> You can pay 1,200 maybe. But even more if it’s bigger, it can be 1,500.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay so a little bit cheaper than Malta, but then Malta, in my experience, has slightly higher wages or better it has lower tax.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So people are less burned that way. Talking of which, this is probably what a lot of listeners are waiting for, tax. Gill, can you give us like a very, very quick, overview of what, how tax works for an expat that might be looking at Malta?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah. Malta still operates as one of the EU’s last real non-dom regimes. This means that foreign income is only taxed if you bring it [00:16:00] into Malta, and the income you keep outside of Malta is obviously exempt. And Capital gains are tax-free.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> That’s a big thing. So if I sell a million euro worth of Apple shares, and I have a 500,000 of gain, I pay zero tax on that?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Correct. And you can see why that’s attracted so many expats to Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> It sounds extremely attractive. What if you work in Malta? What’s the tax like?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> So Malta has a progressive tax rate, and this ranges from zero to 35%. Generally, there’s also special global residency programs that offer a flat 15% tax on foreign income remitted to Malta. So there’s various options for people to minimize their tax exposure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay. So that may be good for digital nomads, for instance, so they have clients abroad and\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yes. In fact, it’s interesting you bring up digital nomads because they actually, for the first year, all digital nomads are taxed 0%, and the following year they’re taxed 10% on their income.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> [00:17:00] That’s not gonna happen in Italy. Italy does have the 7% tax scheme that Anna and I have discussed many times, and that reduces the tax on your foreign income to a flat 7%. But I think I can unequivocally say that it is not as attractive as the Maltese system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because it functions as a flat tax, and therefore you pay the 7% in addition to whatever foreign tax you may be paying already without any tax credit. So yeah, it doesn’t sound like it’s a lot, 7%, but it may add up to what you already pay abroad.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah. Just to give you a kind of an idea on the bracket. So for example, if you earn less than 12,000 in Malta, that falls within the tax-free threshold. And then up to the 12 to the 15 goes onto the 15% tax rate, and anything between the 16 and 60K gets taxed at 25%, which I think is, you know, quite attractive for many people. And then [00:18:00] anything over that 60,000 gets taxed at the full whack of 35, but it will never exceed the 35%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. It is much more attractive than the Italian brackets. So yeah, I, I think we can all attest to the fact that, that at the end of the month, your paycheck is taxed more lightly in Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Malta does also offer things like the parent and married tax rate, so it does a little bit extra to try to reduce the financial burden on families. So it adjusts for tax-free, the tax-free threshold depending on what your combined income is to ensure that parents and married couples have a little bit extra in their pocket at the end of the month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Sure. Italy has been talking for a long time about introducing stuff like this, but it has not. One can, uh, hope for the future. So to sum it up, tax on wages lower in Malta, tax on capital gains nonexistent in Malta. Right. And Italy it’s 26% flat, so it’s not terrible, but it’s a lot more than 0%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about the [00:19:00] other big concern of people moving to Italy? Paperwork. How do you find the paperwork load in Malta?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> I think paperwork load will, is very, to be fair, light and easy. Most transactions can be done online, uploaded. It’s nice if you do have a problem, you can go to the local offices and you can fix things fairly smoothly, you know, with someone who actually speaks English. And on the whole, people are friendly and willing to help. All records are recorded. You have your eID and all your system, and all your details are collated in one place, so that helps with tracking things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Malta has modernized itself a lot in the previous past years. So when we just relocated, many of the forms were still paper-based, and nowadays, as you said, with your eID account, you can access all the government services, and you can check your tax statement, [00:20:00] you can submit your VAT return online. You can do most of the things online now. Also it comes the same for visa and residence. The regulatory framework has become more demanding, and there are more requirements, more checks, and more frequent changes that are arriving constantly for the foreigners here, especially third country nationals.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> I think one of the things both Bobby and I have seen is a slight kind of divergence in treatment. So I’m obviously speaking from an EU route where they haven’t imposed all these extra hurdles. But on the other hand, Bob, I think you’ve experienced a bit of different treatment, if I may say so. More fees, more requirements.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Yes. And as I mentioned those changes are happening now very often. So in the last two years, system changed completely, and the most it happened last year when the [00:21:00] fees increased, the rule changed, newcomers especially. So if anyone wish to relocate and come from third countries, it’s very hard. You need integration course, you need secured employment, you need the medical checks. So if someone wish to come here from those countries should really prepare well, as Gill you often, as you often say, to do the homework well before they choose Malta as their next place to live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> It feels like they’ve tried to raise the barriers of entry to make it more difficult to have more TCNs come into the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Yeah, because maybe Malta is overpopulated, and obviously because EU law is regulated, they can’t do that to EU nationals, but they can control a bit the entries of TCNs. Just my opinion because they have many foreigners here, and they’re trying to solve the problem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Well, even indicating that you have a job before you come to [00:22:00] a country, I mean, that’s, that’s a very difficult requirement.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> But you have the same in Italy, and to be fair, you have the same in the US and most countries. The irony of this is that, and it makes me smile a little bit, that as I listen to you two talk about these very, very onerous requirements, they’re still easier. Everything is still easier than in Italy, where, for instance, in order to get most visas, you must have booked accommodation for an entire year by the time you go to get the visa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you might be paying months of rentals for an apartment that you have never even seen You are not in the country. You must get the rental before you go to the consulate in your own country. Imagine an American that lives in New York and must find a place in, I don’t know, Naples, whatever they wanna be, get a one-year contract before they show up at the visa office to have their appointment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Wow. Sounds very [00:23:00] onerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. It’s incredibly onerous. And everything having to be in Italian, that also adds a little bit of complication. I personally call heroes the people to, that move to Italy because it takes an extraordinary amount of commitment if you are not a EU national.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of course, if you’re a EU national, just like in Malta, you are protected by EU legislation, so you cannot be treated any worse than a Maltese or an Italian citizen, and that is our saving grace. But my heart goes out to you, Boba, because I know, for instance, that as a non-EU national you have to do all this paperwork every year, and that is a bit, a little bit painful.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Well, now I do every five, but it was a long road for me. You need actually to integrate to finish the courses, which takes up to two years, to prepare the paperwork well, to pay increased fee from 100 to 500 euro, and then, you’re safe for the next five years. Nowadays even those applications are harder because the [00:24:00] courses stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But I think that in general, moving to EU countries for TCNs, it’s very hard. As I hear you now, Luca, talking about Italy is not easier than in Malta. Maybe a little bit, but still it’s hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> No, the difference is that Italy, unlike Malta, has a huge demographic crisis. So you would imagine a country that so badly needs people, Anna and I have done plenty of podcasts in which we’ve been talking about just how bad the demographic situation is in large parts of Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The country does nothing to encourage people from coming in. It offers tax breaks, but the problem is not the tax. People move to countries with very high tax rates, so they move to Scandinavia very happily. The issue is with the ease of access, and you have touched on the fact that, requirements can be quite onerous, but they are still less onerous in Malta than in Italy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yeah. I also feel like saying that in Malta I have this perception that everything can be fixed, if you have [00:25:00] money. Meaning even if you are not a EU citizen, there are several visa and residency pathways that, that are easily accessible to a person that has money. Money to buy a property, money to make an investment. In Italy it is not so simple. Even people with money will find that there’s a little bit of bureaucracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Going back to your point about aging population, the average age in Malta is about 40 versus I think it’s-<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> 49<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> in Italy \u2026 49 in I- yeah.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah. Yeah. I become younger every year in Italy. I like to say that because the median age increases faster than the passage of time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> I would just like to mention something about children and childcare. I find the Maltese system was far more equitable in how the holidays were spread out. So if people are listening that have children, this is a big deal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The school year in Italy ends in the next few days, so children are home from school. Whereas in Malta it won’t end for another [00:26:00] month. And in Malta the government provides summer schools, so if both parents are working you have childcare between 9:00 and 12:00, and then you can pay 80 cents per child per hour for additional care that you need.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So they facilitate life for working parents in a way that I have Italian friends who tell me they dread the summertime because, you know, they’re phoning everybody and anybody they can to help them with their kids because any programs they book- The, because<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> The kids are home for three months. Yeah. This was all of course from the times when Italy was a very agricultural country, so having a bunch of kids help you in the fields was very useful. In fact, I believe the Ireland has long holidays for the same reason, but now we no longer have kids, working, gathering crops. So maybe it’s time to change that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m going to function as a very biased referee now. So on the lifestyle, I think we can call it a tie. Italy is, of course, a lot of variety. But Malta is pretty well-connected, so I reckon that, [00:27:00] as long as you can book a holiday out of the country every so often to get out of that as you said, Gill, you know, 10 miles by 20-mile box, then you’re fine. In fact, I personally escaped Malta after COVID because it is a small country to live in if you if you can never leave.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then on the cost of living, from hearing you guys, it sounds like it’s a, very much a tie. Uh, maybe groceries are a little bit cheaper in Italy. Rentals can definitely be cheaper in Italy, so cost of living can be lower in Italy. But if you’re talking about high-end areas, it feels like it’s much of a muchness between the two countries. Language and ease of integrating, for an English speaker, it sounds like Malta wins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Wins hands down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, wins big time. English is an official language. Everyone speaks English. Although many people like the challenge of coming to Italy and learning Italian, so there is that. If you like the hard work of learning a new language, maybe Italy’s better than Malta, but I’m gonna give this [00:28:00] one to Malta.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> I think that now this is changing. Like, almost all younger generations now speak a little bit of English, I think.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Sure. They just don’t speak English in public offices. When the young people become the civil servants of Italy’s future, then sure, you will be able to speak English. If you wait 15 or 20 years, then move to Italy instead of Malta. Tax\u2026 Should we even talk about that? Malta wins 10 nil.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah. Hands down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> It wins big time, but then again, we should remind people, as we have often done, that all these, stories you read that Italy taxes everything at 43% are very much untrue. Italy taxes you very much like any large European country, and there are ways to reduce that, especially if you come in from abroad, as an expat or as a worker or as a retiree. But you are going to pay more tax than in Malta. So this one gives to Malta. And paperwork?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Again to Malta!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Yeah, I think so. [00:29:00] Malta wins on paperwork big time, and the structural reason is probably tied to what we were discussing just now. Malta only has half a million inhabitants.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That’s as many inhabitants as Bologna<\/a>, so it is small, and it has to function as a country, so they only have so many civil servants to go around. Italy has no shortage of people to come up with forms, regulations, laws, and stuff for you to fill in. So sorry if that sounds a little bit cynical, but it’s just a fact that, and Malta wins this one too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, planning in Italy, if you want to build a house, it is dealt at the, the office in the town hall. Remember that in Italy we have 7,000 towns, so imagine two per town, as an average. That’s 14,000 people in Italy just in the towns who have the job of managing planning, and, in Malta that is centralized, and there might be 100 people working there. So I mean, it’s a leaner [00:30:00] operation, and it is more evenly reliable across the country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> But that’s a shocking statistic.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Now that you say it like that, it is a bit scary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Maybe Italy should find a way to make things more simple. Because that’s what Malta is doing lately, like trying to modernize, digitalize, make everything more simple. Not just for expats, for everyone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> And there’s so much you can self-submit in Malta that you would need a lawyer or you would need somebody professional to do. They try to promote as much for you to be able to do it yourself, to be self-sufficient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Italy doesn’t work like that. Everyone wants their pound of flesh. So there is a whole gang of notaries, lawyers, and et cetera, that you have to go through.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe one thing, since we’re talking about planning, and Anna and I are going to publish a renovation guide very shortly, building in Malta involves having to do with one architect. You pay the architect, and then that’s more or less the [00:31:00] end of it. In Italy you have the architect, the structural engineer, the geologist, the thermal engineer. You have the person that has to do your cadastral update. In other words, you have maybe eight or 10 professionals that you have to pay, and that these guys all cost money, when in Malta, the standard architect fee is maybe 2, \u20ac3,000 for the domestic building project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> I find the labor is far more skilled in Italy than you would, for example, get in Malta. For example, in Malta, your electrician is also your plumber. And we’ve had experiences where we found a toilet’s been installed in a bathroom, but it wasn’t actually connected to the mains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So you get a much higher level of qualified workmanship. And speaking from experience after having done several renovations in Malta, there’s a likelihood that your builder’s gone, you see them at, standing at the side of the road, groups of young men, and they just literally bundle them into the car, take them to your building site [00:32:00] and say, “This is your tiler for the day.” And there’s a very good chance that person they’ve just brought you has never tiled in their life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> This would never happen in Italy. This is, it sounds like a scene from from the 1950s<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Yeah, it’s a real drawback of the Maltese system, to be honest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Luca:<\/strong> Okay. So we ended up on, on a high note for Italy. Skilled labor, great craftsmen, but less attractive from a tax paperwork perspective. At least we know that, from a lifestyle perspective, you can find good things in both countries.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I wanna thank Boba and Gill for making themselves available. Boba and Gill run Expatax Malta, our sister site. So if your interest was somehow piqued in considering Malta instead of Italy as a relocation destination, they offer consultations. So go to Expatax Malta and you can get in touch with them. And if on the other hand, you’re still in love with Italy, as we are, Anna and I, stay tuned for our next episode next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also wanted to let our [00:33:00] listeners know that we released something that we’re very proud of this week, which is the map view of the Town Explorer. So if you have been using the Town Explorer to find your next town in Italy, now you also can see all these towns you have filtered for on a map, and that is a much more intuitive way for you to pick your next destination. Thank you so much, and have a good weekend. Bye-bye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Anna:<\/strong> Bye.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Gill:<\/strong> Bye. Thank you very much for having us. Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boba:<\/strong> Thank you.<\/p>\n\r\n\t\t\t

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