Sea water quality at Malta’s swimming zones deteriorated last year, report shows

Malta ranked among the worst EU member states for coastal bathing water quality, according to a report released on Tuesday by the Eur

A report has shown Malta’s bathing seas have continued to deteriorate in recent years, with 88.5% of sites classified as excellent in 2025, down from 92% in 2024 and 94.3% in 2022.

The worst-performing bathing sites were found in St Julian’s and Sliema, as well as parts of St Paul’s Bay and Qawra, according to a report by European Environment Agency.

The report revealed that Malta's bathing water quality has progressively deteriorated since 2022

By contrast, Cyprus, Bulgaria, Greece, Austria and Croatia recorded some of the highest rates of excellent-quality bathing waters, with each country registering at least 95% of sites in the top category.

Bathing water quality is classified as excellent, good, sufficient or poor, based on levels of detected faecal contamination. In Malta, 9.2% of bathing sites were classified as good, while 2.3% were deemed sufficient.

Contaminated bathing water can cause illness if ingested, including gastrointestinal problems, infections, respiratory issues and diarrhoea.

The findings come as Malta has already recorded 16 beach closures since May this year, following contamination incidents and sewage leaks at several bathing sites.

The Nationalist Party recently also launched a webpage titled 'Factcheck: Sea Water Quality,' which tracks sea contamination incidents and publishes weekly water quality ratings for popular bathing spots, based on publicly available government data.

The EEA report assessed around 22,000 coastal bathing waters across 22 EU member states, as well as Albania, which ranked lowest overall, with 23.5% of its bathing sites classified as poor.