MaltaToday investigates: Tourist short-lets are hive of illegality

Malta and Gozo are home to at least 100 unlicensed short-let properties being marketed to tourists, a MaltaToday investigation shows.

And this is possibly only the tip of the iceberg since the investigation only took into account one online booking engine and focused on five localities in Malta and the whole of Gozo.

Nonetheless, the number of unlicensed properties found in this exercise provides a glimpse into a segment of the tourism market that is increasingly resembling the Wild West.

A protest in Swieqi in the summer of 2025 organised by Momentum saw residents air their grievances over anti-social behaviour by tourists and owners of short-let apartments (Photo: Momentum)

During the peak of Malta’s tourism season, MaltaToday set out to estimate how many properties listed on the popular global booking platform, Booking.com, are not registered with the Malta Tourism Authority (MTA).

The exercise comes in the wake of record-breaking tourist arrivals and increased resident frustration with rowdy young tourists, who make living in some parts of Malta hell.

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Last month, the MTA initiated enforcement proceedings against a number of holiday apartments in a Swieqi block after they hosted tourists seen throwing glass bottles into the streets below. This was followed by MTA inspections in Swieqi that found six unregistered short-let accommodations and 67 other properties with at least one violation.

MaltaToday collected a large sample of short-let listings advertised on Booking.com in Swieqi, St Julian's, Gżira, Msida, Pembroke, and Gozo.

Journalists then checked each one of the listings against the Malta Tourism Authority's register of licensed properties, which is public. The register lists more than 7,300 licensed properties. Every licence in it is linked to a property name, an address and a reference number.

Maltese law requires every short-let to be licensed by the MTA, and the licence number must be shown on the listing, including online. This is what allows a guest, a neighbour or the authorities to check who is running the property and whether it is allowed to operate.

The investigation focused only on one booking engine, Booking.com

A missing number on the booking engine does not automatically mean a property is unlicensed, since the licensed host might just have left the field blank. But it does mean that anyone looking at the listing has no way to check whether it is registered with the authorities.

When coming across dubious listings with no licence numbers, MaltaToday painstakingly searched the addresses of the listings on the MTA database to see whether the property is known to the authority.

The exercise revealed that at least 100 properties in these selected localities alone did not appear on the MTA database.

The findings showed the following unlicensed properties: 26 in Swieqi, 19 in Gżira, 14 in Msida, 14 in St Julian’s, 8 in Pembroke, and 19 in Gozo.

Fake licences and no licences

Some of the unregistered properties had no licence number at all. Others claimed a fake licence number that doesn’t exist in the MTA’s registry, and some properties listed what seem to be mobile and ID numbers as licence numbers.

This newspaper then attempted to book a number of nights at the unregistered properties to verify that they are still operational. A fair share of them were fully booked for the remainder of the summer.

In some cases, the same licence number appeared on multiple listings, often under different names. In one case, a number was on seven different apartments and studio flats; in others, on three or four listings. Sometimes the number was valid; other times, it wasn't on the register at all.

Essentially, a licence number meant to register one property was used for several.

Booking platform doesn’t require licence numbers

We also went through Booking.com’s sign-up process to list a fake property.

We were required to provide a property name, location, photos, details, house rules, amenities and price, before reaching a step called “Legal info”, where the site asks for a licence number as Maltese law requires. We left that field empty. The sign-up carried on anyway.

The step was marked as unfinished, but it did not stop the listing being built. Under Booking.com’s own agreement, it is the host who must hold a valid licence and the platform says it reserves the right to check. But at the point of signing up, no licence number is needed to proceed.

Before the listing could be made public, Booking.com needed to verify the location of the property. A support agent told this newspaper that after the location is verified, the listing could be made public. The agent did not ask for a licence number despite the field being left empty.

The journalists stopped short of going through the final step that would have listed the property on the booking engine.

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MTA identified 18 unlicensed properties

Responding to questions sent by MaltaToday, the MTA stated that it has identified 18 properties operating without the required licence. The clamp down started after the introduction of new accommodation regulations in mid-June and the Swieqi pilot project.

The regulations the authority was referring to are reforms introduced last April that came into force in June. They include requirements such as maximum limits on the number of people that can sleep per bedroom and per apartment. However, the most stringent regulations only apply to short-let apartments whose licence applications were submitted after 15 June 2026.

The overwhelming majority of existing accommodations are exempt from some of the new regulations and will remain exempt when they renew their licences. This loophole in the rules leaves thousands of short-let apartments immune from enforcement based on the new regulations.

Asked how many unregistered property owners were fined for irregularities, the MTA said that enforcement procedures have been initiated against all operators found to be operating without the required licence.

“These include administrative fines and also disqualification to operators and properties from applying for a licence for a period of three years,” a spokesperson replied.

The MTA added that it carried out over 500 inspections and identified 97 licensed properties in breach of their licence conditions, primarily due to overcrowded properties.

“Appropriate enforcement measures, including the issuing of administrative fines, are being taken to ensure compliance with licence conditions and to safeguard quality standards within the sector,” the spokesperson said.