Development permits get another 3-year extension due to ‘backlog’
Move removes ‘unnecessary bureaucracy’, PA says
Development permits due to expire by the end of 2026 will be automatically extended by three years.
Planning Minister Clint Camilleri issued Legal Notice 66 of 2025 under the Development Planning Act, which will automatically extend planning permits expiring before December 31, 2026, by three years.
The legal notice amends a previous one that came out in 2023 that permitted the automatic extension of permits expiring before December 31, 2024.
Unlike the previous legal notice – which was published quietly – this extension was subject to public consultation, though the Planning Authority still did not formally announce the most recent legal notice.
Speaking to Times of Malta, Planning Authority CEO Johann Buttigieg admitted that the PA was dealing with a “massive backlog”. “To address that backlog, we felt it would make sense to remove any unnecessary bureaucracy,” Buttigieg said.
At the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, in March 2020, permits that were about to expire were also automatically extended for three years to give people more breathing room to carry out works, given a lot of work had halted. At the time, the PA said it took this decision to support permit holders, until normality was restored.
Since then, the validity of permits has been extended twice more. The legal notice in 2020 extended permits that expired between March 2020 and December 2022. The second notice in 2023 saw the extension of permits expiring between November 2023 and December 2024.
The Chamber of Architects (KTP) had pointed out that this left a gap with permits that expired between January 1, 2023, and November 9, 2023, not subject to an extension. In line with KTP’s criticism, the most recent notice states that permits that expired between January 1, 2023, and November 9, 2023, shall be extended until December 31, 2026.
Meanwhile, the new notice also covers permits expiring between January 1, 2025, and April 1, 2025. They will now be valid until December 31, 2028. This provision fills a gap, as the notice only covers permits that expire between the effective date of the new notice – April 2 – and December 2026.