Dozens of holiday lets breach new short-stay rules
MTA says it is focused on unlicensed operators as new rules come into force
Dozens of Maltese short-term rental listings are advertising bedrooms and sleeping arrangements that breach new holiday accommodation rules.
A review of 270 listings available for a weekend in August on Airbnb found that just under a third advertised configurations would fall foul of the Tourism Accommodation Regulations, which came into force on June 15.
Almost one in four listings made use of a sofa bed in a living or dining area to push advertised occupancy beyond the number of beds in the bedrooms.
The Tourism Accommodation Regulations, published as Legal Notice 92 of 2026 and in force since June 15, require every short let to advertise occupancy strictly within the bedrooms and beds for which it is licensed.
The Malta Tourism Authority confirmed that the previous permission allowing a sofa bed in the dining or living area has been removed, and that all units must now keep within their licensed bed numbers and the minimum bed sizes.
The sofa bed has long been a quiet workhorse of the Maltese holiday-let market, marking the difference between a flat that sleeps four and one that advertises six.
Under the new rules, a sofa bed opened out in a living room cannot be considered a licensed bed, limiting the capacity that a unit can offer. For ordinary short lets, a bedroom must be separate from the kitchen, dining or living area.
The Airbnb review covered how listings present themselves to prospective guests: the stated guest capacity, the number of beds, and the room layouts.
One in four of the listings advertised a guest count that only works with the sofa bed, meaning the bedrooms alone sleep fewer people than the stated figure promises. The gap is filled by the fold-out sofa bed in the living space.
Separately, the review found listings advertising individual rooms set up to sleep more than two people. This is also in breach of the rules, which explicitly cap the number of people that can sleep in a bedroom.
The Sixth Schedule of the regulations states: “Maximum number of persons allowed per room: 2, excluding infants making use of cots.” The rule is mandatory and, unlike the room-size standards elsewhere in the same schedule, carries no exemption for older properties.
Among the listings reviewed was one combining two four-bedroom apartments in the same building, marketed as a single booking for up to 17 guests.
The MTA told Times of Malta it licenses short-let accommodation as individual units, even if they are located in the same building.
“It is important that each unit does not exceed the permitted occupancy levels and is kept and marketed as a separate unit.”
The MTA said it has intensified inspections since June 15, when the regulations came into force. It said that “where appropriate”, administrative enforcement procedures have already begun.
The authority said its priority for the time being is unlicensed operators. Anyone caught running a short-let without a license faces a three-year ban from obtaining another short-let license.
It also urged operators who have not regularised their position to apply without delay, and said it is separately investigating suspected over-occupancy and other breaches.
The MTA said it will shortly issue further guidance, alongside the rollout of an EU framework for collecting and sharing short-term rental data.
It said that the framework will strengthen its ability to identify and monitor unlicensed providers.