The Maltese government has scrapped special residency rules for wealthy Europeans but hailed a disappointing uptake as a success.
After a series of problems which saw potential residents leave the Mediterranean island or join rival residency schemes, many of the rules left in place have been revamped.
Now Europeans come under the same residency rules as non-Europeans.
A government spokesman explained only 36 wealthy individuals applied for the scheme in a year – but claimed this was more successful than previous policies to lure the wealthy that only attracted two applications in two years.
Portugal’s easier access visa scheme was blamed for poaching a number of potential expats from Malta.
The government also criticised Malta’s residential landlords who realised expats coming to the island under the residency scheme must fork out a minimum £16,000 a year in rent if they changed address.
Tax breaks
“They knew about this rule and charged the rent even if the property was not worth the money because they had the tenants over a barrel,” said the spokesman.
Under the new rules, a wealthy expat must buy property in Malta worth £219,000, £175,000 on Gozo or pay annual rent of £7,650 in Malta or £6,970 in Gozo.
The expat and family also qualifies for 15% income tax on any income remitted to Malta.
Another condition calling for the expat to be fluent in one of the country’s official languages has also been relaxed to ‘adequately communicate’.
A computer foul-up is backing up visa applications for business travellers and visitors to the United States.
US visa computer glitch
Expat students may have to delay the start of their studies at US universities because of the problem.
The US visa system is run on software provided by Microsoft. Engineers and programmers have been trying to tackle the bug since July without success.
“Sorting this out is a top priority but we cannot say when normal service may be resumed,” said a State Department spokesman.
The State Department also released figures showing almost 1 million expats were granted residency in the country last year.
Most came from Mexico (13%). The next largest number of expats came from China and India (Both around 7%); The Philippines (5%); Dominican Republic (4%); Cuba and Vietnam (Around 3%) and South Korea (2%).
Other countries all accounting for just around 2% of the total include Britain, Iran, Burma, Nepal, Nigeria, Haiti, Colombia, Jamaica, El Salvador, Canada, Ethiopia and Pakistan.
