Relocating to Malta on a Digital Nomad Visa — (The what, why, and How?)
As of the 7th of February, 2024, lots of things have changed about the process and I suggest that you visit the website for updates.
One remarkable change is that the visa process is no longer through the premium visa process. After getting nomad approval, you need to apply for the visa through VFS.
Therefore, this blog still provides an idea of how to apply but the process has changed.
Hey there,
As I write this first line, I am in my bed in Nigeria. It’s a Saturday morning, and all I can think of is, “I can’t wait to get to the airport in 7 days”. And weirdly enough, seven days after I arrived in Malta, I am sitting at the dining, with shaky and cold hands, trying to finish this article in time to publish.
This article is going to be in a series.
- This piece will discuss why I chose Malta, the application requirements, and the process.
- The subsequent series will answer your questions, give tips, and after acceptance, what’s next? On arriving in Malta, finding an apartment, and more. I’ll do my best to answer all the questions I get via pieces like this.
Note: This article is tailored to Nigerians. However, it can serve as a guide to anyone.
Intro
Firstly, a digital nomad visa is a visa that allows you to work remotely from anywhere in the world. These countries have a list of requirements you must fulfill, and once you check the boxes, you can start the application process, and viola! You’re in a new country, by the beach, and sipping cocktails while you work.
However, this is very beautiful for people that study or work entirely online because most of the time, these countries want you to work outside the country. They want people to come and experience the country and contribute somehow. Also, most countries ask you to pay little or no taxes.
In summary, you can be a digital nomad if you work online and your company is okay with you working from anywhere. Secondly, you can also be a digital nomad if you own a business outside the country you want to move to.
Now, some backstory
As a kid, I always knew I wanted to travel. I wasn’t sure what I wanted to be or what career I liked the most, but one thing that has remained over time is that I always said I would travel and see the world.
My girlfriend, Bella, calls me a travel encyclopedia. She’ll call me to ask about any country, and I’ll have much to say about it.
I have lived across all the regions in Nigeria and 27 states. I am a massive fan of travel. When I was in school, I’d board the bus to Osun, spend a day in a hotel, and luckily meet someone and spend a few more days at their place. Nigeria was safer at that time, so that’s why I was confident in taking those risks. I was just a student, but it didn’t stop me from traveling to a new city to explore. Be it a tech event, a social event, or a random move.
Why I moved
Since 2015, I have decided to move the following year and the year after. But where is the money kwanu? I went as far as learning Chinese after my graduation in 2017. I spent 8months learning to speak, write, and understand Mandarin. I have learned Polish even though the only words I recognize now are ‘Dziekuje’ and ‘zloty’. I tried to learn languages to improve my chances because I loved trying new things.
Anyways, I finally saved up. I saved 80–90% of my income over two years, hoping that a day would come when I eventually would move. 2022 was supposed to be that year, but then life was great; Dave and I were doing fine, we had friends we loved and saw very often, and things were great, I’ll say, and maybe that made me relax a bit. A few months into 2022, Mercy and Bosun shared their relocation plans. It was all fun and games till they packed and left.
I returned to researching countries at that moment because my best shot was a nomad visa. Waiting to get a job that could relocate me was a more challenging shot, so I had to go the nomad visa route.
SARS happened to Dave and me just a few weeks after Mercy Left. And the weird thing is, I missed a presentation that was very important to me. Damn! Nigeria just kept happening, and that was my cue to apply right there. Immediately we arrived home, I talked to my team at work about the experience, and then I told them I would apply for a nomad visa.
Okay, What is Malta, and why Malta, of all places?
I had Malta, the UK, Portugal, Cyprus, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Netherlands, Germany, and the Czech Republic on my list of potential countries. Maybe a couple more countries, too, but these were on my top list. Mainly because there were Schengen, which meant more travel opportunities, my green passport wouldn’t limit me that much anymore.
Why travel to one country as a digital nomad when you can travel to 26 and more?
After spending most of 2022 researching, I settled for Portugal and Malta. At the time, Portugal had a D7 visa, and they only recently brought up the digital nomad visa.
However, I chose Malta because all the applications can be made online. I didn’t need to travel to Lagos or Abuja, whereas, for Portugal, I’ll have to schedule and travel to Abuja.
People often ask me to repeat the name of the place a couple of times when I mention the name. 90% of people I told about my choice of country had to google it and be like, “Damn!”.
I checked countries a lot. I did my research, and as always, overthinking crept in because I wanted to see a Nigerian that did it before applying, but I just couldn’t lay my hands, so I followed my guts and started.
Malta is a beautiful island in the Mediterranean. It is one of the Schengen countries. The country gets over 3000 hours of sunlight per year. Although I missed that it can be cold during winter too because since we arrived, I haven’t been able to wear my shorts and that’s all I came here with.
Malta gives you the Nomad Residence Permit, which allows you to stay in the country for a year and renew for up to 3 years.
The questions I had
Firstly, it was lots of research. Then, even after researching for weeks, I still sent residency malta an email highlighting that I was Nigerian and would be moving with a partner.
Some of the questions I had while researching my relocation to Malta were:
- Can I move with my partner?
- What’s the weather like?
- How much is the minimum income to apply?
- What’s the cost of living?
They replied to me the same day. I, too, was surprised. They responded to my questions and shared everything I needed. They even encouraged me to apply.
To be eligible for applying for the Malta Nomad residence permit, you should:
- Be able to work remotely and independently of location using telecommunications technologies.
- Be a Third Country National, excluding EU, EEA, and Switzerland. Nationals from the currently sanctioned countries or who have close ties with them are ineligible. The list of ineligible countries gets revised from time to time by the Agency at its discretion.
- You must prove that you’re Employed, Self-employed, or a freelancer. Also, note that you won’t be eligible if you have a contract with a foreign employer but will offer services to a Maltese subsidiary.
- You must have a minimum gross monthly income of €2,700. Additional $300–500 for each eligible family member.
- A valid travel document/International Passport
- Write a letter of intent.
Other things to bear in mind:
- Each applicant must also pass a background verification check conducted by the Agency.
- Standard rules and procedures for obtaining visas and similar permits apply, in addition to proof of eligibility.
- Upon application approval, submit a valid rental/purchase agreement covering the whole permit duration.
- Submit a valid health insurance policy upon approval of the application.
- If you want to move with a partner, keep a wedding certificate or document dating over two years that shows you’ve been a couple- Pictures, hotel bookings, flight tickets, the property you own together, etc. I advise you to get married first because it is sometimes hard to prove the relationship. But either way, good luck.
Application process
There are two stages of this application.
First, you must apply to Residency Malta to be approved for the nomad residence permit.
Secondly, you need to start processing your visa after receiving approval from Residency Malta. So, being approved for the permit doesn’t guarantee a visa. But the majority of the time, you’ll get the visa.
Digital Nomad Application Process
- I sent a list of documents following this checklist on the residency Malta email(nomad.residencymalta@gov.mt).
Below is a screenshot from the email I sent with our application. The principal applicant mainly sends an email with all the required documents. If you travel alone, you can ignore the records with ‘David.’
You can get access to the forms required to fill out here.
I created a Drive, uploaded all the documents, and shared the link with the Official email even after attaching them as attachments (The Naija in me didn’t want any stories).
For the passport, you must scan all the pages from cover to cover and share them with them. (They check it, so you can’t miss a page).
If you work remotely, you need a letter from your company stating what you do, and you can work from anywhere. You also need an account statement dating at least three months and a job contract that is still up to six months.
They required us to show that we have receipts/bookings/utility bills etc., dating back to 2 years ago or more as a couple, and at that time, we were not married yet(de facto relationship); both families were still in the middle of fixing a date. We shared as much as we could, but it didn’t work. So, we paused our application and focused on our getting married first.
However, after our court marriage, we sent them the required documents, and they vetted the application and sent us an email to pay €300 per person via a bank transfer for the application process. This fee is non-refundable.
We made the payment using Wise. We paid €600 for David and me.
2. Once the payment was received, they started processing the application. This process could take 30 days or more from the day they receive the payment.
3. Residency Malta will conduct further checks, and if they have any questions or require any clarifications, they’ll send a report to you via mail.
4. They contacted us via email with a decision letter. If the application is successful, a Letter of Approval in Principle is issued, and you are required to submit Proof of accommodation and a Health Insurance Policy within 30 days from the date of issuance of the Letter of Approval in Principle.
I went with La Ferla insurance company for health insurance because out of the seven emails I sent, they replied first, and they’re based in Malta. I will highlight other deals I found in another series.
The other requirement was to provide accommodation for the one-year stay, but I can only pay for the accommodation I have seen. So, I asked, and Residency Malta said I could get a one-month accommodation, and on arrival, I needed to get a long-term lease before my biometrics appointment.
So, I got an apartment on booking. I chose an apartment that allowed me to cancel because I am Nigerian, and we don’t trust that things will go perfectly every time. That choice favoured me because I was supposed to move in on the 29th of December, but by the second week of December, I didn’t hear from the visa office; I cancelled and didn’t pay anything.
5. After we submitted a one-month accommodation and health insurance policy, we received the letter of approval, and our application was forwarded to the visa office for visa processing.
Visa Application Process
Four days after receiving the approval letter, we received an email from the (CVU) Central Visa Unit of Malta issuing us a token and asking us to start my visa application process (individually).
We clicked on the links, filled out the forms, and inputted the tokens.
The form required us to fill in
- Normal biodata info
- Flight ticket
- Proof of accommodation
- Application form
- Passport number and biodata page
- A GDPR form.
Because we needed clarification about the travel date, we went with visareservation.com. We paid some money and had the flights reserved for us. And we used that to apply. I later found out that some travel agents help with that too. So, ask around before you reserve a ticket. Muma from Travelleltters has someone who can do this. Send her an email at hellomunachi@gmail.com.
We filled out the forms and submitted them.
The craziest part of this application was sending my passport to Malta. My passport travelled to Malta before me, so while filling out the forms for the visa application, you’d need to fill in an address where they can pick up your passports. This is because Malta doesn’t have an embassy in Nigeria.
We put the address we wanted, and the CVU sent us a UPS shipping label. You don’t need to pay for anything at the UPS office. Just package your passport, put it in a file, walk into any UPS office and hand it over. They’ll ask you to sign and put a document in a proper shipping envelope.
PS: If they ask what you’re shipping, reply “official documents.”
This part ends the application process, and the wait begins…
Thank you for reading this long piece, but I wanted to share all my thoughts as much as I could remember them. Please DM me or drop a comment here if you have any questions. I’ll answer as much as I can in my next piece.
If you read through it and this makes sense, create a checklist and assemble your documents. I’ll be here to help guide you as much as I can.
Till I write to you again, Obiagu ✌🏾
Useful links
The following links can be helpful for you in this journey. It covers the cost of living, why I chose or liked Malta, and all the tips you could possibly get.
