An employer may terminate an employment contract upon:

• Good and sufficient cause being shown;

• Redundancy; or
• When the retirement age is reached. 

Employees in Malta are generally entitled to notice periods prior to termination. The required minimum notice period varies based on the employee’s length of service, ranging from one week to eight weeks of notice.

Employees wishing to terminate a contract are not required to provide a reason for such termination as long as the employee provides the employer with a notice period in terms of law. Where the statutory notice of termination is not provided, the employee would be liable to pay the employer a sum equal to ½ of the wages that would have accrued during the notice period.

There is no legal severance pay or redundancy compensation other than the compensation in lieu of notice relating to redundancies.

Severance pay is required if an employer wishes to end a fixed-term contract before the expiry date and typically requires payment of the equivalent of half the expected wages for the remainder of the contract period.

For Malta’s accession to the EU, citizens of EU/EFTA countries and their close family members including spouses and children will not require any employment licenses for working in Malta, even if they are not EU or EFTA citizens. All other nationals, termed Third Country Nationals (TCNs), are to provide a single permit application for working and residing in Malta.