Is it worth renting a car in Malta? A decision framework by itinerary

We compare car hire for a living, so you should read this page knowing that. It would be easy to say yes. The honest answer is that a rental car is the right call for some Malta itineraries and the wrong one for others, and the deciding factor is the shape of your trip rather than any single number. This guide sets out the three ways to get around, what is no longer an option, and a decision framework by itinerary type. It contains no price comparisons — deliberately. Prices move, and the framework should hold whether or not they do.

The three ways to get around

A rental car. Around 30 companies operate at Malta International Airport alone, most from desks in the Park East building — our pickup guide covers where they are. Malta drives on the left, roundabouts run clockwise, and village roads are narrow; our driving guide covers all of that with an original roundabout schematic. The recurring frustrations — deposit blocks, excess figures, fuel-policy disputes — are documented in the trust report.

The Tallinja bus. Malta Public Transport operates the national bus service across the Maltese islands, with a network of over 2,000 bus stops and a fleet of around 500 buses. For visitors it offers four short-stay tallinja cards — Explore cards for adults and children, an Explore Flex card, and a 12 Single Day Journeys card — plus an Airport Direct service and an On Demand night service booked through the tallinja app. The same operator runs Tallinja Bike, a docked e-bike share — borrow from one docking station and return to another — with stations at Valletta Terminal, Barrakka Lift, Valletta Waterfront, St Julian's, Pembroke, the University, Bombi and on Gozo at Mġarr, Victoria and Marsalforn. It is a short-hop supplement to the bus rather than a way to cross the island.

Ride-hailing. Three apps we can point to operate: Bolt, which advertises rides to and from Malta's airport; eCabs, a Malta taxi app; and Uber, which describes 24/7 availability around Valletta. All three are booked through their own apps.

What is no longer an option

Some pages that still rank for Malta transport describe services that have closed. GoTo, the island-wide electric car-sharing scheme, ceased Malta operations on 30 September 2022, and no full replacement has emerged — our EV guide covers what that shutdown left behind. A Lovin Malta analysis from August 2024 lists the rest: Nextbike bike-sharing closed in December 2022, the Cool ride-pooling service closed in January 2023, and rental e-scooters were banned by the government in 2024. Nextbike's closure did not take every shared bike with it: Malta Public Transport's docked Tallinja Bike e-bike scheme is still operating, from a dozen docking stations across Malta and Gozo. If you were planning around any of the closed services, plan around bus, ride-hailing, or a rental instead.

There is no car-share and no rental e-scooter in Malta today, and the only shared bike is Malta Public Transport's docked Tallinja Bike scheme. The real choice is bus, app, or rental — or some combination.

The framework, by itinerary type

The question is not "car or no car." It is "how many separate places do I want to reach per day, how far apart are they, and how much do I want to carry." Answer that for your trip and one option usually stands out.

Beach-hopping. If your plan is a different bay each day, or two in one day, a car is what makes that easy. Golden Bay on the north-west coast has its own car park and bus terminus, so it is reachable either way, and Għadira Bay in the north is Malta's largest sandy beach. The bus reaches both. What a car changes is chaining them: leaving one when the wind turns and being at another before lunch, with towels, umbrella, and a cool bag in the boot. If you will settle on one beach per day and are staying near it, the bus and an occasional ride-hailing trip cover it.

Gozo. Gozo has its own answer, and it is not "rent a second car." A Malta rental can cross the Ċirkewwa–Mġarr ferry with you, or you can rent directly from a Gozo family garage that delivers island-wide. Which one fits depends on how much of your trip is on Gozo — our Gozo guide sets out the ferry mechanics, who permits the crossing, and every Gozo garage in our roster. If your trip is mostly Gozo, the framework points at renting there rather than dragging a Malta car across for a week.

Valletta only. If you are staying in or next to the capital and not planning day trips, do not rent. Valletta sits inside a camera-enforced charging zone that applies to Malta-registered hire cars entering on weekdays before 14:00, and the practical way in by car is to park outside the walls at the Floriana park-and-ride and take the shuttle — our parking guide has the official hours, the zone boundaries, and what "free" actually means. Malta Public Transport's Airport Direct service and any of the three ride-hailing apps cover the airport transfer, and the Sliema ferry crosses Marsamxett harbour to Valletta in about 15 minutes. Rent for a single day trip if you want one; do not rent for the week.

Family with young children. Two things pull in opposite directions. Seat belts and child restraints are mandatory in Malta, so with a rental you will need to book child seats and confirm them in writing, and you should read what the deposit and excess terms mean before you sign — a hold on a card is a real cost of a family rental even when nothing goes wrong. On the other side, a car turns nap times, luggage, and a change of plan from a logistics problem into a non-event. If your family itinerary is two or more stops a day across the island, the car usually wins on convenience. If it is one base and one outing every couple of days, it usually does not.

Mixed trips. Most itineraries are some of each. The framework still works: rent for the days that look like beach-hopping or a road trip, and go without for the days that look like Valletta. Malta is small enough — roughly 27 km end to end — that a two- or three-day rental covers a lot of ground. Our road-trip itinerary is built around exactly that: three day-loops from the airport, each of which can be a single rental day.

An honest way to decide

Run your own trip through these four questions.

• How many places per day? One base and one outing points at bus and app. Two or more stops across the island points at a car.
• Where are you sleeping? Inside Valletta, or in Sliema — which one Malta guide describes as a very busy town with traffic congestion and limited parking spaces — a car spends most of its time being parked. Elsewhere it is easier to keep.
• What are you carrying? Beach kit, a pushchair, or a week's luggage for four are the strongest arguments for a boot.
• What will you accept at the desk? If a card hold and an excess figure you would rather not think about are deal-breakers, read the trust report first and decide with the terms in front of you.

If the answers point at a car, book the smallest one that fits your party, and book an automatic early if you need one — our automatics guide explains why. If they point away from a car, that is a fine answer too. A week in Malta without a rental is genuinely workable, and we would rather say so than talk you into a booking you will spend parking.

Sources

Malta Public Transport — about us (national bus service, network size, visitor tallinja cards, Airport Direct, On Demand); Malta Public Transport — Tallinja Bike (docked e-bike share, docking station list); Bolt — Malta; eCabs; Uber — Malta; independent.com.mt — GoTo rental car service closing down in Malta; lovinmalta.com — all the alternative transport Malta's lost in the last five years (Nextbike, Cool, rental e-scooter ban); Wikipedia — Golden Bay, Malta; Wikipedia — Mellieħa Bay; Wikipedia — Malta; maltauncovered.com — Sliema (congestion, parking, Valletta ferry); Your Europe — road rules and safety, Malta (child restraints).