Study in Malta from Africa in 2027/28

Why study in Malta?

Malta’s real advantage is that the teaching language is also an official language. Both English, Maltese are official, and every institution in our dataset teaches its degrees in English, from the public University of Malta down to the smallest private college. There is no preparatory language year to fund before the degree starts. Malta is in the EU and in Schengen, so the qualification is an EU one and the residence permit travels with you.

The system is small and already international. 8,252 international students were enrolled in 2023/24, 502 of them from Africa, which is 6.3% of that intake, across 8 recognised institutions. Intakes run in October, February (some). There is no national application portal: the route is Direct to university, and the University of Malta’s non-EU bachelor’s deadline is 1 July 2026, 14:00 (confirmed, Oct 2026 intake; 2027/28 date not yet published).

Two catches decide most cases. The first is the English test: no African nationality earns an exemption at the University of Malta, so most applicants sit IELTS at 6 for a bachelor’s or 6.5 for a master’s — the alternatives are set out on our Malta without IELTS page. The second is entry level. WASSCE, KCSE and the South African NSC do not give direct bachelor’s entry at the University of Malta; its Foundation Studies pathway comes first and adds a year. Private colleges assess the same certificates case by case, with no published grade table either way.

How much does it cost to study in Malta?

Your bill has three parts: tuition, living costs and the fees around the application.

Tuition splits by institution, not by nationality band. At the public University of Malta, non-EU fees are €8,500–10,800 per year for a bachelor’s, arts and business at the lower end and science at the upper, and €10,800–13,400 per year for a taught master’s. Medicine is the outlier at €26,000–39,500 per year. The other two public institutions price differently: MCAST charges €19,500–26,000 per programme for a whole bachelor’s and €7,900–10,000 per programme for a master’s, and the Institute of Tourism Studies charges €3,950 per semester. Private colleges run €5,750–19,500 per year at bachelor’s level and €7,750–20,000 per year at master’s level.

Living costs are the part applicants underestimate. Budget €950–1,600 per month. Where you study moves that figure: Msida, home of the University of Malta, works out at €1,360–1,630 per month with a shared room at €550–700 per month, Valletta reaches €1,510–1,930 per month, and Victoria in Gozo, where the Queen Mary medical students live, is the cheapest of the campus towns at €1,160–1,430 per month.

Then the smaller fees: health insurance at €150–400 per year, credential evaluation through MQRIC (€10 already on database / €20 Maltese qualification / €50 foreign qualification + €2 postage), and application fees from €100 to €150. Budget a first year as one year of tuition plus twelve months of living costs at the real rate, never at the visa minimum — the itemised version is on our cost of studying in Malta page.

Universities in Malta

Malta has 8 recognised institutions in our dataset, and the split that matters to you is public versus private.

Three are public. The University of Malta, founded 1592 and based in Msida, is the only comprehensive one: about 12,000 students, ranked #696 (QS 2027), teaching medicine, ICT, engineering, law, business and the sciences, with its MD at €26,000 per year. MCAST in Paola is the applied science and technology college, 8,905 students strong, ranked 701–900 (QS 2026), and the most forgiving on English at IELTS 5.5. The Institute of Tourism Studies in Luqa, founded 1987, covers hospitality and culinary studies for about 1,200 students.

Queen Mary University of London teaches a UK MBBS from Victoria in Gozo, ranked #103 (QS 2027), at €39,500 per year and IELTS 7. It accepts the South African NSC directly, but not WASSCE, KCSE or the Moroccan Baccalauréat on their own.

The private colleges are smaller and mostly cheaper: GBSB Global Business School in Birkirkara at €6,900 per year, Global College Malta at SmartCity in Kalkara at €6,100 per year, St Martin’s Institute in Ħamrun at €6,696 per year plus a separate one-off non-EU administration fee, and the American University of Malta in Cospicua at €8,000–9,000 per year. All of them teach in English, but only University of Malta, MCAST and ITS students are exempt from the higher insurance threshold that applies to the residence permit, so a private college costs more than its tuition line suggests. Every institution is profiled on our Malta universities page.

Student visa & proof of funds

Since 1 March 2024, a course longer than 90 days needs a National long-stay (D) visa before you travel. The fee is €100–150 plus a separate VFS service charge, and after arrival the residence permit application costs €50. Processing takes 3 to 9 weeks, and the Central Visa Unit asks for the file at least nine weeks before the course starts.

Where you apply depends on your country: VFS Global (Lagos, Accra/Kumasi, Nairobi, Cairo, SA ×4); Zimbabwe/Zambia via VFS South Africa or Premium. Ugandan applicants use Identità’s Premium service because no centre covers Uganda; Moroccan applicants use VFS Casablanca. Biometrics are required (yes), and the TB check is post-arrival: Chest X-ray within 4 weeks of arrival.

Funds are checked twice, and thin evidence is the most common reason a Malta application fails: €746–950 per month. The basis is Entry (D-visa): ≥75% of national minimum wage per month of study (2026 NMW €229.44/wk → ≈€746/mo); Residence permit: €950/mo excluding tuition — both confirmed, identita.gov.mt. Show it with Bank statements (last 3 months) / sponsor bank statement + signed declaration letter. Entry also needs medical cover of at least €30,000. Certificates need an apostille (yes); there is no APS pre-check (no). The step-by-step version is on our Malta student visa page.

Working & staying after study

The term-time rule is 20 hours/week — from 1st year for full-time MQF-recognised higher-ed students; after first 3 months for other MQF5+ courses (confirmed). A permit is needed (yes): an employment licence from Jobsplus, with restrictions on sectors and conditions. The national minimum wage is €994.24 per month, so part-time work covers part of your living costs and never substitutes for proof of funds.

After graduation, the Graduate seeking-employment/business permit gives you 9 months to find work or start a business, at a residence card fee of €27.50. It is non-renewable, and it is the same 9 months after a bachelor’s, a master’s or a doctorate — not twelve months, and not master’s-only, whatever older pages say. English is the working language of most international employers on the island, while Maltese is expected in parts of the public sector, health care and local customer-facing work.

Scholarships for African students

Malta runs no national scholarship scheme for incoming non-EU students. The only scheme on file for Malta is Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters, and applicants from all nine of our countries — Nigeria, Ghana, Kenya, Egypt, South Africa, Uganda, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Morocco — are eligible for it. Erasmus Mundus funds joint master’s degrees taught across several European universities, covers tuition and a monthly allowance, and is decided by the consortium behind each programme rather than by Malta. It is competitive, and its deadlines fall roughly a year before the course starts.

Institutional help is thinner but real. MCAST waives the final year of its bachelor’s programmes for eligible students under its own Scholarship Fund, which changes the arithmetic on a three- or four-year course more than most external awards would. The University of Malta’s own awards are research-focused rather than entry scholarships for new international students. Plan on sponsorship or self-funding as the main route and treat any award as a reduction, not a plan. See our Malta scholarships page and the Erasmus Mundus guide.

Who Malta suits — and who it doesn’t

Malta suits you if you want an English-taught EU degree without a language year, can fund €8,500–10,800 per year plus living costs, and value a small country where every form, lecture and office conversation is already in English. It suits hospitality, tourism, business, ICT and health-science applicants in particular: the Institute of Tourism Studies and MCAST are built around those fields and the University of Malta covers the rest.

It does not suit you if the plan depends on a scholarship, on low tuition, or on staying to work for years afterwards. There is no national scholarship open to you, fees sit in the middle of the European range rather than the bottom, and the post-study window is 9 months. It also does not suit a narrow research interest: with 8 institutions, the course you want may not exist here at all.