Rent a Car in Malta

Village centres and the older parts of Valletta and Mdina were laid out long before cars, and when two meet on the same lane, one of them reverses. Sliema and St Julians are dense enough that the space you find is the space you take. That, rather than the price, is why the small categories carry most of the island's listings — a Hyundai i10, a Kia Picanto, a Volkswagen Polo, where they are listed. Car type, seats and luggage are fields on every offer, so if you are four adults with cases, weigh those against the streets before you size down to save on the rate.

Malta drives on the left and overtakes on the right. If every road you have driven runs the other way, the mirrored junctions take about a day to stop feeling wrong. Doing that while changing gear with your other hand is the part people underestimate, and an automatic simply removes it. Transmission is named on each offer, so it is a choice you make deliberately rather than one you discover at handover.

The capital, a Unesco World Heritage site, runs a Controlled Vehicular Access zone. Cameras read the plate on the way in and on the way out, and the charge follows from how long the car stayed inside, under the tariff in force at the time. Parking within the walls is limited as well. For most visits, the city center works better without the car, and the rental earns its keep on the rest of the island; if you do drive in, look up the current CVA tariff and hours first, because they belong to the scheme and not to your supplier.

Gozo Channel ferries carry vehicles between Ċirkewwa and Mġarr. There is no reservation system — you join the queue and board in turn — and the vehicle ticket is dealt with at Mġarr on the Gozo side. What the ferry allows is not what your rental allows, though. Whether the supplier permits traveling to the other island in the Mediterranean Sea, and whether the cover travels with the car, is in that offer's own terms, and it is not a field you can line up across offers. Settle it while you are still choosing.

Each car rental Malta comanies offer states its deposit or states that it takes none. Where one applies, the amount is held on the main driver's card and stays held for a while after the car is back, which matters if that same card is paying for the rest of the trip. Which cards a supplier accepts, and whose name has to be on them, is set in its own terms rather than shown next to the price, and some will not take prepaid or debit cards at all, so a credit card is the safest option. A no-deposit offer is also not the same as no liability — the excess still applies if the car comes back damaged.

Two patterns turn up in Maltese offers. Full-to-full means you take the car away full and bring it back full. Same-level means you return whatever you were given, which is considerably harder to judge at a pump than a full tank is. Either way, the shortfall is settled at the supplier's own rate, so find out which one you have before you drive off the forecourt. The policy lives in the offer's terms rather than on the listing.

There is no single Maltese threshold. Each offer carries its own minimum age under its rental terms, and it can be set higher for a larger or premium car than for a small hatchback, which is worth knowing if you were planning to move up a category. Where a young-driver surcharge applies, it is set by the supplier and does not appear beside the age, so ask what it comes to while you are still comparing.

Every offer shows its allowance, and on Malta the number is rarely the one that catches you out — there is only so far to drive. Two cases are worth a second look. A capped offer across a week of trips to opposite ends of the island adds up faster than it looks, and so does a stay built around Gozo, where the same run to Ċirkewwa repeats. Otherwise, unlimited mileage here is a comfort rather than a saving.